Constantino sit-down at the Chronicle

By Ben Westcott, Chronicle Staff Writer

NY-21 Republican Congressional candidate Anthony Constantino sat down with The Chronicle at our office Feb. 6, for a wide ranging interview.

Mr. Constantino owns the international custom printing company Sticker Mule based in in Amsterdam, N.Y. He is self-funding his congressional campaign, so far to the tune of $7.26-million.

Asked what Sticker Mule’s revenue is, Mr. Constantino said he had never disclosed that information, but he answered the question. He said at its peak it was in the “hundreds of millions” of dollars but suffered substantially in the backlash to his supporting Trump for President.

He arrived wearing a t-shirt, blue jeans and hat instead of the typical politician uniform, in keeping with the “outsider” label he’s garnered in the race against 118th District State Assemblyman Robert Smullen for the Republican nomination.

Mr. Smullen is winning endorsements from county Republican Committees including Warren and Washington Counties. Mr. Constantino defies them.
“Party insiders” are “not my crowd,” said Mr. Constantino, 43.

He says he’s a CEO but “my friends are frontline workers. My job is different than who I want to hang out with.”

He said Republican committee members “go from dinner to dinner to dinner and give each other awards. But what have you done to help the citizens?”

“We don’t have good leadership and I suspect people know it,” he said, adding, “I try to be honest and try not to be critical of anyone that doesn’t deserve it.”

“The polls like me,” Mr. Constantino said. “I’m in tune with the average person.” He cited a poll conducted by his campaign that he said had 1,017 respondents and showed him at 57% support against Republican candidates.

Mr. Constantino was affable in Friday’s interview, but his approach to politics is often pugilistic. On social media, he’s posted several doctored images of Mr. Smullen: One depicting him as a woman, one with green slime dumped over his head, another with face tattoos. He twice called Mr. Smullen a “f-in coward.”

Mr. Constantino said he called Mr. Smullen a coward “because he never supported the president.”

“That’s cowardly for a sitting Republican,” he said. “What risk does a sitting Republican have?”

“Then he lied and told the military that I had attacked the military, which I didn’t do. He hid behind the military. That’s cowardly, too. I think lying is cowardly.”

Mr. Constantino also accused Mr. Smullen of lying by claiming the Smullen campaign raised over $500,000 in less than a week after launching, when he actually only raised $13,122.46 per official filings released Jan. 31.

“He loaned it to himself,” Mr. Constantino said of the $500,000.

Other targets of his recent online scorn have been Warren County Republican Chairman Tim McNulty, Committee Member Linda Clark, and Schenectady County GOP Chair Liz Joy. Democrats are also frequently a subject of his ire.

But Mr. Constantino says he doesn’t think his internet personality is problematic. “I grew up in a factory environment,” he said. “I boxed, which is a working class sport. I have a comfort level using that vocabulary. They talk like that in factories, boxing gyms, and locker rooms.

“I try to be a counter puncher in politics, just like boxing,” he said, noting “I’m concerned about policies that hurt the masses, not about adults arguing with each other. I’m from a sticks and stones era.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Smullen has been punching back at Mr. Constantino. His campaign launched a website called “The Real Anthony Constantino” that attacks him for selling anti-Trump, anti-police and pro-transgender stickers.

Mr. Constantino responds that he supports the First Amendment. “It would be ridiculous to live in a world where people don’t get served because of their political party,” he said. “I service everybody that legally wants to engage in speech.”

The Smullen website also claims that Mr. Constantino “had tax liens in multiple states totaling more than $14,000.”

“He lied about my tax liens, which was crazy,” Mr. Constantino said. He added later, “I don’t do finance, I pay an auditor to handle all my financial stuff.” He said.

“It’s hard to pay your sales tax perfectly in all 50 states. Some we overpaid… some places we underpaid, they notified us, and we immediately paid it,” he said.

He said, also, those are “resolved situations presented as active tax liens.” In one case, he suggests Mr. Smullen might be referring to a different Anthony Constantino.

Mr. Smullen’s website criticizes Mr. Constantino for previously being a registered Democrat. Mr. Constantino says he became a Democrat to support his friend Frank Commisso in the 2017 Albany mayoral Democratic primary that Mr. Commisso lost to Kathy Sheehan.

“Ideologically I was never a Democrat,” insists Mr. Constantino, adding, “my advocacy for Republican ideas is based in common sense.”

If elected, Mr. Constantino said a top priority would to improve cell phone service and internet connectivity in NY-21. He also wants to lower taxes and cut regulations to grow the economy and bring excitement and attention to the area by being a “cheerleader for the district.”

He thinks his Sticker Mule experience uniquely positions him to excel at constituent services.

“I can service large areas better than anyone. I service the entire world,” he said. “I can show both parties how to service constituents more effectively.”

An Albany Academy grad, Mr. Constantino said he took the reins of his late father Tom Constantino’s promotional products company Noteworthy during his sophomore year at RPI. Mr. Constantino’s mom was technically the owner, but Mr. Constantino says he “ran the company himself” after firing management.

Mr. Constantino says he “restored the company to profitability,” but “it wasn’t a pleasant situation. It was an old business with an old model.”

He said a new opportunity surfaced when a friend in his 70s asked him, “What the hell do people do on the internet?”

After Mr. Constantino showed him, he says the friend said, “We have to start an internet company together.”

So in 2010 they launched Sticker Mule.

“I came up with the name,” Mr. Constantino said. He said stickers offered “a big market that was underserved and reasonably inexpensive to get into.”

They expedited it. “It took hours to buy a sticker before us,” Mr. Constantino said. “We condensed it into a 20-second process.”
The Chronicle’s interview touched on several current events.

Asked about the recent shootings of America citizens by ICE agents in Minnesota, Mr. Constantino said, “It’s not our job as citizens to get in the face of law enforcement.” He said that people should “stop using rhetoric that encourages those types of incidents.”

Asked if he supports deporting illegal immigrants, he said, “It’s a tough situation. We let in a lot of people that should have never came here. I don’t envy the President’s decision. Everybody that’s here illegally is here illegally. I support whatever decision the president makes.”

On the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Mr. Constantino calls it “great.”

He said Maduro “destroyed that country, caused the largest global exodus in recent history, and destabilized all of Central and South America,” he said. “We need to reopen Venezuela and let them be part of the global economy again. Rebuilding Venezuela is good for the world.”

Asked about the transgender topic, Mr. Constantino said, “I don’t believe in restricting people” but “I don’t think it’s a good idea to do the transgender stuff” like “taking drugs or having an operation.”

“There’s an issue with us manipulating kids into thinking they may be trans that aren’t. Is there such a thing as transgenderism? I don’t know. I think there are biological men that enjoy presenting themselves more feminine, and vice versa. That’s fine, but the medical interventions, I think, are dangerous, and we should advise people about that..”

“I have an obligation to tell people I don’t think this is necessarily good for you,” he said.

He said he likewise tries to warn his employees of the risks of marijuana.

Since entering politics, Mr. Constantino has shown a flair for the dramatic and unconventional, erecting a Vote For Trump sign atop his factory, writing and performing on an album called “Thank You President Trump,” and giving away thousands of free turkeys at his campaign announcement.

Asked if he wants to debate Mr. Smullen, Mr. Constantino was eager.

“We should try to make it huge,” he said, suggesting the “Glens Falls Civic Center” as a venue.

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