It’s that time of year when candidates are gearing up for the general primary to be held on April 24 this year. As I “googled” over the list of local primaries, I noticed Eddystone resident Dale Kerns has decided to make another go at trying to get elected. This time around, he wants to run for the office of State Representative for the 159th Legislative District of Pennsylvania. Wow. Big step from the Eddystone Borough Council nomination that he tried to win in last year’s primary. I was curious about what would make Mr. Kerns want to make such a big leap so I took a look at his website.
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http://www.kerns4office.com/default.html
What first struck me was that he is running as a Libertarian candidate. Not a big surprise since he’s had the Ron Paul sign on his lawn since last summer. In case you are not aware, Libertarian candidates are a political faction within the Republican party. They oppose taxes and social program spending. I always picture Ron Paul as their political “Jesus” and the Libertarians as his “disciples”.
Secondly, he states that he lost the primary by “26 votes (less that 1%)”. Actually, he came in 4th out of 6 candidates. There were 3 seats to fill and he lost by 27 votes behind Dave Paterson. There were only 1324 votes total in the whole Borough Council primary with the top 3 candidates averaging 249 votes each . A little deceiving don’t you think? Here is a link to the results if you would like to see for yourself.
http://election.co.delaware.pa.us/eb/May_2011/18M.html
I wonder how Mayor Orr and the rest of Council feel about Mr. Kerns running for State Representative? After all, Mr. Kerns is a big opponent of Mr. Orr’s W.I.N Committee, a non-profit that raises money for the children and families of Eddystone and he is very vocal about his feelings regarding local politicians. In September of 2010, he invited “a small handful of residents” to a meeting at Edgewood Elementary because he wanted to discuss making changes in Eddystone, “away from certain people in town”…meaning the Mayor and Council. He was also associated with Eddystone Residents for Positive Change (ER4PC), a grass roots organization that was created when Camden Iron had planned to move their scrap yard to the old Foamex site from the current Platt Bridge site in Philadelphia. It is not a secret that there is no love lost between the Borough’s administration and ER4PC. Mr. Kerns only left the group to pursue a failed attempt at running for Union Rep in his local union.
The link to his Little Angels Foundation still shows the site membership to ER4PC.
http://www.little-angels-foundation.org/apps/profile/64339944/
Speaking of Little Angels Foundation, I have a few concerns. I do not see it registered on the IRS website as a non-profit charity. Actually, I do not see it listed even as a charity. I am concerned because this was Mr. Kern’s issue with the WIN Committee. I would hope he has learned from others’ mistakes.
A statement on his Facebook page says “Holding an office means I am not part of the problem.” Really? So if the folks in office are not part of the problem, who is? The people?
https://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/kerns4office?sk=info
When starting this blog, one of the things I wanted to accomplish was to expose some of the shenanigans of local politics. Looks like Kerns is staying true to form by being wishy-washy at best. He has proven that he is not electable in small scale elections. What makes him think he will stand a chance in the running for State Rep? Republicans deserve a strong candidate and Dale Kerns is NOT it.