Despite just being picked to be on the school board from a large field of qualified candidates by a majority Democratic party board- the Rev. William Schooler finds himself the odd man out in the coming school board race when the Democrats endorsed the other three candidates in the four-way race for three seats.

The election wouldn’t have even been necessary, since Nancy Nearny’s original petitions came in 8 signatures short of the 350 required until her angels at the Board of (S)elections found her 8 that got her back on the ballot.

According to sources, The Montgomery County Democratic Party tonight endorsed incumbents Nearny and Sheila Taylor (a party patronage employee in the county) and the Rev. Robert Walker (who is running with Schooler as a “team”) in the race. It’s unclear if Walker even asked for the endorsement.

Of course, Schooler is the only incumbent running who said no to GE and UD on corporate welfare, which paints a big bull’s-eye on his back. Sitting member Joe Lacey even tried unsuccessfully to have Schooler censored for suggesting that the schools would have to come to the voters for yet another levy after helping GE pay the schools nothing for 15 years. (update: Lacey lost)

Considering that the school board race is supposed to be a non-partisan one, it’s interesting that the party feels a need to take a stand.

Seeing that Nearny and Taylor helped pick Schooler in the first place makes this whole thing all the more odd.

What’s even sadder is that more of the people who applied for appointment didn’t even bother with  attempting to run.