Len Bernardo, the self-styled Godfather, Chairman of the fraudulent Independence Party of Ulster County.

Thanks to an alert commenter, I read this article in today’s New York Daily News: In his Albany clean-up, Gov. Cuomo has to take on fraudulent Independence Party, from which I reproduce below a few paragraphs:

New York’s political class operates in a culture in which everything is for sale, be it a vote on legislation, placement on a party’s ballot line or formulas for distributing state aid.

Up to a point, Cuomo is correct that felons will be felons. But, leading by example, the governor can also attack the quid pro quo culture that fertilizes them. He can take as his starting point the outright fraud of the Independence Party.

This editorial page revealed in December that party membership rolls are filled by thousands of unwitting voters: people who had intended to register as independents but fell instead under the Independence umbrella.

The party’s leadership… members of a bizarre, cultlike group, have traded on this mass public error to wield undeserved influence over elections. They have opened their ballot lines to politicians… and have reaped the rewards of substantial financial support.

As governor, Cuomo has the power to restore the integrity of the ballot as far as the Independence Party is concerned, because the law grants standing to a party only if its gubernatorial candidate pulls in 50,000 votes. Cuomo must put Independence leaders on notice that he will not be the candidate of a party that is built on voter confusion .

Meantime, Cuomo should do what he can: brand Independence Party leaders pariahs until they stop duping voters as a strategy for exercising illegitimate political power.

I’m not saying that politics in Ulster County were ever immaculate, but – since Bernardo crawled on stage – the dirty, dirty deals are nowadays the norm.

– Jon Dogar-Marinesco