Well, well, well - what have we here? For those of you - I imagine that's most of you - unfamiliar with the history of the Independence Party in New York, some background below the jump. But first, very intriguing news from today's NYT:
February 9, 2010
How G.O.P. Worker Got Bloomberg Money Is Investigated
By JOHN ELIGON
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is investigating the circumstances surrounding a $750,000 payment that ended up in the hands of a Republican political operative who helped with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign last year, a political insider with knowledge of the investigation said on Tuesday.
Mr. Bloomberg made two $600,000 payments to the state Independence Party last year, according to financial disclosure reports. In December, the party paid $750,000 of that money to Special Election Operations L.L.C., a company run by John Haggerty Jr., a Republican Party operative from Queens, according to the political insider, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation.
Bloomberg has been funneling money into the Independence Party, and running on a second ballot line as their mayoral nominee, for years now. While the party is statewide under chairman Frank McKay, "[s]ince the summer of 2005, the party has had an internal factional struggle between non-ideological party members and leaders in much of New York and Long Island, and followers of Marxist psychotherapist Fred Newman based in New York City." link
Newman is, to put it politely, a nut. His chief spokesperson, former Presidential candidate Lenora Fulani, is worse. Some background:
In New York, Fringe Politics in Mainstream
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: May 28, 2005
==snip==
The rise of Dr. Newman and Dr. Fulani from outsider status - with organizations that were as interested in psychotherapy and Marxist ideology as in electoral politics - has been part of a strategy that has resulted in their dominance over the Independence Party. The party has emerged as a powerful vote-getter in many state and local races, knocking the Conservative Party off the third line on the ballot and giving Mr. Bloomberg his margin of victory in 2001.
In recent years, Dr. Newman, a psychotherapist, and Dr. Fulani, who ran two quixotic campaigns for the White House, have, according to the party's state chairman, became the dominant force in the Independence Party's New York City branch, and have a significant influence on the direction of the state party.
For politicians like Mr. Bloomberg, the Independence Party's backing is an invaluable asset in a city where the vast majority of voters are registered Democrats. It will give voters the option of casting their ballots for the mayor on the Independence line instead of the Republican line. But the party's support has come at some cost, with Mr. Bloomberg recently having to distance himself from Dr. Fulani after she refused to disavow remarks she wrote in 1989 in which she said Jews "had to sell their souls to acquire Israel and are required to do the dirtiest work of capitalism" and had to "function as mass murderers of people of color" to keep it.
As for Newman:
Bloomberg's Loyal Cult: The Independence Party
Despite mayor's term-limits flip, Independence Party says all is forgiven
By Tom Robbins Wednesday, Apr 8 2009
Fusion politics is a little different now. LaGuardia had Judge Seabury, relentless investigator and zealous reformer. Bloomberg has Fred Newman, self-proclaimed philosopher and "social therapist."
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For those unfamiliar with Newman and his many groups, there are ample sources to consult. There is his own basic text, Let's Develop!: A Guide to Continuous Personal Growth, which includes his prescription for what he calls "friendosexuality." Roughly translated, this means that mental health can be reached by sleeping with your friends. There is a more rigorous intellectual explanation in Newman's Lev Vygotsky: Revolutionary Scientist, which is billed as a tribute to the "brilliant Russian psychologist."
Newman is also a prolific playwright: His works include Diary of a Mad Therapist, Dead as a Jew, and Outing Wittgenstein (Or Sunday in the Park With Ludwig).
There is also a tape of a marvelous interview conducted by NY1's Rita Nissan in 2005 in the midst of the controversy over the party's support of Bloomberg in the last re-election drive. Nissan spoke to Newman in the Bank Street townhouse that he shares with Salit and several other men and women. Newman collected some of these housemates, he acknowledged, after they sought him out as a therapist. One of his live-in friends is the $200,000-a-year president of the All Stars Project, the nonprofit group that received $9.5 million in tax-free bonds from the city with Bloomberg's support after his 2001 election.
"I don't think it's any of the state's business who my dearest loves are," Newman told Nissan.
Nissan's six-part profile of Newman is here, with video. In a nutshell, as Azi Paybarah explains, "Newman is the Marxist playwright, psychotherapist and alleged "cult leader" who is the supposed brains behind the Independence Party. He's also the man behind Lenora Fulani's presidential campaigns, and it says something about his politics that Fulani was the more electable of the two.
Here's Newman speaking at a Bloomberg campaign event:
The Times story caught my eye, because some New Yorkers here at Kos, myself included, have been speculating whether Bloomberg might attempt to purchase the Independence Party ballot line for his protege, young Harold Ford Jr., who seems headed in that direction:
Harold Ford Is Going to a Castle
Harold Ford will leave Manhattan this week. The next stop on the would-be candidate's Listening Tour is not a 35th-floor hotel bar or legendary midtown restaurant. No—next up, Harold Ford, man of the people, is going to a castle!
Ford—who did make a trek up to Sylvia's over the weekend, in what was almost certainly his first time north of 96th St. (not counting helicopter trips)—is meeting with New York Independence Party leader Frank MacKay at the Long Island home of Gary Melius. Melius' house, by the way, is Oheka Castle, in Huntington. Also known as "a building that stood in for Xanadu in Citizen Kane" and "the inspiration for Jay Gatsby's estate."
It's time we took a closer look at Michael Bloomberg's backscratching relationship with the Independence Party, its wacky leadership, and the very large sums of cash involved. Which is why I'm delighted to see the Manhattan DA doing just that.
All of which brings us to that fascinating story from the Times today. Here's a little more:
The two $600,000 payments were made to the Independence Party’s housekeeping fund, the person with knowledge of the investigation said.
In general, individuals may contribute as much money as they want to the housekeeping funds of state political parties, said a spokesman for the State Board of Elections. Money from the fund can be used for in-house expenses like office supplies and rent, and for general activities to support the party’s candidates, said the spokesman, John W. Conklin. The activities can include things like paying poll monitors or get-out-the-vote workers, Mr. Conklin said.
Parties may not, however, use the housekeeping money to support individual candidates by contributing to a candidate’s campaign fund or providing campaign literature, for example.
The insider said the Independence Party had paid Mr. Haggerty to help with ballot security on Election Day.
Campaign finance experts said the question in this case might be: Why exactly did Mr. Haggerty receive the money?
If Mr. Haggerty was paid $750,000 only for work he did on the Bloomberg campaign, then the payment could be considered a campaign expenditure, experts said. If so, Mr. Bloomberg could be in violation of campaign finance laws because he did not list the payment as an expenditure on his disclosure reports, experts said.
Hey, what's $1.2M between friends?