NEW YORK — It's a case that smacks of small-time corruption, with allegations of cash payoffs in parked cars. But the charges a Democratic state senator schemed to bribe his way into the GOP race for New York City mayor are playing out on a big political stage.
The case has already created political quicksand for Republicans just as the mayoral race is heating up and might have a second act in Albany, where the investigation is reviving corruption as a hot-button concern after Gov. Andrew Cuomo campaigned on pledges to rout it out.
