Conservatives are 5th party to endorse liberal Bradley for White Plains mayor
[b]BY KEITH EDDINGS • [url=mailto:keddings@lohud.com]KEDDINGS@LOHUD.COM[/url] • JUNE 17, 2009[/b] WHITE PLAINS - Democrat Adam Bradley has built a record as one of New York's most liberal legislators during his eight years in the Assembly, where he has helped lead the charge from the left on issues that include gay marriage, abortion rights and gun control.
So what do local Conservatives do when he runs for mayor of White Plains?
Endorse him.
Bradley received the Conservative City Committee endorsement last week, a day or so after getting an endorsement from the Working[url=http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009906170371#]F[/url]amiles Party at the other end of the ideological spectrum. He's also rounded up the Republican line on the ballot, along with the Democratic and Independence lines.
Bradley's endorsement binge leaves no room on the ballot in November for other candidates, except those who form their own parties. One independent is trying, but his run will be uphill and steep: In the last mayoral race, in 2005, the five parties Bradley has lined up accounted for 100 percent of the votes.
Bradley said piling up endorsements across the spectrum shows he can "bring all the different factions of our great city together."
He said social wedge issues like abortion that drive races in Washington and the state capitals don't count much in city halls, where services, not ideology, matter most.
"I'm not running for Assembly, I'm not running for Congress, I'm not running for a position that has a major say on the social fabric of this country," Bradley said about the nod he received from the Conservatives. "Clearly, if I was, it would be very different for the Conservative Party and myself because of these profound social differences. However, when it comes to fiscal policy and making sure we have good city services, that our schools are operating well, those kinds of things, we all share the same concerns."
The leadership of the state Conservative Committee, which breathes party doctrine, disagreed.
The state committee has no say in whom local Conservatives endorse in municipal races.
"We absolutely frown on people being on the Conservative and Working Families lines," said Shaun Marie, the committee's executive director. "You can't respond to both philosophies. It's disingenuous. When voters see you on the Working Families line, they think you're going to represent what Working Families does. If they see you on the Conservative line, they think you'll represent Conservatives. How can you?"
White Plains Conservative leader Eleanor McDonald said the decision to endorse Bradley began taking shape when he called her to ask whether she would remain on a citizens committee that advises the mayor and Common Council on budget issues.
She acknowledged that Bradley is a strange bedfellow for Conservatives but said the race was about taxes and spending, not gay marriage.
"His social views are not in line with ours," she said. "They're left. We're right. (But) in this city of White Plains, we have serious fiscal problems. He's assured me he's aware of the budget problems."
Glen Hockley, a Democratic councilman running as an independent for mayor, said the major parties can keep their endorsements. His fate in his own party was sealed last year when his effort to take over the Democratic City Committee fizzled.
"At this point, I don't have any use for any political party because they don't stand for anything," said Hockley, who had sought the Conservative and Working Families endorsements for his mayoral campaign and may have sought the Republican line. City GOP leader Brian Maloney said Hockley asked for it over lunch at a downtown restaurant; Hockley said he wasn't aware the lunch was an endorsement interview.
"They've made deals," Hockley said of the parties. "There's no doubt about it."
