Mayor Is ‘Proud’ To Stand With Fulani

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Mayor Bloomberg, whose re-election strategy may include landing an endorsement from the city’s Independence Party, is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the party’s Fifth Annual Anti-Corruption Awards dinner Monday night, said a spokeswoman for the party, Jackie Salit.


While the event itself isn’t controversial – it honors New Yorkers who fight political corruption – Mr. Bloomberg’s ties to the party’s leader, Lenora Fulani, have been, because Ms. Fulani and a small group of activists around her have been political lightning rods for years.


Ms. Fulani was one of the leaders of the radical New Alliance Party. which was accused by the Anti-Defamation League of “Jew baiting.” She and others associated with New Alliance later tried to move to the mainstream by taking leading roles in the Independence Party, which began as an offshoot of Ross Perot’s 1992 presidential run. After the September 11 attacks, however, Ms. Fulani suggested America had asked for the terrorist onslaught. During the campaign, Mr. Bloomberg denounced Ms. Fulani but invited her to City Hall for a meeting on education and appointed the Independence Party’s lawyer to a city commission soon after his election.


Mr. Bloomberg won in 2001 with the help of Ms. Fulani’s party. It endorsed him and he garnered 50,000 votes on their ballot line. That was his margin of victory over opponent Mark Green. The Independence Party endorsed the mayor on his support for nonpartisan elections and has backed him with regard to changes in campaign-finance rules.


“The Independence Party recognized long ago that our political system needs real reform, and the mayor is proud to stand with them,” the mayor’s spokesman, Ed Skyler said.


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