Two Libertarians vie for county posts
The Delaware County Libertarian Party has two candidates seeking countylevel offices.
Edward Clifford, a Marple accountant, is running for one of the two open county council positions and Matt Wallace, a gas station/auto repair owner from Havertown is running for sheriff.
This is not Clifford’s run for office.
He set a record for a Libertarian candidate in Pennsylvania when he collected more than 230,000 votes in a bid for U.S. Senate in 2016. U.S. Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., won that round.
Clifford has lived Pennsylvania all of his first in life and works as an accountant for a financial services firm. He has been involved with the Libertarian Party for more than 15 years.
Through his seeking county office, he hopes to reduce spending, taxes, government in people’s lives and bring greater transparency to Delaware County.
“I am running for county council to give people more choices in their elected officials,” Clifford said. “The political system has been unfairly controlled by two parties who make voters think they are the only choices. I hope that I can represent a change to this biased system.”
He said he wants to preserve the trend of no tax increases, while working to end property taxes in Delaware County while working to find replacement revenue for the county.
“Delaware County has approximately 560,000 people in it and voer the last 30 years experienced marginal growth,” Clifford said. “This means that the county should not expect to have more people in it in the future. Couple this with the maturing population of Delaware County, taxes will fall on more and more people who will not be able to pay. If the county doesn’t take powerful proactive steps to address declining tax revenue and wasteful government spending on its own terms now, it will be forced to do it by necessity and on someone else’s terms later.”
He also said he wants to foster a business- and people-friendly environment in the county while preparing better financial statements and budgets for county residents. He described the current county budget as “sparsely detailed.”
He added, “The budget does not completely portray the financial status of the county. It contains no footnotes, does not give any useful details about where your tax dollars go and excludes major liabilities the county has taken for its operations. The budget lacks any sense of vision and no resident should accept the dearth of information as reasonable or adequate.”
A Haverford High School graduate, Wallace has also lived in Delaware County all of his life. He and his wife now live in Drexel Hill.
He became interested in the Libertarian Party with the candidacy of Ron Paul in 2006. Wallace is currently treasurer of the county Libertarian Party.
Wallace has also been the owner and operator of a gas station/auto repair business in Bryn Mawr for the past 14 years. He also worked in the private security industry.
“I am running for the position of sheriff to give the people of Delaware County a viable option outside of the two-party duopoly,” Wallace said.
He shared his ideas on what his leadership in that office would entail.
“As sheriff, I will keep the peace in Delaware County by protecting the rights of the individuals in the county, not taking their rights away like the old parties do,” Wallace said. “I will not be participating in the failed war on drugs that does more harm than good while it wastes our resources chasing and jailing people that didn’t harm anyone. I will get real criminals that hurt actual people off the street.”