In her extensive daily political round-up at the NY Daily News, Elizabeth Benjamin notes on April 15, 2009: “Former Liberal Party boss Ray Harding will surrender today to face charges in the pay-to-play state pension fund scheme for which David Loglisci and Hank Morris were already indicted”
The Liberal Party was a ballot-qualified political party in New York State, which ran Governor candidates from the 1940’s until 2002, when their candidate for Governor was Andrew Cuomo (now NY Attorney General), who declined to run all out when he lost the Democratic nomination. Since the Liberal Party did not run a candidate for Governor candidate in 2006, they do not have “enrollees” and are not ballot qualified. Though, they are still operating in some manner, with a Chairman and a web-site with current posts.
The Village Voice has an extensive story about the chain of events which led to the indictment of Ray Harding: here. Ray Harding has not been the Chairman of the Liberal Party for many years.
neoliberals have no morals, that’s why they’re always involved in scandal. they have no princples. they just crave power and money.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/nyregion/16indict.html
Since they lost ballot status, the Liberal Party has only been able to qualify a few candidates for the ballot through petition. The only ones I know about are Michael Bloomberg for Mayor in 2005 – he paid for the petition drive – and several Republican or Independence Party candidates for City Council in 2005 that were allied with Bloomberg.
Of course they are still around. Here is their website: http://www.liberalparty.org/
Ray Harding was a close ally of Rudy Giuliani, and ensured Rudy the Liberal Party line in his three campaigns for Mayor.
Giuliani’s endorsement of Governor Mario Cuomo’s re-election bid in 1994 was probably a pay-off to Harding and the Liberal Party.
Wow, I had no idea they were still around at all.