NEW YORK -- Carl P. Paladino didn't look all that mad Sunday.

Instead, the Republican candidate for governor beamed as he ambled down Cross Bay Boulevard during a premature Columbus Day parade in Howard Beach, Queens.

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Politics Now blog: Images of Paladino campaigning in Queens

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Dressed in stereotypical Sunday candidate wear -- khakis, open-collar white shirt, blue sport coat, sensible shoes -- the businessman-turned-politician hugged the girls from the USO and the old Italian guys from the neighborhood.

He handed every child a lollipop from a seemingly bottomless trick-or-treat bag.

And through it all, the candidate who stresses that he's "mad as hell" at Albany hardly ever stopped smiling.

Then again, he had reason to smile. For his first public campaign stop in New York City since winning the GOP primary Sept. 14, Paladino's campaign chose relatively friendly territory, a mostly white, heavily Italian and comparatively conservative neighborhood within earshot of John F. Kennedy International Airport.

It's the sort of place where Paladino will have to draw plenty of votes to have any chance of defeating Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo -- who grew up a couple of miles to the northeast in another, more liberal Queens neighborhood called Hollis.

Paladino is determined to compete in places such as Howard Beach -- often-forgotten corners of New York that are more like Buffalo's West Side of 50 years ago than Manhattan's West Side of today.

"We're going to be spending a lot of time down here" in the New York City area, Paladino said after the parade. "Half of the population's here. We're going to be going to all the boroughs."

Sunday's parade began a three-day New York City campaign swing for Paladino, who has spent much of the last two weeks doing media interviews and dialing for dollars in preparation for his Nov. 2 showdown with Cuomo.

And if the reaction of the crowd is any indication, Paladino will find votes in places such as this.

"Tea and free, Carl!" shouted a paunchy young man as Paladino passed by -- referring, of course, to Paladino's affiliation with the "tea party" movement. "God bless you, brother!" the young man added.

A few minutes earlier, an excited Catherine Zoida of Howard Beach posed for pictures -- and a kiss -- from Paladino.

"As soon as I heard about him, I called my sister and said: He's got a lot to offer," Zoida, 74, said of Paladino. "We need to worry about the people who have been here 60 or 70 years, who made America what it was. And that's what Carl Paladino represents."

Then again, it seemed as if a larger number of voters met Paladino with a bit of bewilderment, not knowing who he was.

"Oh, that's Carl Paladino!" Lorraine Campisi of Queens declared after a reporter identified him. Campisi then ran into the street to greet the candidate.

And Melissa Van Pelt, one of three USO representatives at the parade, made nice with Paladino, leaning over for a kiss on the cheek from the candidate but later acknowledging: "I'm really not that familiar with him."

Other voters said they, too, were just getting familiar with Paladino -- and were disgusted with the dirt the two campaigns are throwing at each other.

"A lot of people are very upset with what's happened in the governor's race, how they're just calling each other names," said Sol Pornfeldcq, 88, of Queens. "People want them to get down to basic facts: What are you going to do for the people?"

Alas, there was little of that Sunday -- and a little more name-calling.

A band of about a half-dozen college-age Democrats followed Paladino along the parade route, making much of a New York Daily News article about a government subsidy Paladino received that produced just one job.

"Just one job -- where's our money?" they shouted.

None of that seemed to bother Paladino, who at one point gestured to the protesters and said: "Louder! Louder!"

And that got Paladino campaign manager Michael R. Caputo into the spirit of things.

"You'll have to take the train back to Albany soon," he warned the young Democrats.

Caputo proclaimed Queens "the 'mad as hell' headquarters of downstate" and said the Paladino campaign will work hard for votes here, on Staten Island and on Long Island -- other downstate areas with an undercurrent of conservatism.

Howard Beach's conservatism came shining through all afternoon, as a host of local Republican politicians took to the streets, compared with only a couple of Democrats.

For Cuomo's part, he held a rally at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, where he endorsed Eric T. Schneiderman for state attorney general.

In Howard Beach, meanwhile, Paladino took time away from talking to voters to talk with the media. And when he did, he started sounding pretty mad again.

"Albany is out of control," he said. "Spending is reckless; it's totally out of control. The taxes are debilitating to the people and to the businesses, and government's corruption has to be stopped."

As the cameras rolled, he aimed to carry that message beyond the realm of partisan politics.

"This is not Democrat/Republican," he said. "This is the people of the State of New York versus the establishment."

jzremski@buffnews.comnull