Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mike Howell and I am a councilman from Howell Township. Deputy Mayor Bob Walsh and I attended a portion of the republican county convention at Brookdale College this past Saturday. I say we attended a portion because we were refused entry to the main room until Mary Pat was halfway through her speech and then, we were ushered through the cafeteria and allowed to sit in a doorway for the remainder of the speeches.
For those of you who are not familiar with either Bob or myself, let me give you a bit of background. We are both elected officials from Howell Township as I stated earlier. Bob won an election in November of 2005 to fill the unexpired term of our mayor Joe DiBella and then ran again this past November with myself and our running mate Angela Dalton. We swept the election by a 58%-42% margin with the closest vote getter about 1800 votes behind us. Funny thing about it is this; Bob and I are both registered republicans. We ran as independents because we were disenchanted with the local Republican Party, not the membership, but by its goals and its perceived secrecy.
We attended the convention not to cause a scene, but rather, to become knowledgeable about the candidates that the party was putting forth. We did this for one basic reason; There will come a time in the very near future when the people who overwhelmingly supported our campaign will ask us who we feel will do the best job for Howell at the county level. At this point all I can tell them is how we were treated as elected republican officials of their township at the convention. Not a very stellar endorsement.
Again, we may have run as independents, but we are registered republicans, we are elected officials and we were victorious over the county endorsed republican ticket just 5 months ago. If I didn't feel disenfranchised by the local and county party before, I sure do now.
Councilman Mike Howell
howellmj@optonline.net
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5 comments:
This guy shouldn't be allowed in the bldg. If you ran against Republicans, then you're not a Republican.
Using that logic, EVERYONE who runs in a primary election isn't really a republican either?
Are you a Republican county commiteeman?
Are you an elected Republican official? (Elected as an independent)
The answer to both is no so you had no business being at the Republican convention.
They should definetly be courted back, but that has nothing to do with a meeting of elected county committeemen. That is who this meeting was for.
The problem is that whatever wounds or hurt feelings there were from Mr. Howell's run as an independent in November should have been healed before Saturday so that thsi incident never plays out the way it did. Frankly, Mr. Howell who is an elected independent and non-committee member had no special right to be allowed in. However, the rift that kept him out should have been resolved already and this should not have become an issue.
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