TERRE HAUTE — A fight among the leadership of the Vigo County Democratic Party got a new twist this week when embattled party secretary Mike Ellis formed the “FDR Democrat Club.”
Ellis ran a full-page ad in Wednesday’s Tribune-Star announcing the new club promising a “new deal” for “independent Democrats” in Vigo County.
“We won’t turn anyone away who wants to have a voice,” Ellis said. “It’s kind of a club where everyone can be an insider into local politics.”
Ellis said he timed the ad to appear after Tuesday’s meeting of Democratic Party precinct committeemen that was supposed to determine his future in the party leadership.
Ellis expected to be ousted from his post at that meeting, he said.
“I anticipated that they would violate the [party] rules and throw me out and [the new club] would be an opportunity to move forward,” Ellis said.
Chris Gambill, a party precinct committeeman who is leading the effort to remove Ellis, said “well above 75 percent” of the 116 party officials at Tuesday night’s meeting were prepared to vote against Ellis.
Ellis believes about 80 committeemen and vice committeemen at the meeting were going to vote against him. But, he said, 20 of the voters were “people that we had never heard of before” and he questioned whether their votes would be legitimate.
As it turned out, party chairman Joe Etling called off the meeting and said he will ask the state party leadership to decide Ellis’ case.
The effort to remove Ellis stems from an accusation that he openly supported Republicans in two recent local elections, a charge Ellis denies.
Gambill, while wanting Ellis out of the party leadership, said he supports Ellis’ effort to form his new club.
“I think it’s the perfect thing for him to do,” Gambill said. “If he wants to be sort of a gadfly on behalf of candidates of his choice … whether [they] be Republican or Democrat or Independent, have at it.”
Party chairman Joe Etling and other Democratic Party leaders could not be reached for comment Wednesday regarding Ellis’ new club, but one former Democratic Party elected official said he was the first to join.
“We need a change and it has to be now,” said Joe Duby, a former Terre Haute city councilman. The current party leadership has divided the party, Duby said. “I just think this was a good idea.”
Yet Gambill believes it is Ellis who failed to reconcile with the rest of the Democratic Party after losing the party primary in the 2006 prosecutor’s race and after the candidate Ellis supported lost the mayoral primary to then-Mayor Kevin Burke.
“Ellis and [Joseph] Selliken and their ilk took the [mayoral primary candidate Jim] Horrall supporters and encouraged them to vote for the Republicans,” Gambill said. Ellis “is the child on the playground who takes his ball and runs back in the school when he loses.”
But Ellis asserts that the party leadership, after successfully backing candidates in the party primaries, made no effort to reconcile with defeated Democratic contenders.
“I was never asked to reconcile by anyone,” Ellis said.
Ellis hopes his new FDR Club will eventually nominate Democratic candidates for the party primaries and endorse candidates in general elections. The club may also provide financial and other support for its chosen candidates, Ellis said, but that is up to the club membership to decide.
Whatever the case, Ellis stresses that if members of the club don’t agree with the club’s recommendations, they will not be thrown out.
“That’s the beautiful thing about living in America,” Ellis said.
Gambill agrees there are things that need to be addressed in the Vigo County Democratic Party, but remains convinced that party officers should not publicly support candidates from other parties.
“You can form a Democrat club,” Gambill said. “You’re just not the Democrat Party. “A partisan political party is just that. You should support that party’s candidate.”
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
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Mike Ellis forms new Democratic political group
FDR Democrat Club ‘won’t turn anyone away’
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