Plenty of New Yorkers are plenty angry about the state of their state. Now they have a

voice: Carl Paladino, the angry man's candidate.

Paladino is angry himself, and now he's running for governor. Katy, bar the door.

A lawyer and successful developer in Western New York, Paladino boasts that he is not afraid

to mix it up. He's not. But that also seems paired with an inability to censor himself —

or not even having an interest in doing that, for that matter — even when he should.

This is going to be interesting.

To be sure, Paladino has a natural constituency, and it's not limited to the "tea party"

movement that has gravitated to his candidacy. New Yorkers have suffered in electoral silence

for decades as their state government became increasingly remote, economically unsound and

corrupt.

Whomever residents elected as governor, state government has remained dysfunctional, leaving

them with preposterously high taxes and a correspondingly weak economy. A certain number of

voters, their illusions gone, are bound to be looking for something different.

Without prejudging other candidates in this year's gubernatorial election, candidates who are

a product of New York politics often have fallen short. That doesn't mean that a bomb-thrower

— which Paladino clearly is — would succeed as governor, but it does mean that he

provides a change that many voters will find refreshing, at least in the short term.

The question is how long voters will be interested in an attack-dog candidate because, for

the moment, that's all Paladino has been. In touring the state this week, he has unleashed a

verbal onslaught against Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver,

Republican candidates Rick Lazio and Steve Levy and Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, a likely

Democratic gubernatorial candidate whom Paladino blamed for the subprime mortgage meltdown.

But he has said relatively little about how he would actually change Albany and that, after

all, is his ticket to the dance. He promised to enact "emergency powers" upon taking office,

but Gov. David A. Paterson ridiculed the notion that the governor has any such authority. Nor

has he indicated how he will get the Legislature to follow his lead, especially after

denigrating Silver, the Assembly's autocratic leader.

Paladino has time to offer details, but not a lot. The novelty of his candidacy will quickly

wear thin if he doesn't give voters specific reasons to support him, and the first test of his

ability to govern will be his ability to conduct a substantive and credible campaign. But win

or lose, he will be sure to keep important issues front and center, which is exactly where

they need to be. It's good for New Yorkers to have someone in the race who can channel their

justifiable anger.