Organ Failure

In the rough and tumble world of state politics, when a candidate implodes, is destroyed by a scandal, or actually dies, the party mechanism doesn't grieve long for the individual before setting about retaining or taking power.

When Derek Jerome, a Bristol Republican running for a state House seat against incumbent Democrat Frank Nicastro committed suicide, it was a terrible and sad tragedy. However, according to campaign rules, since Jerome died, Republicans will be allowed to fill the slot with a replacement candidate. This candidate certainly doesn't have a lot of time to work in, but at least they have a ballot slot.

However, when Colebrook Democratic State Representative George Wilber resigned his seat and withdrew from his race for reelection after it was revealed he paid $100,000 to keep a woman silent who was accusing him of sexually molesting her when she was a child, Democrats are unable to fill the seat with another candidate. They do however, have a write-in candidate, but this will likely result in a seat being picked up by the GOP.

You see, George Wilber is asserting that his health concerns, which have alternately been described as liver failure and kidney failure, are the true cause of his withdrawal. We are expected to believe that the revelations about hush money to cover up a sex assault accusation days before his resignation is merely coincidental.

House Democratic leadership have already demonstrated themselves to be pretty inhuman, in that they were aware of the accusations against Wilber and the settlement for four years before the news broke. They did nothing and said nothing so they could retain the seat.

Now that they are about to lose it, I am sure there are a number of them inhuman enough to wish that Wilber had the courtsey of dying instead of simply withdrawing. At least then they could field a candidate. That seems to be the most important thing to them in this whole mess anyway.