The 2010 contest for governor is winding up with a familiar script: Republican Carl P. Paladino utters another controversial remark; Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo reacts.

That’s exactly how the two major candidates kicked off the campaign’s final weekend on Friday as Paladino set the political world atwitter once again when he referred to the state’s juniorsenator— Democrat Kirsten E. Gillibrand —as the “little girl” of the senior senator, Democrat Charles E. Schumer.

As Cuomo finished up a rally before more than 300 cheering Democrats at the Creekside Banquet Facility in Cheektowaga, he embellished earlier remarks about a litany of Paladino statements he said should give voters pause.

“Another day, another offensive and wrongheaded comment by Mr. Paladino,” Cuomo told reporters.

The latest flap began Thursday evening on Long Island, when Paladino described Gillibrand as Schumer’s “little girl.” Even as that controversy gained momentum, he fanned the flames by refusing to back away from the re-

mark while meeting with reporters at the Capitol in Albany.

“She does exactly what Schumer tells her to do. So she is his little girl,” Paladino said.

By then Gillibrand reacted with criticism of her own.

“The fact is that I don’t take a back seat to anyone when it comes to fighting for New York. While I have delivered solutions, Mr. Paladino has delivered insults,” she said in a statement.

By the time he reached Plattsburgh on Friday night, the remark was the subject of a live interview with WCAX-TV, a local CBS affiliate, just after a speech to about 125 tea party supporters. Paladino snapped at the interviewer asking about Gillibrand.

“Are we going to talk issues or are we leaving you right now?” he said.

A moment later, as the interviewer persisted, Paladino undid his earplug tied into the television camera and walked away.

“She wants to talk trash, she can talk to somebody else,” he fumed to nearby campaign handlers.

All of this seemed to fuel Cuomo’s criticism in Cheektowaga, where during his standard stump speech he said his opponent’s controversial comments only fuel his own optimism.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” he said, “the more he talks, the better I do. You could not make this stuff up.”

Then Cuomo, the attorney general, repeated many of Paladino’s more controversial comments. They included his plan to establish what Cuomo called “work camps” in unused prisons where welfare recipients would learn, among other things, “personal hygiene.”

“Whoever heard of such a thing?” Cuomo asked.

Then he criticized Paladino for his comments on immigration, claiming “racial profiling” would result from his ideas, and launched into a now-familiar theme that a Gov. Paladino would prove a “divisive” force in New York.

“Divide New York,” he said. “That’s been the political strategy all along.”

The day was not totally about off-the-cuff remarks.

In four separate events starting on the steps of a rainy and windy state Capitol and ending in Plattsburgh, Paladino stoked a greatest-hits theme: attacking Cuomo on everything from his days as federal housing secretary to his handling of Albany corruption cases, while pushing his theme of cutting the costs of state government and lowering taxes.

“This is the scene of the crime,” a supporter shouted during Paladino’s visit outside the Capitol.

“We’re going to hose this building down,” Paladino responded.

When he wasn’t criticizing Cuomo, Paladino offered critiques of the media, fellow Republicans, state lawmakers, President Obama, special interests and the pollsters who show him badly trailing Cuomo just a few days before Election Day.

“Don’t talk to me about polls,” Paladino said, highlighting his 26-point GOP primary win in September after a poll two days earlier showed him trailing Rick Lazio by one point.

At times showing a softer side — “I made mistakes”—Paladino mixed in defiance, dismissing those who say his campaign has been based on anger.

“I could care less what words they want to use—crazy, anger, all this nonsense — it doesn’t matter,” he said.

Supporters during the day were excited by Paladino’s red meat speeches — from attacks of the ground zero-area mosque to Albany’s corruption cases.

“Maybe crazy is what we need to get this state out of the situation we’re in,” Warren County GOP Chairman Mike Grasso said in introducing Paladino at one event in Glens Falls.

In event after event, Paladino depicted Cuomo’s reign as attorney general as being soft on his “cronies.” He accused Cuomo of striking a campaign-timed deal with former State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, who pleaded guilty this month as part of a pension scandal, in return for no jail time.

He said Cuomo also avoided getting involved in one of the broader scandals to hit the Capitol: the recent bid-rigging allegations over the award of a lucrative casino contract at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.

In Cheektowaga, Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto dismissed the Republican’s allegations about the Hevesi case as “totally false.” And the attorney general himself dismissed Paladino’s criticism of his lack of involvement in the unfolding AEG investigation.

“Obviously, he has no understanding whatsoever of how law enforcement works,” Cuomo responded. “The inspector general did the report because he was asked to do the report. There is a federal ongoing investigation of AEG. It would be irresponsible of me to start now a concurrent state investigation.”

Paladino continued on, with bigger crowds as he traveled up the Adirondack Northway. Supporters sided with Paladino’s claims that the polls are not taking into account voter anger. Jasper Nolan, the Saratoga County GOP chairman, talked of a “very silent voice” not counted in polls — not unlike those who helped George E. Pataki beat Mario M. Cuomo, the current candidate’s father, in 1994.

Before Paladino arrived at a restaurant at the base of West Mountain ski resort outside Glens Falls, Jim and Carole Smith said they didn’t know much about Paladino but know they aren’t voting for Cuomo.

“I don’t trust Cuomo,” Jim Smith said. But after Paladino’s speech, he said his vote will now not just be anti-Cuomo.

“Now it’s a positive vote for him,” Smith said of Paladino.

Paladino also would not discuss new revelations about a legal problem facing a Paladino adviser, John F. Haggerty, in court papers filed Friday by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.

Haggerty already has been indicted on charges he stole more than $1 million from the campaign of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The new papers, according to various media outlets in New York City, show that Haggerty admitted to prosecutors that he “lied” to Bloomberg advisers about money the campaign steered his way.

“We’re not talking about questions off of issues,” Paladino said Friday night.

Haggerty declined to comment.

Earlier, in his speech at the base of a snowless ski mountain, Paladino seemed to sum up the past months of his campaign: “I told everybody up front it’s not going to be a walk in the park.”

Precious covered Paladino in Albany, Saratoga, Glens Falls and Plattsburgh; McCarthy covered Cuomo's Cheektowaga appearance.

On Election Night, get results and complete coverage on BuffaloNews.com.