Cuomo Fumes Over 'A**hole' Tea Partier

Andrew Cuomo isn’t exactly sure how to fight back against his Tea Party opponent Carl Paladino, who yesterday sent out a letter less-than-subtly questioning his manhood. “If a guy says you have no cojones, how do you punch him back, call him an asshole?” Cuomo fumed in a closed-door strategy session yesterday, sources tell the New York Daily News. “We have all this stuff [on Paladino] and we’re on the defensive.”

Cuomo has a commanding 54% to 38% lead in the polls, so advisers don’t want him to get down in the mud with the unpredictable Paladino. But they’re also worried about the effects of continuously answering “no comment” when asked about his antics. For now they’re leaving the counterattack to surrogates, who gathered yesterday to denounce Paladino. “What the hell is wrong with him?” asked one assemblyman. “Is he out of his freaking mind?” (More Andrew Cuomo stories.)