Republicans Shouldn’t Lose Focus On Local Races
Are Republicans hyper-focused on national level politics that we are ignoring our county races? Just taking a casual look at my Facebook feed, I see Georgia Republican activists seemingly more focused on Congressional, US Senate, and Presidential races more so than the local level races.
We lost GA-06 and barely won GA-07 in 2018. That has caused a panic among Republicans in Georgia. “We *must* take back the 6th and hold the 7th!” is the rallying cry. I agree that Republicans need to elect strong Republican candidates who uphold conservative values and appeal to a broad general electorate over hyper right-wing who are popular in the MAGA echo chamber do not have broad appeal during the general election.
One county where I’m seeing a hyper-focus on national offices rather than local offices is here in Gwinnett. Two officers in the Gwinnett Republican Party have filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. They have the freedom to choose to run for any office they want, but my unsolicited advice would be to focus on the local level.
Gwinnett Republicans are in danger of losing seats on the local level. Gwinnett County Commission Chairman Charlotte Nash has already announced her decision to not run for re-election. Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter has contemplated running for re-election…but not as a Republican.
This should be a message to my fellow Republicans in Gwinnett and our party leadership that we need to focus on the ground game. Unfortunately, it sounds like we are focused on litmus tests and purifying (shrinking) the party further. From what I recall during my tenure as Walker County GOP Chairman, a party cannot prevent a candidate from qualifying if they sign the affidavit that they are legally qualified for the office they seek and pay the qualifying fee.
I’ll be honest: I’m more interested in hearing about a commission candidate’s views on local transit plans rather than their views on Roe vs. Wade or the Heartbeat Bill which is now signed into law.
My hope is that county Republican Parties will work to win local elections. Yes, congressional, Senate, and Presidential elections are important, but as the saying goes, all politics is local.
About Author
nsmith
Father. IT Geek. Former 14th District GOP Chairman (2015-2017). Former Walker GOP Chairman (2009-2013). Resident of Chamblee. American. Georgian. Conservative.
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Well said Nate.
I’m one of the Gwinnett folks who voted for Republican local leaders in the past. (I almost always vote split ticket.)
While I don’t agree with every single decision (nor would I expect to), I think both Charlotte Nash and Danny Porter and other local (Republican) leaders have done a good job looking at the best interests of our county. In particular, Charlotte Nash has done a very good job looking at the long-term best interests of the county.
The local Republican campaigning against the transit vote was a real eye opener to me. Your party chose specifically to be represented by the anti-growth group. That group is viewed (accurately in my opinion) as the we-don’t-want-anyone-who-isn’t-a-white-Christian-in-Gwinnett contingent. This was the basis for the majority of Republican robocalls we received as well as posts I saw on the Gwinnett FB page. The only other thing I saw from the local Republican party was a half-baked plan to use monorail with inaccurate cost projections and ZERO discussion over why anyone would think that monorail is better than BRT. Believe me, I looked and looked for a different response but y’all chose to leave your commissioners/elected officials high-and-dry on this one. It was a deliberate decision and I am paying attention to it.
If Charlotte Nash were running for re-election, I would vote for her regardless of her political party. If Danny Porter is up for re-election, I will vote for him regardless of political party. Neither are perfect but both are pretty-doggone-good and both are committed to making our county a better place.
If you want me to vote for Republican for my commissioner, you need to get your act together as a party – as of right now, you don’t deserve my vote and my current Republican commissioner isn’t strong enough to overcome that.
Sea changes in local government haven’t been successful in metro Atlanta. I hope it goes better for Gwinnett.
This from someone who clearly doesn’t understand what the county Republican parties are for.
If you were to add on your thoughts abt what you think the County parties are for, it could add to the discussion…
Sorry for the delay. Jean is claiming that the GwGOP was organized in promoting an anti-marta/mass transit expansion. Just the opposite. The official stance of the GwGOP is that we didn’t take sides and we wouldn’t in a case like this. We had members on both sides of the Marta issue. The role of the GwGOP is to elect Republicans and grow the party base by promoting Republican ideals. Nathan is correct in that unfortunately there does seem to be a growing trend for a Litmus test on certain issues but I’m hoping that will wane We stay out of contested Primaries. And of course, she decided to throw the race card in there. When you can’t defend the point, throw a race card. As a side point, the GwGOP had a black Chairwoman and then a black Chairman before the Dems even thought about it. Any robocalls came from independent efforts. As for the FB posts that she mentions, those were corrected immediately and taken down. There was no organized effort to defeat the Marta vote that was planned or backed by the GwGOP.
From the AJC article linked by Nathan this appears to be what the Gwinnett County Republican Party is for… or is it against? In any case the big tent appears to be shrinking:
Republicans who oppose House Bill 481 need not apply. “We’ve been told we have to give up on some issues and take a step back,” said Ed Muldrow, the new chairman of the Gwinnett GOP.
Abortion won’t be one of those issues, he quickly added. And unproven newcomers to the fight will be greeted with skepticism.
“From here on out, if you are not with us, you’re against us. That’s the bottom line to this whole conversation,” Muldrow said. “We’re going to pursue candidates who believe like we believe.”
I believe that at the county level what they should be for is the best local governance possible absent of corruption. What do you believe?
It’s almost as if the only thing that actually trickles down is the toxic sludge from the hyperpartisan rheotoric used to grease the forceful use of ideological wedge issues.
Could happen to any massive self-interested party I guess.
Focusing on local races becomes harder and harder as there is less and less daylight between the GOP and the Trump cult. Independents and non-partisans have had their fill of the elephant in the room.
**** Flash Traffic ****
Select North DeKalb residents are getting text messages encouraging them to run in local municipal races, from @GeorgiaDemocrat.
**** EOM ****
As a near 40 year resident of Gwinnett who moved out a bit before the time you moved in Nathan, I have to say that Republicans deserve to lose Gwinnett. Though often as expressed by an Eastwood character “Deserves got nothing to do with it,” especially in politics. I’m not tarring them all with the same brush but unfortunately the impact made by the bad ones have outweighed the good. I was never anti-growth but developers never had to pay for their impingement on infrastructure and resources, many of whom were besties with a commissioner, if not in bed with them. I am a believer in capitalism but don’t believe in taxpayers subsidizing obscene profiteering. Charlotte Nash has been the straightest shooter but I think her years working for the county and witnessing the excesses of her predecessors has contributed greatly to her performance.