Andrew Cuomo, his gubernatorial campaign now rolling full blast, has picked up the backing of the Inde pendence Party, which gives him an important extra line on the November ballot.
That’s a political boost for Cuomo — but also something of an embarrassment.
After all, the party is caught up in a grand-jury investigation by Manhattan DA Cy Vance — and Attorney General Cuomo is the state’s top law-enforcement officer.
Not to mention that he’s running as the candidate of reform, having pledged to clean up Albany’s systemic corruption.
That’s a platform the Independents also have claimed — though their backing of Cuomo surely owes at least as much to their hope of preserving their status as the state’s third-largest party.
Or, as party chairman Frank McKay crowed: “We’re proud to hold his coat on the way to the governor’s mansion.”
But what will Cuomo do about the Working Families Party?
For now, he’s being coy (a hallmark of his campaign so far) about whether he’ll also run on the WFP line.
But Working Families — unlike the Independence Party — isn’t a political party at all; it’s a clearinghouse through which elected officials are bought and sold by New York’s public-employee unions.
The very same unions that are the antithesis of genuine reform — and thus no governor who is beholden in any way to the WFP can ever hope to drain the Albany swamp.
Besides which, the WFP and its ethically dubious corporate arm, Data & Field Services, are themselves under investigation by the Manhattan US attorney’s office.
True, Cuomo draws a distinction between the Independence Party’s legal problems and those of the WFP — asserting that the former is itself not the subject of the DA’s probe (though The Wall Street Journal reports that Vance may yet bring charges against the organization).
In point of fact, there are substantial differences between the two — not the least being that the WFP exists solely to do the bidding of its paymasters, the unions.
Without Andrew Cuomo — who hardly needs either line, given his standing in the polls — the WFP will be hard-pressed to find a standard-bearer capable of winning the 50,000 votes needed to retain its permanent ballot line.
Which is why the party reportedly is looking for either a big-name placeholder, or a minority candidate to attract voters upset with Cuomo’s having chosen a white running mate.
If neither tack works, that likely would be the end of the party — a useful first step toward cleaning up Albany.
But only if Andrew Cuomo turns his back on the WFP.