Democrat loses confidence in party

To the editor:

I have been a Democrat all my voting life.

Does that mean I only vote Democratic? 

Heck no.

We haven’t had much to vote for in primary elections, so naturally if I am going to vote and for my vote to mean something, I voted in contested Republican primaries. My wife Kelly has done the same thing.

She had finally got the nerve to run for Dunkirk clerk-treasurer at the urging of several Dunkirk residents. Imagine our surprise when her candidacy was challenged by her own party chairman, Randy Mann.

She had inadvertently checked the wrong box when she filed. She admitted to this mistake.

Now, I believe a “good” party chairman would review all of his candidate’s filings before the deadline and notify them if corrections are needed so that they could be amended. Instead, the Democrat Party chairman suggested it was the Jay Circuit Court clerk’s job to police this. He also made a statement that according to some law, he had to support the incumbent Dunkirk clerk-treasurer. Circuit court clerk Jon Eads stated that there is no such law; it must be a “party” thing.

The disturbing factor in all of this was the fact that two other Democrat candidates did the exact same thing and were not challenged. The party chairman knew this and chose not to challenge their candidacies.

Thus, for some reason, my wife Kelly was singled out. I hope it doesn’t dampen her spirits about running again for a job I knew she would excel in. I also hope that she wasn’t singled out for something I did that upset the party.

As for the party, I have lost all faith in it. We finally get people to run for positions that nobody wanted and actually have a Democrat primary, and you challenge one of your own. I guess I will continue to vote Republican in the primary elections, as I cannot support this behavior by the Democrats.

By the way, it was Kelly, as a Democrat Dunkirk precinct committee person, who appointed the current clerk to her position. How ironic.

Dan Watson

Dunkirk