The paper is located in the 29th district of New York, where newly uncovered divorce records paint the Republican candidate as an unruly wife-abuser. In recently surfaced divorce papers, state Sen. Randy Kuhl (R), who is running to succeed the gentlemanly Rep. Amo Houghton (R), is described by his ex-wife as an abusive drunk who once threatened her with two shotguns during a dinner party at their home.

At Monday's editorial board meeting, Kuhl said he felt "ambushed" when he saw his Democratic opponent, Samara Barend, show up at the paper with three aides, according to sources in the room. Kuhl said he'd been under the impression that Barend, a former aide to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), would not be there.... Kuhl, who was alone, demanded that the Barend aides leave the meeting. "Senator Kuhl kicked us out," one of Barend's aides told HOH.

David Kubissa, the associate editor of the Star-Gazette, told HOH there was a "misunderstanding" because of scheduling difficulties. "To me, he was a little annoyed, I think, just because he hadn't been told" that Barend would be attending as well, Kubissa said.

It was an easy fix, however. The three staffers left the room, Barend stayed and the editorial board interviewed both candidates to make a final determination on which one of them the paper will endorse, Kubissa said.

The paper will make a decision by the end of this week. Kubissa said it's unclear yet how heavily the editorial board will weigh Kuhl's divorce records. After one preliminary meeting, he says, the board was "pretty split."

The papers also note that Kuhl was arrested in 1997 for drunken driving and, according to the divorce papers - which were first reported on the Web log rawstory.com - refused his wife's requests to attend counseling....

More than two weeks after learning of the release, Kuhl sat down with Roll Call and the Rothenberg Political Report during a fundraising visit to Washington, D.C. He requested the meeting, though he had already visited Roll Call several months earlier.

Kuhl was asked whether his opponent had anything to use against him in the campaign. Kuhl replied, "I may have hit a sour note sometime during eighth grade choir." (Sour notes, shotguns, DWIs, violent threats against one's wife - what's the difference, right?)

The Barend camp is saying very little publicly about Kuhl's reported shotgun dinner antics. Don Weigel, a spokesman for the Democratic candidate, says, "It's up to the voters of this district to decide if this is the kind of person they want representing them in Congress."