New York: Hillary has her way with Frank MacKay

AP writer Marc Humbert covered the New York Working Families Party and the Independence Party conventions yesterday. He correctly points out that WFP has been "regularly aligned with Democrats, the Independence Party has a history of more, in a word, independence," He goes on to report on Hillary Clinton's request to get rid of Lenora Fulani and Frank MacKay's granting of that request:

In recent months, however, the party's state chairman, Frank MacKay, has been purging Fulani and her forces from the organization, and Clinton decided to seek the nomination this time..... [more]

Elizabeth Benjamin reports for the Albany Times Union and noted the abstentions by Fulani forces at the convention both in her article and on her blog directly from the convention floor:

Jessie Fields, an Independence Party member from Manhattan, who, along with a number of others, is abstaining from the vote in protest of state Chair Frank MacKay’s efforts to sideline the party’s most controversial member - Lenora Fulani.
Fields, who received cheers and applause, alleged this was done specifically at the request of “persons who are not party members.” By this, it’s pretty obvious she meant Spitzer and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, who made it clear they would not accept the Independence Party line if Fulani continued to hold a leadership role, due to anti-Semitic remarks she made years ago and has since refused to repudiate.
Fields said MacKay and his supporters “threatened public office candidates, including Jeanine Pirro and William Weld, that they had no chance of running on the Independence Party line if they communicated with leaders of the Independence Party in New York City.”

Read more about the fight for independence in the Independence Party...