"I never really saw the candidates--either Andrew Cuomo or Carl Paladino--have to defend their positions," Lazio told The Politicker.

"This was an issue-less campaign," he said. "The danger in having an issue-less campaign is that the voters base their votes on these candidates on marginal qualities and there's no mandate for change for the victor."

Lazio pointed to the seven-candidate debate as "material for Saturday Night Live," and bemoaned the fact there was never a one-on-one debate about the issues.

But Lazio didn't put all the blame on Paladino, who--as I wrote this week--helped keep Cuomo from having to answer many policy questions, with his constant gaffes and imprecise policy prescriptions.

"The fact that Andrew Cuomo did not engage on the issues was not lost on lots of people, but it predated Paladino," Lazio said.

And he was not particularly sanguine about democracy.

"If the public spent as much time thinking about the issues and the positions of the candidates who are seeking to run the state as they did about selecting a cell phone, we'd have a much more healthy democracy," he said.

Asked if he was conflicted when he went into the voting booth, Lazio said no.

"I knew what I was going to do," he said. "I voted for all the candidates I believed in."

And who might that have been?

"Let's just say I am familiar with how to do write-ins."