Albany mayoral candidate Dan Cerutti speaks during a debate on April 30 at CBS 6 in Niskayuna. Cerutti has been criticized for once being enrolled as a Republican.

Dan Cerutti, currently a candidate for Albany mayor in the upcoming Democratic primary, was once a Republican. Shocking, I know.

If you believe some of the folks supporting Dorcey Applyrs, also a mayoral candidate and the city’s auditor, that is a very important fact about Cerutti that every voter should never forget. The suggestion is that Cerutti can’t be trusted. He’s one of them!

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Applyrs herself has accused Cerutti of using “Republican rhetoric,” and her campaign says he has donors who may also be, you guessed it, Republicans. Meanwhile, a recent anti-Cerutti attack mailer declares that “our city needs a real Albany Democrat,” not a “Texas Republican backed by billionaires.”

That mailer was paid for by the Working Families Party, whose members are… not Democrats. Sound the irony alarm.

Cerutti’s self-described political history is somewhat confusing. He has said, for example, that during the 1980s, while living in Texas, he was “a Reagan Democrat.” But he also says he has never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, which would seem to suggest that he was, in truth, a Mondale........

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