Comments made last week by local Democratic congressional candidate Jonathan Reich apparently have ruffled the feathers of the DeKalb County Democratic Party chairman.

Before U.S. Senate candidate Carol Moseley Braun took the stage last Thursday during a campaign stop at NIU, Reich and two other local candidates were allotted time to address the crowd. However, some of Reich’s comments did not sit well with Gene Sparrow, chairman of the DeKalb County Democratic Party.

Sparrow said Reich’s speech caused some confusion about Sparrow’s support of Braun prior to the primary elections.

During his speech, Reich said Sparrow “was a little displeased with me” when Reich supported Braun before the March primary election instead of incumbent Sen. Alan Dixon.

In an interview Monday, Sparrow said Reich had given the impression that Sparrow was against Braun’s candidacy and that Sparrow wanted all of the local Democratic precinct committee members to pass out Dixon campaign materials. Reich also gave the impression that he had objected to these actions, Sparrow added.

“A lot of people got that impression because they asked me about it, and I said, ‘That’s an absolute falsehood’,” Sparrow said.

In his speech last week, Reich discussed support for Dixon. “I held up my hand, and I said ‘I don’t think that’s right. This is a primary of family, and we shouldn’t be backing any one candidate,'” Reich said.

Reich said Monday he was under the impression Sparrow expected all local Democrats to carry Dixon literature. Reich said he protested that he should be free to support whomever he wanted in the primary.

Sparrow said Reich’s claims are unsubstantiated. “I never asked for an endorsement of Alan Dixon, I never pushed anyone to exclusively push his literature or make calls for him, and I never prohibited anybody from passing out Braun literature,” Sparrow said. “In fact, I encouraged people, if they supported her, to get involved in the campaign.”

Sparrow said the impression that he had to be persuaded by Reich to allow support for Braun was wrong.

“I guess that was to impress all the Braun supporters by using me as the bad guy, and that’s not right,” Sparrow said. “He was trying to pump himself up a little I guess, and I was a little disappointed with his comments because they weren’t true.”

Sparrow also said he thought Reich made his comments on purpose. “I think what he was trying to do was to make it look to all the Braun supporters like he was the white knight in shining armor,” he said.

Reich said Monday that the story he told about the primary meeting “was entirely self-serving and was intended to be.”

However, he added, “I wanted them to think of me as the white knight in shining armor, but I wasn’t trying to do it at the expense of Gene Sparrow.”

Reich said he thought it was important that the audience knew he supported Braun before the primary, a time when her support was thought to be low.

Sparrow also said Reich’s speech had given the impression that he (Reich) had supported Braun from the beginning.

“If Jonathan Reich was out actively working for Carol Moseley Braun, that’s news to me, and I know Thomas Gary was,” Sparrow said.

Gary, a Democrat seeking re-election to the DeKalb County Board, said he did not know whether or not Reich was a longtime supporter of Braun and added that he did not feel it was his place to try to guess.

Gary also said Sparrow “had no problem with me supporting Carol Moseley Braun in the primary” and thought it would be “uncharacteristic” of Sparrow to try to discourage his support for Braun.

Reich said he thought the situation was a misunderstanding. “I think it’s a misunderstanding that’s being manufactured mostly by the press.”

Reich admitted his words may have offended Sparrow but that this was not his intent, saying, “Gee I don’t know, you know sometimes when you’re up there in front of a group of people, things just leap into your mouth and you wonder later where they came from,” he said.

Brad Strauss, president of the Young Democrats, said he did not feel it was important if Sparrow and other Democrats had supported Dixon.

“In this, just like in any primary, you have a lot of different people supporting a lot of different candidates,” Strauss said. “And that’s what a primary is all about.”