Tradition calls for the losing candidate to concede, speak first and then get the hell out of the way for the winner.
But only minutes away from the top of the 11:00 pm news last night, Paladino hadn’t gone home. He hadn’t even started conceding. It was clear he was trying to rain on Cuomo’s parade…..one more time.
To Cuomo’s credit he was having none of it. Cuomo took the stage at about 10:54. After all, the moment does belong to the Governor-elect to speak to the state live at the top of 11. 
And with that, there were flashes from the great oratory days of his father that Andrew Cuomo seemed to slap at Carl Paladino with every word.
"All through this campaign, the other forces, the opponents were trying to divide the people of this state," he said.
"It was the oldest political tactic. It was divide and conquer."
Cuomo added, "They thought that they could separate us and they thought they could divide us and they thought they could take our diversity and make it a weakness, but they can't. My friends, they really didn't know who they were talking to and who they were dealing with. They didn't know where they were. Yes we are upstate and downstate but we are one state because we are New York."
"The people of this state listened to their better angels. You are not going to divide us. You are not going to separate us. You can try that somewhere else but you are not going to sell that in New York," he said.
After Cuomo was gone, Paladino finally publicly appeared up in Buffalo, and I couldn’t help but think that if Paladino wasn’t so reckless as a candidate…..two plus two might have equaled four in his case. It was a big night for Republicans as the headlines declared “Republicans see big gains in house,” and Republicans even won President Obama's own Senate Seat. Paladino could have still been in a contested contest like the other state-wide Republicans.
Think about this, at 12:30 AM State Republicans Don Donovan and Harry Wilson were holding their own. At that point Paladino was the only one of the three Republicans where it was “lights out.”
Paladino declared to his supporters:
“You don’t want the media noticing you. It’s ain’t pretty, and it ain’t fair.”
With anger and sarcastic oozing from his voice Paladino went on to say the NY Times finally confirmed there was a license for his pet dog.
So three state Republicans. Paladino, Donovan and Wilson, and it was the top of the ticket to go down in flames first. Donovan and Wilson were still in the neck of things. They didn’t have Paladino’s money, and had run from as far away from Paladino as they could during the campaign.So now, it's really only one last thing left to say.
It’s time to get down to work Governor Elect Cuomo.