Cobb County GOP Chairman Race Just Got More Interesting
We received an email in our tipline promoting a website titled “Shepherding The Truth”. Its mission is to supposedly expose Jason Shepherd as the “wolf among sheep.” The blogger wrote in one post,
At the caucuses, Cobb GOP Chairwoman Rose Wing, who also announced her intention to seek a 2nd term, distributed literature which touted about 250,000 calls or something like that. A big number, not a one Jason himself contributed (more on that at a later date), but one Jason said didn’t matter because “…down in Coweta County which is much smarter-smaller-than us (yeah, we caught that too Jason) they did 120,000 calls in one week for Mike Crane’s campaign alone…”
We don’t know if Shepherd indeed said these things, or whether the numbers bandied about are true, but these unverified claims have brought attention to the race.
The blog later points out that Crane was running in a Republican primary and questioned why the Coweta GOP organized a phone bank for a Republican primary candidate.
Cobb County is perhaps the epicenter of Trump backlash against Republicans. The reliably Republican county voted for Hillary over Trump in November and now Trump’s supporters are pinning the blame on the GOP Establishment. Electing Shepherd is their first priority.
We will see how strongly the backlash materializes next month at the Cobb GOP County Convention. Rose Wing, the incumbent chairman, is running against Jason Shepherd, the candidate Trump loyalists are rallying behind. This isn’t Shepherd’s first time to run for a Cobb GOP executive committee position. He was previously defeated by Wing.
About Author
Will Kremer
Will is an active member of the Georgia Republican grassroots. He previously served as Chairman of the Georgia Association of College Republicans, 2nd Vice Chairman of the 7th District Republican Party, and Treasurer of the Forsyth County Republican Party. Promise Land = Forsyth County.
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Genuine question from someone who is involved in Cobb politics, but not at a partisan level: since Trump lost Cobb overall, and lost resoundingly in the county’s two largest cities, and the demographic trajectory is projected to continue in a direction that is probably not too Trump-friendly, and even Nate Silver says that Cobb is a reflection of the country as a whole, why would the Cobb GOP think it’s a good idea to double-down on Trump?
Because whether we like it or not he is our president. This is our opportunity to get our agenda through. You have to work with the tools you have and Trump is what we have.
I get that – but this isn’t Congress. It’s a county-level GOP, and that guy didn’t win in this county.
He is still the president. GOP officials (the good ones at least) don’t get to decide who they support. As an elected party official, you support the party. The person at the top of our party is Trump. It really is that simple. I agree that in a place like Cobb you can do and say some things to hitch your wagon to Congress or our Senators and talk less about Trump.
Eiger,
Are you supporting Jason Shepard? Do you who he is as a person and the confusion, animosity, and general bad juju he leaves in his wake? Yikes.
I live in Fulton so I’m not supporting anyone. I know Rose really well and think she has done a really good job. I know Jason really well too. He’s an ass and an arrogant one at that. Everything is always about Jason. So no. I don’t support him.
My comments were more about the need to not necessarily run away from trump as a party. We can distance ourselves from him on certain things but again, we have to work with the tools provided.
I suspect that a lot of GOP officials will start to distance themselves from Trump come 2018.
Why wait till 2018? Distance now. Make your constituents happy, not the party.
Buddy Carter got an earful yesterday whenever he tried to be partisan rather than a representative.
This is my logic: if you want to grow the party why would you double down on someone that many members of your party clearly don’t like? But again, I am not involved with party politics at the county level so I have no idea what their goals are. It just seems like they are operating in a vacuum if they ignore what happened in Cobb in 11/16, and why it might have happened.
Has any one looked at who voted for Johnson. I know a lot of conservatives in Cobb who either voted Johnson or didn’t vote for president but voted down ticket.
Buddy only got an earful in Hilary winning Savannah. He just had a no issue event in Jessup this morning (didn’t even fill up a 200 seat venue), and I doubt the other 3 town halls he has this week in Trump strong holds are going to get him to change his mind on anything. Carter constituents are mainly in the other counties that are all red besides the 60% of Dems always in Chatham and 55 % always in Liberty Co. Your Cater analogy vs the change in Cobb demographic are like comparing apples and uncooked meatballs – both round, both red, both great when baked.