Westchester power broker Giulio Cavallo plays politics as a blood sport

Even in a land without a king, there is need for a kingmaker.

In Westchester County, he goes by the name Giulio Cavallo.

The leader of the Westchester Independence Party is courted by Republicans and Democrats alike. Republicans need Cavallo's Independence Party line because Democrats outnumber them; Democrats need the party to blunt the Republicans.

For his part, the Yonkers resident and longtime political power broker sees himself answering to a higher authority.

"I see myself as the archangel with the sword, and saying to myself, 'Hey, listen, I've got to pick the best person here because I don't want anything to be screwed up,' " Cavallo said in a rare, recent interview.

Cavallo, 56, a trained physician, takes credit for the 2009 victory of Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican, over incumbent Democrat Andrew Spano. He takes credit for Spano's election in 2005. And despite his antipathy toward her now, he takes credit for District Attorney Janet DiFiore's 2005 election.

Yet he holds those in politics with disdain, saying he thinks 90 percent of those involved in politics are "knuckleheads" or "cuckoo."

"And I don't trust none of them," the party chief said as an exclamation point.

Nevertheless, some 20 calls a day, sometimes more, are from political figures inviting him to functions or looking for favors. In a 90-minute interview with Newsday, his two cellphones buzzed half a dozen times.

"I see myself as a civic-minded leader," he said.

'NOBODY'S GOING TO TAKE ME OUT'

Overall, the Independence Party has 22,132 registered members in Westchester County, according to the Board of Elections. That makes it the third-largest party behind the Democrats, with 250,232 registered voters, and the Republicans, with 132,460 voters.

New York is one of only six states that allows third parties to cross-endorse and run candidates from a major party on their line, drawing voters on Election Day who don't want to be affiliated with the Democrats or Republicans. Over the years, Cavallo has supported candidates from both major parties.

Cavallo, a heavyset man with white, cropped hair, a salt-and-pepper goatee and perfectly manicured hands, is a throwback to the machine days of politics, when the sausage making of democracy played out in smoky backrooms with bareknuckled, gravelly voiced men issuing decrees rather than trying to build consensus.

In the 22 years he has run the Independence Party, a few have stepped up to challenge his leadership. They have all failed, he casually noted.

"I'm too powerful in my own party," said Cavallo as he sat in a room at an Independence Party lawyer's office in White Plains.

Wearing a two-tone blue suit with a powder blue paisley pattern tie and a pink dress shirt, Cavallo matter-of-factly said his leadership position is unassailable.

"Nobody's going to take me out," he said. "I always laugh at people who say they want to go after me to become the party leader."

FREELY CONTRADICTS HIMSELF

His political enemies describe him as a bully who uses his party's leverage to get government jobs for himself and his friends -- a charge Cavallo denies.

"It's been a festering wound for years," said Michael Edelman, a longtime Republican strategist in Westchester County.

"He and these other leaders of small third parties demand favors and they demand jobs, whether it's Cavallo or any of them," Edelman said. "It's a form of political extortion."

While some in positions of power are particular about what they say, Cavallo frequently speaks off the cuff and ends up contradicting himself freely.

He refers to his party's endorsement as coming from him. Then in the next breath he talks about the endorsements as the choice of the party's executive committee, which he said numbers 50, sometimes 20, sometimes 30.

Cavallo said he would like to groom someone to take over the party from him. Then a few minutes later, he talks of the addictive nature of politics.

"You know how politics is," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "It gets into your blood."

GOT 'SUCKED INTO' POLITICS

Cavallo grew up on the streets of the Bronx, the youngest of four sons born to a truck mechanic from Brooklyn and his stay-at-home wife.

He had a traditional Italian upbringing rooted in the Catholic Church. Cavallo was an altar boy and attended Immaculate Conception grammar school in the Bronx, where he met Carmela, who years later became his wife. "I used to pull her hair all the time when we'd walk home," he recalled.

In 1972, Cavallo's father moved the family to Yonkers. Giulio Cavallo went on to study medicine in Italy and practiced there for a few years.

It was only when he moved back to New York in the late 1980s that he got drawn into politics.

A Yonkers city councilman was building a garage -- "a monstrosity," Cavallo called it -- next door to the family home. Cavallo called another councilman, Henry Spallone, who at the time was interested in running for mayor and asked for his help.

Spallone obliged. Then Spallone, knowing Cavallo was a physician and had doctor pals, asked him to help raise money.

"I actually raised more money than the Republican Party in Yonkers," Cavallo said unabashedly.

It was evident that Westchester politics had a new player.

Spallone appointed Cavallo head of the Yonkers planning commission after becoming mayor. Then when Ross Perot tried to start a third-party alternative, Cavallo took over its nascent Westchester branch.

"It all had to do with someone building a garage," Cavallo said, "and I got sucked into it."

Still, Cavallo paints himself as the everyday man: A Mets and football Giants fan, a fishing enthusiast, and an equally avid golfer until he hurt his rotator cuff.

While he rubs elbows with politicians daily, he doesn't count any of them as his friends. Childhood pals, college buddies, and medical colleagues are his friends, Cavallo said.

"All these political people, I would never invite them to my house because I don't feel like disinfecting the house after they come in," he said.

DENIES TRADE-OFFS FOR POLITICAL SUPPORT

Politics is very much a blood sport for Cavallo, who says he's a trained physician specializing in kidney care, though according to state records, he does not have a license to practice in New York.

He has feuded openly with DiFiore and has not spoken to Astorino since the county executive was elected in 2009 because Astorino didn't take Cavallo's recommendations when making political appointments.

"There's nothing for me to speak to him about if he's not going to listen to who I recommend," Cavallo said. "I believe that if I help you, I should get the first crack at any position."

When pressed, however, Cavallo said no one from the Independence Party has ever gotten a state job as a trade-off for political support.

Astorino's campaign manager, Bill O'Reilly, like most political figures contacted for this story, treaded lightly when asked about Cavallo.

"We were grateful for Giulio Cavallo's support," O'Reilly said of the 2009 endorsement. "We will seek it again (next year) but with the same caveat it's not going to be a political quid pro quo."

When asked whether Cavallo had pressed for political appointments in exchange for an endorsement, O'Reilly said, "We prefer to keep those conversations private."

The feud between Cavallo and DiFiore began after she won in 2005 as a Republican with the Independence Party backing. After her election, she switched to the Democrats and lost the Independence Party support in 2009.

Then earlier this year, it was revealed that the vice chairman of the Independence Party and Cavallo's chief ally, Dhyalma Vazquez, who also works for the county's Department of Social Services, had initiated an investigation into welfare benefits received by DiFiore's housekeeper.

When asked about the investigation, Cavallo brushed DiFiore off as unqualified to be district attorney.

A spokesman for DiFiore declined to comment on Cavallo.

WIELDING POWER FROM THE THRONE

Cavallo said he lives his life with no regrets and would make no changes if he could.

From his seat on the throne of the Independence Party, he holds court with established politicians as well as candidate hopefuls.

Everyone in politics is someone Cavallo has met, dined with or schmoozed with at an event. In one conversation, names like Hillary Clinton (who Cavallo said deserves to be president) and Michael Bloomberg (whose public health policies the doctor applauds) roll off his tongue.

Cavallo also drops the names of political figures he's either battled or helped, from former U.S. Sen. Al D'Amato to ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

He sued D'Amato, a major power holder in the GOP, for alleged First Amendment violations after, Cavallo said he tried to strong-arm him in 2008 into breaking ties with controversial newspaper publisher Sam Zherka and back a bid for re-election by DiFiore.

"Never," Cavallo said he responded to D'Amato's push. D'Amato declined to be interviewed for this story.

Cavallo's federal lawsuit was later dismissed.

"I'm not going to be bullied," Cavallo said. "That's one thing my father gave me in my genes, he gave me a lot of testosterone."

Though Cavallo can, at times, be startlingly straightforward with his answers, he on occasion can be equally as vague.

He is vague when asked where he derives his income. He said he earns money from various boards he sits on and from an unidentified, out-of-state medical practice of which he's a part owner. Cavallo has acknowledged that in the past, he has held state political office jobs, serving in some capacity at one time with Democratic state Sen. John Sampson and another time in some part-time role with then-Republican state Sen. Serphin Maltese.

How does he juggle it all?

"I do," he said with a laugh. "That's why I'm Cavallo."