By Tom Baxter
This month, Republican activists in Georgia took a trip down memory lane.
In county GOP conventions around the state, newcomers under the banner of the Georgia Republican Assembly (GRA) seeking to move the party further to the right unseated longtime party workers in elections for party offices and slots in the upcoming district conventions.
GRA leader Alex Johnson proclaimed the results as a victory over the “paid political industry,” while some disgruntled regulars described it as the end of the party as they knew it. In a letter resigning from the party, a longtime Cherokee County activist wrote that the county party has become “a wholly-owned subsidiary of a faction, the GRA.”
This might make it seem that something revolutionary has happened within the party, when in fact it’s all part of a pattern of behavior that has become cyclical.
In 1988, supporters of Pat Robertson’s presidential campaign surprised party veterans who supported George H.W. Bush, showing up in large numbers at the county conventions and touching off a battle for control of the party which went all the way to the Republican National Convention in New Orleans that summer. I vividly remember the venerable Thomasville Republican Marguerite Williams giving Robertson a piece of her mind when he visited the Georgia delegation on the convention floor.
That level of hostility has become ingrained over the years. “Clearly, nobody really understands this is where people come to fight,” a Peach Pundit blogger commented about this year’s convention in Paulding County, where the opposing candidates for chairman were uncharacteristically civil to each other.
The confrontational dynamics within the party since that epic Robertson-Bush struggle 35 years ago haven’t changed internally, but a great deal has changed outside it — that puts traditional party behavior in a different light.
Back then, for instance, Republicans cussed the governor at their county conventions. They still do. But the governor back then was a Democrat, and now he’s a Republican. At the Catoosa County convention this year, activists made their disfavor official, passing a resolution condemning Gov. Brian Kemp for participating in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Kemp has already broken with the state party, saying in February that Republicans “can no longer rely on the traditional party infrastructure to win in the future,” and setting up his own separate fundraising committee.
Maybe in the long run, Kemp’s committee will become the nucleus for some kind of organizational rival to the state party, but it’s more likely the Republicans will simply patch things up for a while so they can go on fighting each other later and continue the love/hate cycle which has been the party’s pattern for so long.
Party chairman David Shafer has said he won’t seek another term after this summer’s state convention in Columbus. It’s an open question whether he’ll make it to the state convention without being under indictment for his role in the 2020 scheme to replace Georgia’s electors pledged to Joe Biden with a slate loyal to Donald Trump.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney has made it clear he considers Shafer to have a higher degree of responsibility than the other Republicans on the slate. There are rumors that the grand jury investigating the election case has seen a lot more evidence than revealed so far, and could bring forth even more charges against the Georgia Republicans who colluded with the Trump campaign.
If that happens, a major item on the agenda at the state convention is likely to be some sort of resolution in support of the outgoing chairman, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and the other Republicans under investigation. Former President Donald Trump may make an appearance. Probably some other Republican presidential candidates will be there also. But Kemp is almost certain to have other matters to attend to.
Someone once said that a cookie begins to crumble on the inside first! The GOP needs to pay attention and rid themselves of the revolutionary faction!