"Chatham for All." Columbia County's Bait and Switch Party

A local sham party was put together to confuse voters and provide cover for GOP candidates.

Writing about Chatham started as a one-off. I wrote about a vineyard going up on Bashford Road (Fox Hill Estate) and assumed I was done. Then a reader reached out about a conflict of interest between the land owner and Supervisor Collins. Another wrote to me about white supremacy group planning a Memorial Day visit to the cemetery on Shaker Museum Road. And yesterday, of all things, it became Mitch McConnell's daughter, Claire McConnell, and the tender mercies she is said to have visited on children at Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School in Ghent. Every piece brings more tips, more readers and more requests to cover stories that no one is writing about.

Which brings us to Chatham For All.

Chatham For All is not a movement. It is not a groundswell. It was and is a con. After January 6th many Republicans were turned off, either not showing up to vote or voting blue. This was the genesis of Chatham For All. It gives these voters a Republican without supporting the party that tried its damnedest to overturn an election. The branding stayed above the fray. Chatham For All cares about people, not parties. National politics have no place in town governance. There are no rulers here, only citizens. It does not say which citizens. The site lists no officers. No founders. No board. The authorship is blank by design.

In 2023 it carried three candidates: Donal Collins for supervisor, Timothy Mackerer and Vance Pitkin for town board. All three were already running as Republicans. The overlap was total. Chatham For All did not field a single candidate the Republicans did not already have. It offered the same names on a more appealing line for some voters.

Collins won the supervisor’s contest by 35 votes. Chatham For All gave him 78. Take the line away and you take the win with it.

Heading into the November 7, 2023 general election, the Town of Chatham had 3,570 registered voters. In the supervisor’s contest, 1,765 voted. Turnout of about 49.4 percent. Collins took 900 votes. Christopher Spencer took 865. Collins won by 35. The certified county results break down by line. Collins drew 822 on the Republican line and 78 on the Chatham For All line. Spencer drew 828 on the Democratic line and 37 on the Chatham Neighbors line. On the two parties’ own lines, Spencer beat Collins, 828 to 822. The borrowed line closed the gap and gave Collins his job back.

The party did not need new candidates. It needed new packaging.

The identity of Chatham For All is valid question with no answer. The paperwork for the group was filed from a private home in East Chatham. Jeanne Veillette Bowerman who lives in East Chatham wrote one of two opinion pieces stumping for Mackerer and Pitkin . Her mother, Frances Veillette, appears on the group’s donor rolls.

The 2025 report shows Chatham For All raised $4,528 from a familiar cast. Carl Chiappa gave the most, $1,010. Then the candidates. Collins gave $400. Mackerer gave $300. (A candidate financing the “independent” committee that endorses him is its own kind of disclosure.) Donna Staron gave $200 and later collected $100 back as a payee. Frances Veillette gave $110. The spending went where you would expect. Roughly $2,563 to a vendor called Tusk. About $1,334 to Chatham Printing and Copy Center. A few hundred more to a grill and a kitchen. Signs and sandwiches. None of it bought a candidate who was not already on the ballot. Collins, Mackerer, and Pitkin held the Republican line before Chatham For All raised a dollar.

Chatham For All was never a party. It was a solution. Democrats had been taking seats. Some republicans had become a liability at the town level. So Chatham For All hung out a shingle, painted it nonpartisan beige and propped up the same candidates. Independence was a costume.

None of this is new. In a system that hands the win to whoever gets the most votes, a third line does not have to win. It only has to move a handful of votes in the right direction. In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt ran as a Progressive, split the Republican vote with William Howard Taft, and delivered the White House to Woodrow Wilson. In 2000, Ralph Nader pulled roughly 97,000 votes in Florida while George W. Bush carried the state by 537. The spoiler is not a flaw in the machine. It is the machine running as built. A minor line, aimed the right way, decides who governs. Chatham For All is the local version. It calls itself independent, then votes Republican and hides in the shadows, claiming it wants transparency, civility, and open government while working toward none of it.

PS: Doesn't the tone of those reviews of Rick and Lisa read a little Abi-esque?

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