It took a Democrat with the crust of Congressman Rangel to remind New Yorkers yesterday that Mayor Bloomberg’s crusade to diminish political parties springs, for all its high-minded tone of good government, from an old-fashioned, partisan political deal — one in which the mayor sought and got the endorsement of one of the least responsible demagogues in our politics. The congressmen, our Benj. Smith reports at page one, had stopped by the steps of City Hall to endorse Councilman Bill Perkins’ re-election in November. He was asked his views on non-partisan elections. “The only person that I truly know that supports Mayor Bloomberg’s position is Lenora Fulani,” the congressman responded.

The congressman was referring to the fact that when Mr. Bloomberg was running for mayor, he chose to seek the endorsement of the Independence Party, an eccentric spin-off of Ross Perot’s presidential campaign, which is now controlled by a small cabal that includes Ms. Fulani. She and her allies, once known for their Marxist politics and for dabbling in anti-Semitism, have sought to move into the mainstream by focusing on apparently unobjectionable issues of process. The current plan to establish “non-partisan elections” is one of those issues. In the version outlined by the staff of the Charter Revision Commission, candidates of all parties would face off in a general “primary,” and the first two would proceed to a run-off on the first Tuesday in November.

Mr. Bloomberg won the Independence Party’s endorsement by promising to put non-partisan elections to a referendum, and that is all right as far as it goes. Indeed, that is how the party system is supposed to work. His willingness to barter a bit of his integrity for the “Independence” ballot line is common among New York politicians on both parties, and since his victory he has rewarded the party with the usual rewards of party politics: Money and patronage, in the forms of a personal donation to an arts group linked to the Independence Party and an appointment to a mayoral commission. Ms. Fulani has lately been praising Mr. Bloomberg as “an elected official who fulfills his campaign promise.”

This clearly doesn’t sit with Mr. Rangel, who said yesterday that the mayor has “a lot of explaining to do as to why people who have been so supportive of him and his administration were completely ig nored and he would go to someone like Miss Fulani to guide what’s left of his political career.” It was a devastating remark. Mr. Bloomberg isn’t much of a Republican, and the Independence Party isn’t much of a party. But both the GOP and the Democrats have great traditions in this country, and a mayor who has spent less than two years in public life looks ridiculous trying to wipe them off the ballot after a deal to win the endorsement of the least attractive party in town.