(WCCO) Princeton, Minn. The partner of a gubernatorial candidate who claims to be a vampire said she was relieved of her duties as a school bus driver because she might be bad role model for students.
Julie Carpenter, partner of Jonathon “The Impaler” Sharkey, said Princeton, Minn. public school officials sent a letter to her bus company asking that she not be near students.
Superintendent Mark Sleeper asked the bus company to make the change “in light of recent media reports of her husband/friend to be a vampire … and Ms. Carpenter informing other bus garage employees that she is a witch.”
Carpenter told WCCO-TV she is not a witch and compared the claims to a form of witch-burning. Sharkey, who wears a ritual vampire cloak and admits to drinking Carpenter’s blood, explained earlier that she’s a pagan, not a vampire.
“Just because I bite somebody, it doesn’t make them a vampire,” Sharkey said. “It doesn’t make them evil, and they’re not going to be like — hiss-s-s! — all over the place. I mean, let’s be real here.”
Officials in Princeton said Carpenter was not fired and will likely be reassigned to a job that isn’t around children.
The fallout from Sharkey’s campaign came after he kicked off his run for governor in Princeton Friday.
“You people want to call me a bloodsucker,” Sharkey said. “There are many bloodsuckers in Washington, D.C. who are sucking the life, literally, out of people, worse than any vampire does when they are feeding on somebody.”
Sharkey, who’s running as head of the Vampyres, Witches and Pagans Party, is courteous and outgoing, with a politician’s looks and manner.
“The common misconception is that (vampires) are 100 percent evil, that they do not have any caring in them — that they kind of, like, prowl in the night seeking their meals, and that’s not true,” Sharkey explained.
Voters have nothing to fear from him, he says — only bad guys such as murders, rapists and terrorists, whom he promises to personally execute on the State Capitol lawn.
“I think after the first impaling, it will send a message to terrorists not to attack my people,” Sharkey said.
Sharkey also promises to build casinos to fund schools and forbid Minnesota’s National Guard troops from going to Iraq.
If the coffee crowd at K-Bob Cafe in Princeton, Minn. is any indication, Sharkey’s going to need supernatural help to win votes.
“We’ve got enough screwballs in politics already,” one man said.
“I don’t understand where these people come from, but to each his own,” another said.
Sharkey said he’s heard from news organizations as far away as Australia and has welcomed 16 brand-new members to his party. He said he also received an offer to write a book.