Carl P. Paladino, the Republican candidate for governor, has seemed to relish taking a scorched earth approach to his campaign. No one seems to be immune from his wrath, even members of his own party.

Of former Gov. George E. Pataki, Mr. Paladino was quoted as calling him a “degenerate idiot.’’

On Thursday, Mr. Pataki, choosing a more restrained approach, said he was not happy to be called that, but nonetheless was still inclined to endorse Mr. Paladino — under certain conditions.

Mr. Pataki said at a forum in Manhattan that Mr. Paladino needs to “turn anger into a positive agenda of change” and demonstrate “the demeanor and character we want for a governor.”

“He has got to show he has the character and ability that he will represent the state in a way we all believe is appropriate,” Mr. Pataki said. “It comes down to who is going to be a better leader for the state. I expect that it will be him, but I’m not sure yet.”

As for Mr. Paladino’s characterization of him, Mr. Pataki said: “Obviously, I’m not pleased to be called that.”

Mr. Pataki’s two Democratic successors, Eliot Spitzer and David A. Paterson, meanwhile, branded Mr. Paladino unfit to be governor.

“I don’t think he is fit for public service,” Mr. Paterson said, accusing Mr. Paladino of practicing “the politics of confusion” and of making offensive statements.

“He transferred emails back and forth that were racist, homophobic, misogynist,” Mr. Paterson said and described one e-mail in which a plane crashes into Africa and uses a racial epithet to describe blacks.

“These are the kinds of things we don’t need in politics,” Mr. Paterson said. “I never heard an apology. I never heard accountability.”

In Tuesday’s Republican primary, Mr. Paladino, a bombastic Buffalo businessman who galvanized voters with his throw-the-bums-out message, upset former Representative Rick A. Lazio, the party designee, whom Mr. Pataki had supported.

The three governors, who collectively have presided over the state for nearly two decades, were interviewed together at a forum hosted by The Wall Street Journal at the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.

All three agreed that Mr. Paladino and his Democratic rival, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, would have to offer more specific solutions to the state’s budget crisis — Mr. Paterson estimated the budget gap over the next three years at $35 billion — in the less than seven weeks before Election Day.

Mr. Spitzer said that while Mr. Paladino’s oratory was “not useful,” he was tapping into middleclass resentment over two decades of stagnant income.

They also concurred in their denunciation of the political process in Albany that has allowed legislative leaders to thwart the governor’s agenda. Mr. Pataki described it as “a corrupt stranglehold.”

Mr Spitzer agreed that legislators are more concerned with incumbency than party loyalty and noted that in Tuesday’s primary, “virtually no incumbents lost. That is an unfortunate reality we have to face up to.”

But he and Mr. Pataki clashed sharply in a spirited give-and-take over the efficacy of President Obama’s economic stimulus program, so much so that Mr. Paterson, sitting between them, commented: “I feel like I’m at the West Side Tennis Club.”

Asked by the moderator, Michael Howard Saul, what he would have done differently, Mr. Paterson replied: “I would have appointed myself to the United States Senate” (when Hillary Rodham Clinton left to become secretary of state).

Was Mr. Paterson the right choice for lieutenant governor Mr. Spitzer was asked?

“He was also the right choice for the United States Senate,” Mr. Spitzer replied, suggesting that he chose Mr. Paterson to be his running mate with the intent of appointing Mr. Paterson to fill Ms. Clinton’s Senate seat. “That was the game plan,” he said. The plan, of course, was thwarted when Mr. Spitzer was forced to resign because of his involvement with a prostitute.