This November will mark the 116th election with which I have been involved as a journalist. I have seen some pretty nutty stuff during these 58 years, but this was the first time I have encountered a candidate who, after winning his party’s nomination in the primary, dropped out of the race saying that he didn’t want the job in the first place.

Normally, this type of decision is made before voters go to the polls. It also gives the political party involved the opportunity to conduct a search for a successor candidate to put on the primary ballot.

Meet Archie Follweiler, 67, of Kutztown, who until June 21 was the Democrats’ nominee for state representative in the 187th District, which includes northwestern Lehigh County and part of eastern Berks County.

The seat is held by Republican Gary Day of New Tripoli, who is seeking his sixth two-year term. He also was unopposed in the primary. The municipalities from Lehigh in the 187th District are Heidelberg, Lowhill, Lynn, North Whitehall, Upper Macungie and Weisenberg and includes all of the Northwestern Lehigh and part of the Parkland school districts.

I thought it was curious that Follweiler waited for five weeks after the May 15 primaries to announce his withdrawal, especially since he said that this was the plan all along. In fact, he said as he went throughout the district circulating nominating petitions that he told prospective voters about his plan to step down after his nomination in the primary for a more viable candidate, assuming one were to emerge. Otherwise, he said he would stay on the ballot.

Follweiler projected his self-sacrifice as beneficial to the Democrats since they had not mounted a challenger to try to take down Day in the previous two election cycles. According to Follweiler, he had urged other Democrats to run, but none would step forward. The goal all along, he said, was to get a committed Democrat on the ballot.

Now that he has officially resigned, the Democrats have until Aug. 23 to find a replacement, but it seems they had no trouble coming up with a new candidate almost immediately — Siobhan Walsh-Bonis of Weisenberg Township. Party leaders in both Lehigh and Berks said two Democrats applied.

Amplifying on why he withdrew, Follweiler told The Reading Eagle newspaper, “My life is good; I play in two softball leagues, and I’ll be in Florida all next winter.”

Well, it seemed that my skepticism with Follweiler’s explanation was well-founded, because last week he admitted that one of the big reasons for his withdrawal had to do with a threat sent May 21 by a Berks County woman to go public with an allegation that he touched her inappropriately and forcibly kissed her at two functions, one in 2011 and the other about five years earlier.

Although he denied the allegations and had a different explanation of what happened, Follweiler agreed that this was a big reason why he decided to end his quest for public office. He said he did not want to put his family, and, particularly, his wife, through the white-hot glare of what was sure to come because of these allegations.

In the process, he condemned the nastiness and ugliness of politics and questioned who wants or needs to go through a campaign where sexual allegations are hanging over a candidate, even if he believes them to be untrue.

Follweiler characterized the episode as his “Al Franken moment.” Franken, a U.S. Senate Democrat representing Minnesota, was accused of inappropriate sexual behavior by several women last year.

On Dec. 7, he announced his intention to resign, although he claims that his recollections of the women’s accusations varied wildly from his own. Franken left office on Jan. 2.

Follweiler ran for a House seat in 2006 and lost by just 160 votes to Carl Mantz, who retired in 2008. Mantz formerly was president of Kutztown Borough Council. It was in the 2008 election that Day was elected to his first term.

The woman who has accused Follweiler had been in contact with party leaders after she learned that Follweiler was the party’s nominee following the primary. She felt that the party leaders were not responding quickly enough to her insistence to convince Follweiler to drop out of the race.

Some Berks County party officials knew about the allegations nearly a month before Follweiler left the race, but, contacted after Follweiler’s June 21 resignation announcement, Walter Felton, former chair of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee, said he had no idea why Follweiler dropped out.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com