Independence Party Endorses Candidates, But Many Keep Their Distance

NY1/June 3, 2006
By Rita Nissan

The Independence Party handed out its endorsements in the state's key races Saturday, but some candidates are still keeping their distance from the controversial group. NY1's Rita Nissan filed this report from Albany.

Senator Hillary Clinton won the backing of the state Independence Party, but sources say she never planned on going to the convention to accept the nod because she didn't want to be pictured near the woman sitting in the second row, Lenora Fulani, an Independence Party activist.

Fulani has a controversial past, with ties to an alleged cult. That's why Clinton says she didn't accept the party's line in 2000 when Fulani had a leadership role.

Fulani was still in power two years later when Eliot Spitzer accepted the line as a candidate for attorney general. He claims he wasn't focused on Fulani's history.

"I honestly don't remember what that dynamic was," he says. "We were offered, the party came to me and said they would be proud to have me on their line, and I accepted their party's nomination."

That changed when Fulani's appearance last year on NY1 made headlines. She refused to denounce inflammatory comments about Jews.

That created an uproar, and Spitzer said he would not accept the line unless Fulani was stripped of her position. That happened last year, so Spitzer accepted the endorsement in his campaign for governor.

"When we focused on the issue last year or whatever it may have been, I said very clearly I won't take this line in '06 unless she has been removed, and she has been," he said.

Fulani and her allies still control about 16% of the party. They abstained from voting at the convention in protest of Chairman Frank MacKay's efforts to sideline them.

"People are very concerned about MacKay's corruption and the direction in which he's taking the party, so what I'm going to do and what the people who work with me are going to do is to respond to that by continuing to fight for the heart of the party," said Fulani.

"We're going to fight any time there's anything, whether it's anti-Semitism, or prejudice against folks who believe in anything," said MacKay. "Cults are not going to be acceptable in our party."

Fulani says she will work to help elect the candidates who won the endorsements, even though they've made it clear they want nothing to do with her.