Carl Paladino is making good on his threat to challenge the Senate Republican establishment in Albany by aiding at least three candidates who hope to knock off incumbent lawmakers this year.

The Buffalo businessman and 2010 Republican gubernatorial nominee is working to remain very much a player in state politics, with help going to two candidates in western New York and another in the Hudson Valley.

Paladino earlier this afternoon sent out a news released trumpeting the candidacy of Johnny Destino, a Niagara Falls School Board Member, to run against Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane.

“I believe Albany needs to be turned upside down in order for us to begin straightening out our priorities,” Destino said. “First we have to remove career politicians who have long forgotten whose interests they were elected to serve.”

Paladino’s support of Destino is partially tied into the complicated western New York political scene its various feuds.

Maziarz and Erie County Conservative Party Chairman Ralph Lorigo remain at odds over the local support for Democrat Chuck Swanick’s candidacy against Sen. Mark Grisanti.

But overall, the support for the insurgent candidates makes good a promise Paladino made back in January at the Conservative Party’s state confab. At the time, Paladino said he planned to support various candidates against incumbents in response to his displeasure with the Senate Republican leadership.

“We have to clean house because we have people who are not loyal to the Republican rank and file,” Paladino said in the interview. “The Republican rank and file spoke in my primary last year and they sent a very clear message. Rick Lazio does not hold any real water for them. The rank and file are upset with the country and state leadership in the Republican Party. They want change. They know it’s the same old thing and that’s what we’re getting right now.”

Paladino has said he would back Kevin Stocker, a lawyer who has launched a primary against Grisanti, a freshman Republican who is considered especially vulnerable this year. Stocker told me an interview last week that he had not heard directly from Paladino.

He is also backing Neil DiCarlo against Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie.

Both Saland and Grisanti were two of four Republican senators who voted in favor of same-sex marriage legalization last year.

It’s not clear how effective these challenges will be, especially against these three Republicans who will surely have more money and organizational support from the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.

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