All these commenters are hung up on ideology.  The independence that this candidate is talking about in independence from pure party politics in its ugliest form.  Yes.  Mr. Van De Wege has a track record.  The track record of Democrat Party Whip, an apparatchik, a little man in a big party machine how drives all the other little men to try to be something great by acting like a loosely organized mob rather than a collection of deliberative lawmakers voting their own constituents.  The people are sick and tired of the games, the slogans, the platitudes, many of which are repeated within these comments.  Most of all they are sick and tired of power politics played by little men like Mr. Van De Wege.  Republican leadership welcomes independently thinking candidates with minds of their own because the Republican party is the party of the grass roots.  Its candidates had better look to their roots or be cut adrift.  Just look at the Presidential nominating process of both parties.