ALBANY -- Buffalo businessman Carl P. Paladino said he will not continue to run for governor on a new third-party line if he loses September's Republican primary against Rick Lazio.

The statement by Paladino, made in a NY1 television interview Wednesday, appears to call into question the push for the new party that Paladino is trying to create.

"If we don't win the Republican primary, we're going to be gone at that point, because we're not going to be a spoiler to someone running against Andrew Cuomo and taking him down," Paladino said of the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.

"Andrew Cuomo is the poster child for everything that the people don't want in government anymore."

Paladino campaign officials insisted that there was nothing new in Paladino's comments and that he won't serve as a Cuomo spoiler.

"This is a hypothetical," Paladino campaign manager Michael R. Caputo said on the question of whether his candidate might not run on the new third-party line.

"We don't see how we lose this," he added about his bid to defeat Lazio in the primary.

Paladino has been gathering signatures to form a "tea party"-like line called the Taxpayers Party.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found Lazio leading Paladino among Republican voters for the party's primary by 39 percent to 23 percent, with 33 percent undecided.

A petition by Paladino to get the new party on the ballot this fall is due Aug. 17 at the state Board of Elections. At least 15,000 signatures from registered voters are required.

"He's committed to the Taxpayers line," Caputo said.

Responding to the latest development, June O'Neill, executive committee chairwoman of the state Democratic Committee, said, "What a surprise -- another wacky statement from Carl Paladino. This early surrender is because he realizes the people of this state would never elect a racist and a sexist as governor."

tprecious@buffnews.comnull