GOP Rips Matthews in Letter

Peggy Gibbons take on the Clement/Sander Letter:

DEFEATED ROW OFFICE CANDIDATES
ACCUSE CHAIRMAN OF BETRAYING THEM By MARGARET GIBBONS, For The Reporter

Two defeated Republican Montgomery County row office candidates in last year’s elections have accused county Commissioners Chairman James R. Matthews of betraying them and the bonds that they share as veterans of the U.S. armed services.

Matthews, a Republican and a U.S. Navy veteran, reneged on an alleged commitment to the pair to jointly reach out to the county’s 60,000-plus veterans to bolster their candidacies, according to a letter sent out this week by Robert J. Sander and Dr. Gordon S. Clement to GOP committee members.

Sander, a county prosecutor and a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps, lost his bid to become county controller by 4,818 votes.

Democrat Diane Morgan received 76,490 votes (51.62 percent0 to Sander’s 71,672 votes (48.27 percent).

Clement, a retired U.S. Air Force Reserve officer, was edged by Democrat Dr. Walter I. Hofman in their battle for county coroner, with Hofman winning 74,777 votes (50.17 percent) to Clement’s 74,240 votes (49.81 percent).

The pair was among the five Republican row office candidates to suffer unprecedented defeats by Democrats at the same time as the head of the GOP ticket, commissioner candidates Matthews and Bruce L. Castor Jr., won election.

In the letter, Clement and Sander said the entire GOP slate of candidates had agreed to run as a team.

Also, realizing the importance of the county’s veterans’ votes, the pair said they met with Matthews and planned a strategy to reach out together to veterans “with whom we all shared a natural bond based on our military service.”

The pair subsequently learned in September that Matthews had done extensive outreach and mailings to veterans that excluded both Sander and Clement.

“Jim made a pledge to us personally (not Bruce and not the team) that we would work on this area together,” Sander and Clement state in their letter. “Jim broke his word to both of us.”

Matthews declined comment, explaining he had not yet seen the letter.

Sander said the three-page letter sent out by Clement and himself was designed to “clear up some false statements and untruths” allegedly contained in a letter that Matthews sent out to the GOP foot soldiers early this month to explain his unprecedented power-sharing pact with Democratic Commissioner Joseph M. Hoeffel III.

That arrangement resulted in Hoeffel serving as vice chairman of the commissioners, a position never previously held by Democrats, in exchange for Hoeffel’s vote to make Matthews chairman of the three-member board.

As a result of this arrangement, Castor is the odd man out even though his party won the two majority seats on the board.

Matthews, in his letter, attributes the defeat of five of the party’s nine row candidates to them blindly following Castor, who was at odds with the party’s leadership, and spurn the assistance of the county GOP organization in their elections.

Sander and Clement said that each of the row office candidates made contributions to the county GOP and attended party events but that the entire slate, including Matthews, had believed it was better for them all to campaign as one united group.

No one worked harder to elect the entire team, including teammate Matthews, than Castor, the two said in their letter.

Castor, the former district attorney, raised money in behalf of the entire team, included the entire slate at events, sponsored a unity building summer picnic, designed and funded campaign materials and honored requests by individual candidates to speak in their behalf at various functions, according to the letter.

Asked why the other three defeated candidates did not sign off on the letter, Sander explained that they were never asked because the three and/or their supporters still hold positions in the county and could be retaliated against by Matthews.

“This letter is our attempt to clear the air by addressing falsehoods and then putting this entire matter behind us,” said Sander.