Somebody needs to call Guinness World Records. I think Carl Paladino just broke the mark for quickest political self-destruction.

Paladino's campaign for governor is barely a week old. Yet the speed and intensity of his self-immolation borders on unbelievable. The raw-edged Buffalo developer's political debut is all but over before it barely began.

The local Web site WNYMedia.net on Monday unveiled a string of pornographic and racially degrading e-mails that Paladino admittedly forwarded to a group of friends. It came on the heels of his comparison between health care reform and 9/11 that offended family members of victims. The self-proclaimed defender of conservative values also revealed he has a daughter from an extramarital affair. Three strikes, and he is all but out.

Paladino has spent the bulk of the last week explaining and apologizing. That is not a campaign; it is a confessional. With a string of bleeps and blunders, Paladino has saved the major party attack machines the trouble of painting him as "the crazy guy from Buffalo."

In fairness, he is hardly the first guy to e-mail video of a naked hottie to his buds. But it is worse than that. If this sort of "humor" landed in most people's in-boxes, they would hit the delete button and rush to the restroom to wash their hands. From the n-word to bestiality, it is so out of bounds that it calls into question the judgment of anyone who would pass it along. Even horses were offended. The only consolation for Paladino is that stallions do not constitute a voting bloc.

Maybe you can get away with that stuff as a private citizen. But there is a big difference between Citizen Carl and Candidate Carl. Before you think about running for office, you might want to check the closet for racially degrading e-mails and out-of-wedlock offspring. It might save everybody a lot of time and trouble.

Some of Paladino's rougher edges are no surprise to anybody around here. The guy drops f-bombs like clouds drop rain. He seems incapable of disagreeing without being disagreeable. But he has the money and muscle to say what he wants without caring what anybody thinks, or having to worry about blowback from the business establishment's Buffalo Niagara Partnership, a prime target.

I think his blasts over the years sometimes hit the mark, and some folks find his bluntness refreshing. But what he gets away with as Citizen Carl in Buffalo does not play statewide as Candidate Carl. A run for governor brought him to a broader audience on a bigger stage, and he is bombing. At Monday's damage-control news conference, he got it wrong from the opening line: "This campaign is not about Carl Paladino."

Of course, it is. Any political campaign is partly about the person running for office. In politics and in life, character counts. Unfortunately for Paladino -- and for the legion of folks with a justifiable distaste for Albany -- you cannot separate the man from the message.

It is too bad. Paladino's populist outrage resonates far beyond its "tea party" core. Albany's odious three-man rule is shaped by public-sector unions and other major campaign donors. The consequent high cost of government and soaring taxes is killing jobs and depopulating upstate. As you may have heard, folks are angry and do not want to take it anymore.

Paladino's attack-dog candidacy -- however slim its chance of success -- seemed at first like Everyman's revenge on a state government that abuses its citizens. At the very least, it promised to be entertaining. Until, that is, the messenger got in the way of the message.