Letter: Why become an unaffiliated candidate?

Dear Editor:
A friend and mentor of mine—a longtime Meeker and Rio Blanco County stalwart whose historic identification has been with the Republican party—and I discussed early last year that we needed to become Independent (unaffiliated) voters. He beat me to it, by a short time, and now calls himself Mr. Purple.
Why would we become Independents? It’s typical of folks to say we’re nothing but the wolves of our original party affiliation in sheep’s…