FromLoHud.com (New York’s Lower Hudson Valley):
Tags: Election, Independents, McCainThe state Independence Party endorsed Republican John McCain on Saturday, the first time New York’s third-largest party has backed a major-party presidential candidate.
The group, organized around the principle that the major parties have a stranglehold on American politics, sees McCain as an independent thinker, Chairman Frank MacKay said.
“I believe he will not take the traditional input from the party bosses and the special interests that other presidents have. I believe he’s going to be his own man,” MacKay said, citing McCain’s work as co-author of a landmark 2002 law that restricted “soft money,” or indirect campaign donations.
MacKay said the party had long admired McCain, who has emphasized his reputation as a party-bucking maverick and striven to present himself as a reformer on the campaign trail.
