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As party shrinks, state chair races heat up

June 16, 2009 — Back before Republicans held many other offices in the South, competitions for state party chairmanships could get pretty fierce. The less there was to fight for, it seemed, the more vicious the competition could be.

Times have changed – and changed some more. While the GOP has slipped nationwide, Republicans still hold most of the positions worth fighting for in the South, including the majority of its governorships and US Senate seats. But, whether it’s a sign of the party’s general malaise or the return of a natural tendency, a couple of Southern state chair races this year have resembled the old days.

Earlier this year, Republican party leaders in Virginia took the unusual step of removing state Delegate Jeff Frederick, a champion of grassroots conservatives, from the party post after a series of complaints about his management. These came to a head after Frederick inadvertently tipped Democrats about a state Senate party switch with a Twitter message.

At the state convention in May, social conservatives put up another candidate, Franklin County chairman Bill Stanley, but he was soundly beaten by the Louisa County chairman Pat Mullins, who’d been installed as interim chair.

This was a heated struggle for party control, but not as nasty as the chair’s election in North Carolina, which was won on a second ballot late Saturday by former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer.

While there was reportedly no animosity between Fetzer and his main opponent, Chad Adams, both got slimed on the internet. Fetzer sued a radio station and a talk show host for forwarding an email which alleged he is gay, which Fetzer denies. After messages between Adams and a girlfriend were posted on the internet, he acknowledged having had an extramarital affair.

You’ll note the ubiquitous role of the internet in both these races, as well as the closely contested Republican chair’s race in Tennessee.

 “This is the first year, really, that we’ve had Facebook and Twitter as part of these campaigns. So if you’ve got anything to hide, you’d better by darn not get in these races,” said Georgia Republican chair Sue Everhart.

Despite a reported effort by Gov. Sonny Perdue to find someone to unseat her, Everhart handily won reelection at the Georgia state party convention last month. Everhart discounts the notion that these party squabbles have much to do with the GOP’s larger national problems. But she noted they do tend to take place in formerly red states which have swung blue, like Virginia and North Carolina.

While the party has been weaked in these states, it will be competitive in the future, "and anybody who brought (the party) back will have made a name for themselves."

This tendency to bring the passions of a primary election to a party job marks one of the sharp distinctions, year over year, between Republicans and Democrats. The words "Terry McAuliffe" say as much as needs be said about the value of a high party position as a stepping stone for Democrats. You’d have to look far and wide to find many Democratic Party races like the one last January in which Chip Forrester won the Tennessee Democratic chairmanship over the objections of Gov. Phil Bredesen and other Democratic leaders.

We hear the internet added a little ginger to that race, also.