Lenora Fulani - Electoral Politics

Electoral Politics

Fulani became active in the Newman-founded independent New Alliance Party (NAP) and emerged as a spokesperson who often provoked controversy. In 1982 Fulani ran for Lt. Governor of New York on the NAP ticket but was unsuccessful. She has also been involved in the affiliated (or some say, secret) Independent Workers Party, the Rainbow Alliance, and other shifting groups led by Newman.

She helped recruit the NAP's 1984 presidential candidate Dennis L. Serrette, an African-American trade union activist. Although he was quite involved with the party for years, Serrette left and published critical accounts of what he described as its cultic operation.

Fulani ran for President in 1988 as the candidate of the New Alliance Party. She received almost a quarter of a million votes or 0.2% of the vote. She was the first African-American independent and the first female presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. In the 1990 New York Gubernatorial election Fulani ran as a New Alliance candidate. She was endorsed that year by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Fulani received 31,089 votes for 0.77% of the total vote.

Although in 1987 Fulani and Newman began an alliance with minister and activist Al Sharpton, in 1992 he ran for the U.S. Senate from New York as a Democrat rather than as an Independent. Since then, Sharpton has kept his distance from both Fulani and Newman.

Fulani again ran as the New Alliance candidate for President in the 1992 election, this time receiving 0.07% of the vote. She chose former Peace and Freedom Party activist Maria Elizabeth Muñoz as her vice-presidential running mate. Muñoz ran on the NAP ticket for the offices of U.S. Senator and governor in California but was unsuccessful. In 1992 Fulani self-published her autobiography The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992.

In 1994, Fulani and Newman became affiliated with the Patriot Party, one of many groups that later competed for control of the Reform Party, founded by Ross Perot. She also joined with Jacqueline Salit to start the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), formed to bring together independent groups to challenge the bipartisan hegemony in American politics.

During the 2000 election, Fulani surprisingly endorsed Pat Buchanan, then running on the Reform Party ticket. She even served briefly as co-chair of the campaign. Fulani withdrew her endorsement, saying that Buchanan was trying to further his right-wing agenda. Fulani and Newman then endorsed the Presidential candidacy of Natural Law Party leader John Hagelin, a close associate of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Later, Fulani unsuccessfully sought the Vice Presidential nomination at the national convention organized by a faction of the Reform Party.

In the 2001 election for Mayor of New York City, Fulani endorsed the Republican candidate Michael Bloomberg and organized city members of the IP to work for his campaign. Bloomberg, once elected, approved an $8.7 million municipal bond to provide financing for Fulani and Newman to build a new headquarters for their youth program, theater and telemarketing center. The Bloomberg alliance with the Independence Party in part was due to New York's fusion rule, which allowed Bloomberg to aggregate his votes on all ballot lines. The 59,000 votes that Bloomberg received on the Independence Party ballot line exceeded his margin of victory over the Democratic (and Working Families Party) candidate Mark J. Green.

In the municipal election of 2003, Fulani was among those who endorsed Bloomberg's proposed amendment to the New York City Charter to establish non-partisan elections. Although Bloomberg spent $7 million of his own money to promote the amendment, voters rejected it.

In September 2005 the State Executive Committee of the Independence Party of New York dropped Fulani and other members from the New York City chapter. This was part of a fierce power struggle that has brewed between members from upstate and Long Island, and Newman, Fulani, and the New York-based members. The majority of party members were disaffected by the ideology of Newman and Fulani. The party's state chairman, Frank MacKay, a former ally of Fulani, claimed the action followed Fulani's refusal to repudiate an earlier statement which many considered antisemitic. According to the New York Times, "In 1989, Dr. Fulani wrote that the Jews 'had to sell their souls to acquire Israel' and had to 'function as mass murderers of people of color' to stay there." Fulani said she did not intend the statement as antisemitic but wanted to raise issues which she believed needed to be explored. She has since repudiated the remarks, which she characterized as "excessive". She publicly apologized to "any people who had been hurt by them".

Citing the "anti-Semitism" allegations, Independence Party State Chairman Frank MacKay initiated proceedings to have nearly 200 Independence Party members in New York City expelled from the party. Each case MacKay brought to the New York State Supreme Court was dismissed. In one instance, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman wrote that the charges were "more political than philosophical."

Fulani formed a coalition to organize Independence Party support for the re-election campaign of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The local press described the coalition as composed of "union officials, clergy, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, district leaders and others who work at the grassroots level." Spirited defenses of Fulani have appeared in the city's black press; writing in the Amsterdam News, columnist Richard Carter wrote "there is little doubt that the main reason for the negative press, which, by the way, is not unusual for this brilliant, outspoken political strategist, is because she is a strong, no-nonsense Black woman. So strong she makes the city’s political establishment and lockstep white news media nervous."