March 29, 2024

Claiming GOP not enough

In response to the article about former State Rep. Dan Kelley facing a campaign finance ethics probe, I have a few thoughts:

I know that for the past two years after losing in the primary, he has been giving many in the local Democratic Party fits and seems to be forever ingrained in their heads. I would like to point out that Mr. Kelley is a monster of the Democrats’ own making. If they had chosen more wisely in 2010 and not selected him as their candidate, and then blindly elected and re-elected him for a total of six years, he wouldn’t have the platform, connections or notoriety to continue his bizarre and completely unhinged version of the politics of personal destruction.

Secondly, I have been an active member of the Jasper County Republican Party for 34-plus years, and I openly object to Mr. Kelley’s claim to be a Republican merely because of his voter registration status. This is a man who, in 2016, was quoted as saying, “I’m a lifelong Democrat, because of what Democrats stand for, and I will vote for Democrats up and down the ticket. ...What’s more, these same people (Democrat party bosses) have taken the local (Democrat) party too far to the right. ...If I am re-elected, I will do as I have always done — proudly serve as a Democrat.”

He is no more a Republican than I am a trapeze artist. Instead, he is a political opportunist who is trying desperately to weasel his way back to a position of power and relevance in the only way he can since he has burned his bridges with the Democrats.

I wholeheartedly reject him as a fake Republican and his self-serving craziness, and I encourage other levelheaded people to do the same.
 Sincerely,

Brian D. Briles

Monroe