Last Wednesday night, in the little of hamlet of Bolton Landing–once known for its barbershop quartet festival–Carl Paladino staged the latest explosion in his highly combustible campaign for governor.

“You send another goon to my daughter’s house and I’ll take you out, buddy,” Mr. Paladino told the New York Post‘s Fred Dicker, in an exchange caught on a cell phone camera.

“You’re gonna take me out?” taunted Mr. Dicker, who had been pressing the candidate to substantiate claims of infidelity against his opponent, Andrew Cuomo. “How are you going to do that?”

“Watch,” Mr. Paladino said.

The clip quickly made the rounds on cable news, and on Monday night, while hosting Mr. Paladino on The O’Reilly Factor–one of a slew of shows that came calling after the row–Bill O’Reilly played it again and wondered if, after a week of spotty press, the candidate had any regrets.

Mr. Paladino said he did not.

“I reacted to it,” he told Mr. O’Reilly of the recent criticism. “I’m new to this. This is the first time I’ve run for office.”

For Mr. Paladino, the realities of a gubernatorial run seem to just be sinking in, as he struggles to come to terms with a newfound interest in his personal life, and as his slapdash campaign tries to deal with the sudden crush of being a major-party nominee.

“You can warn somebody as much as you like, but until the shark bites you, you don’t know what it feels like,” said his campaign manager, Michael Caputo, from a cell phone inside the Fox studio on Monday afternoon. “It’s something that you can’t possibly be verbally prepared for. It wasn’t until he came under fire from these folks that he understood.”

When Mr. Paladino announced his candidacy in April–before a cheering horde at his Buffalo office building–the campaign had a strategy for dealing with his past foibles, which included providing his wife, Cathy, to the local press to publicly forgive Mr. Paladino for an affair that produced a daughter, who is now 10.

After his surprise victory in the Republican primary three weeks ago, the campaign tried the same tack, allowing a Post reporter to interview Mrs. Paladino for a story that the paper ran on a Sunday cover with the 3-inch headline TEA FOR THREE. Much to Mr. Paladino’s chagrin, the story only renewed the interest in the candidate’s personal life, and, undeterred, the Post dispatched a reporter and a photographer to the house of his former mistress.

“Mr. Paladino should not be surprised by the media’s interest in his families,” wrote Post editor Col Allan, employing a rather pointed use of the plural, “as he has invited public scrutiny of his personal life by running for governor and speaking openly about his mistress and love child.”

But the intense interest sent Mr. Paladino into an angry tailspin, as he accused the Post of endangering his daughter,   and his opponent of unspecified infidelities–which he followed with the Dicker dustup, and a string of interviews that swung wildly between whether he would substantiate his claims or simply let the matter drop.

For reporters, part of Mr. Paladino’s charm has always been his penchant to relentlessly attack and his willingness to speak candidly on just about any subject. Until last week, when he convened an off-the-record lunch in an attempt to set some boundaries around his daughter, Mr. Paladino had always been uniformly, reliably on the record.

“Carl, when it comes to reporters–until that lunch–only spoke on the record,” said Mr. Caputo, who organized the outing and explained that his boss is “not comfortable” with the typical journalistic jargon.

“He doesn’t understand the difference between on the record, off the record, background, not for attribution. And frankly, we don’t want him to, you know?” Mr. Caputo told The Observer. “It’s not a good habit to get into for a guy who’s talking about transparency.”

Lately, Mr. Paladino has walked back on some of his more candid comments, telling Mr. O’Reilly that he didn’t remember calling George Pataki a “degenerate,” although he didn’t quite deny it. And the campaign has been steadily assembling an enemies list that includes, along with Mr. Dicker, the Daily News‘ Bill Hammond and the Associated Press reporter who first wrote–unfairly, says the campaign–about Mr. Paladino’s plans to retrofit state prisons for welfare recipients.

“We have so many reporters out there that are willing to write straight stories, there’s no reason to deal with people who aren’t,” said Mr. Caputo, who is fond of telling reporters they are “off the Christmas card list.”

Of course, none of that discourages the press from following Mr. Paladino, even if it takes some doing.

His campaign never sends out a public schedule–a traditional campaign offering, which his erstwhile opponent Rick Lazio started doing immediately after the Republican convention in June, and which Mr. Cuomo reliably provides on days he makes public appearances.

On a recent Sunday, while reporters waited at the edge of Central Park for an Andrew Cuomo event, word trickled out that Mr. Paladino was in Howard Beach for the annual Columbus Day Parade. A couple of reporters seemed to know it, but many–including some who had been covering the campaign for weeks–had no idea.

(The Post‘s Andrea Peyser was among those who found him there, and was privy to Mr. Paladino so raving mad about the continued interest in his daughter that Mr. Caputo abandoned his boss in a pizza place until the candidate calmed down and quit screaming obscenities.)

Mr. Caputo said not notifying the press about the parade was an “error,” and explained the lack of a schedule by saying the campaign had been focused on “mopping up” all the free exposure over the past few weeks, while further developing Mr. Paladino’s policy agenda, so there wasn’t much in the way of public appearances to announce to the press.

But he conceded: “We’ve done a bad job of serving the media post-primary.”

Part of the problem, according to Mr. Caputo, is a thin staff. Despite being four weeks away from the general election, the campaign employs only 14 full-time staffers, almost none of whom have experience dealing with the media, and relies heavily on a dedicated team of volunteers. (Mr. Cuomo, for his part, has at least five aides dedicated to communications.)

Mr. Paladino is doing his best to stretch the $10 million he has pledged to the race, running the campaign like a cost-conscious business and cutting any expenses he deems exorbitant or unnecessary. (According to a filing last week, Mr. Paladino has spent $3.6 million so far, without yet having paid for the expensive television advertising he’ll need for the stretch run. Mr. Cuomo has spent $12.3 million and has nearly $20 million on hand.)

After interviewing political media consultants, Mr. Paladino deemed their 17 percent fee “outrageous,” and has opted to produce his simple, direct advertisements in-house. As such, Mr. Caputo often doubles as a producer for the campaign’s television ads, in addition to his duties managing the campaign, traveling with the candidate and fielding the sudden flurry of press inquiries.

“I’ve missed 17 calls since we’ve been talking right now,” Mr. Caputo said, toward the end of a half-hour conversation. He said the campaign will add another press hand, Kirk Bell–who worked with Mr. Caputo and outside adviser Roger Stone on Jack Kemp’s 1988 presidential bid–this week, and that Mr. Bell would be working at a discount from his usual fee.

On Monday, the campaign began a new strategy of actively reaching out to local television outlets, providing stations with a video of a sober Mr. Paladino addressing the camera about the issues. And, with no ads currently on the air, the campaign plans to keep riding the free media as long as it can.

On Tuesday morning, just before a Siena poll showed 60 percent of New Yorkers view him as a “loose cannon,” Mr. Paladino tried to re-frame himself in a morning appearance on Today.

“Well, that was reaction,” he told Matt Lauer of his promise from a weeks ago that the campaign would get nastier. “We’ve left that gutter politics. We’re interested in talking about the issues.”

A few hours later, at a Crain‘s breakfast forum, where an Italian camera crew joined the regulars in the city’s political press corps, Mr. Paladino dispensed with his usual introduction–I’m Carl Paladino and I’m mad as hell–for a new line.

“I’m Carl Paladino,” he said, “and I’m just that regular guy from Buffalo, New York.”

rpillifant@observer.com

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