Sheriff wants no floor fight with union boss Palmateer
NWI Times
Jun 15, 2016
Lake County's top Democrat won't be among the party faithful competing for a trip to next month's national convention in Philadelphia.
Lake County Sheriff John Buncich, who has been county Democratic chairman for two years, said this week he has withdrawn his delegate bid after learning that building and trades union official Randolph L. “Randy” Palmateer was among several competing for the same delegate spots.
Local Democrats are preparing to travel this weekend to Indianapolis to attend their party's state convention. State delegates will select the national convention delegates.
Buncich complains it had been the custom for the Lake County Democratic chairman to be automatically invited to the national convention "going back five county chairmen, but I was not selected as party leader."
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., a former county chairman, and Gary Mayor Karen Freeman Wilson were selected.
"There are six at-large spots statewide the Hillary Clinton campaign had, and I was honored to be one of the six chosen," McDermott said.
McDermott said delegate seats are in short supply this time for party leaders who, like him, were all in the Clinton camp. But presidential candidate Bernie Sanders defeated Clinton statewide May 3, so a majority of the Indiana delegation will be Sanders loyalists.
That left Buncich the choice of competing for other delegate seats allocated to the 1st Congressional District, which includes Lake, Porter and eastern LaPorte counties.
"They said I would have to run against six other individuals, one of them being Randy Palmateer," Buncich said.
"I found that to be very distasteful. It is an embarrassment to have that individual represent our Democratic Party, especially at a national level."
Palmateer, business manager of the 25,000-member Northwestern Indiana Building and Construction Trades Council, has been under fire since his arrest in late March by Hammond police at a sobriety checkpoint.
Palmateer said Buncich's move is "sour grapes" over the building trades' endorsement of Marissa McDermott for Lake Circuit Court judge. Buncich had backed incumbent Judge George Paras, who lost in an upset in the May 3 primary.
Palmateer said he is running because no one else in the race represented labor, and he is excited to be trying to represent Clinton's campaign.
Drew Anderson, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party, declined to name other local candidates for the national convention.
McDermott said he has learned they include: East Chicago's state Sen. Lonnie Randolph, chairman of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus; House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, of Michigan City; and Dr. Dr. Jorge A. Benavente, a Munster optometrist.
McDermott said any voter can run as a national delegate. "But John is the chairman, bringing a delegation of Democrats to Indianapolis. If John had put effort into it, he would have easily won. Now that John's out, it's probably made Randy's chances of winning better," McDermott said.
Benavente said he decided to run as a national delegate to support Clinton's election this fall. He said it also is a gesture of support for East Chicago-born U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who has been under attack by Republican presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
Curiel presides over a lawsuit against Trump University. Trump has attacked Curiel as hostile to him because of Curiel's "Mexican heritage." Curiel's parents were born in Mexico.
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