captainsblog | Vant to See Something Really Scary, Kids?

Pardon the lame Count Floyd impersonation. Never mind all the costumes and decorations, or even that supposedly scary storm they're brewing in the ocean today. I'm here to scare you with someone you, and lucky you, probably haven't heard anything about in months. We're stuck with him, though, so we get an endless VD-like dripping of the guy.

I refer to Crazy Carl Paladino. Unknown beyond his Buffalo borders until a few years ago, when he forayed into state-level politics and lost in a 2010 landslide when the rest of the country was trending Republican. Known for his repugnant racist Obama emails, his famed hit-list billboard (on the side of a condemned and Housing-Court regular industrial building), and his love of horses that's even weirder than Romney's, he mostly went back under his rock after the state's voters repelled him decisively. Yet, like a bad case of herpes, it's never long before Carl comes back, and this time it made the national news.

Among Crazy Carl's huge tracts of land and other holdings? He owns one of the airport's car rental franchises. Reports surfaced last week that customers were complaining because their rentals came pre-loaded with offensive political bumper stickers.

Yeah, that one:

The two women, Barbara Wingate of San Diego and Stephanie DiBiase of Chicago, said bumper stickers that read "Vote for the American" were placed on the bumpers of cars they rented from the franchise. Wingate and DiBiase -- both of whom provided photos of the bumper stickers -- said they were told by employees that the stickers were placed there by the franchise owner.

The franchise is owned by Westover Car Rental, a subsidiary of Ellicott Development, a Buffalo holding company controlled by Carl Paladino, the Tea Party-affiliated businessman who lost the 2010 gubernatorial race to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D).

"We noticed a bumper sticker on the car and in the dark lot we thought it was a promotion to "buy American" -- but didn't think about it until the next morning when we went to the car for additional luggage," Wingate, who rented the car the weekend of Oct. 13-14 to attend her daughter's wedding, told The Huffington Post in an email. "After reading it, we realized what it said/meant and were horrified."

Carl refuses to comment, and the car rental company has smacked him down about using their cars for his nefarious political purposes.

But the best has yet to be reported. Take a guess what vehicle this banana-headed Birther chose to put the sticker on:

DiBiase said she again raised her complaint when returning the Toyota Prius and said a staffer told her that the stickers were placed there by the owner and that the one she took off would likely be replaced.

This fits a theory I adopted as soon as I first saw one of these noxious things a week or so ago. I've given up my Cabin Pressure game of Yellow Car and am now counting the number of "Vote for the American" stickers I see on foreign-made vehicles. I'm only up to three so far, but now that I know there are more on rentals, I'll pay more attention when I'm out by the airport.

In time, it may become a back-handed compliment. Putting that on a Prius, one has to wonder: who IS "the American" in this race? The one with a faith that has preached racial and sex-identity equality for decades? The one with an energy policy that will outlast the finite quantity of dead dinosaurs in the dirt? The one who thinks that China is a trading partner in need of control and not an ideal business model?

Maybe that sticker's not so bad after all.