One of the most exciting times to be a journalist is during the election season.
You get to meet the various candidates during editorial board meetings and learn what propels them to run for public office.

Working Election Night is a whole other story for another entry.

During this past campaign season, we held editorial board meetings with some of the candidates seeking state Assembly and Senate seats and one gubernatorial candidate.

I should clarify that the gubernatorial candidate we met with, Carl Paladino, stopped by The Record in late August, prior to his surprising victory in the Republican gubernatorial primary. I say surprising, but Paladino was pretty confident the morning we met with him that he would be the GOP nominee for governor once the ballots were counted in his battle with former Congressman Rick Lazio.

In the aftermath of some of Paladino’s problems on the campaign trail, several people have asked us what he was like when he met with us. I have to tell that you we found him to be intelligent, witty and blunt. He didn’t mince words about how Albany operates, what he wants to do to solve the state’s problems and what he thought of his then-future Democratic opponent, Andrew Cuomo.

He was definitely angry about the state’s woes, but it wasn’t an anger exploding at us. We had an enjoyable, thought-provoking session with the Buffalo businessman that left us wishing we had more time to speak with him. A campaign stop in Clifton Park called, however, so he was on his way.

Suffice to say we were surprised when he started to encounter problems on the campaign trail. That wasn’t the Carl Paladino we saw.