I Like Dick Wadhams for State Chairman

Speculation has already started on the subject of who will succeed Dick Wadhams.

I suppose that, within the party, I will have a very small say.  I don’t plan to run for El Paso County bonus member this year, a position which would give me one of 300 state central committee votes.  The state central committee, for those who don't know it, picks the chairman.  Precinct leaders pick the members of the state central committee from their county.  As a precinct committee person, I will have a small say about who those bonus members and county officers are.

I like Dick Wadhams.  Anyone running against him in El Paso County loses my vote from the outset.  Dick Wadhams took a party that was $500,000 in the hole and made it solvent at a time when too many people with money dislike Republicans.

I voted for Bob Schaffer and worked hard to see him get elected.  Even so, he came into the Senate race with a lot of baggage at a time when any Republican with baggage wasn’t going to prevail.  Some of that baggage was self created.  Some was created by a liberal media intent on seeing him defeated.

In any event, some Republicans now want to blame Dick Wadhams for the performance of the party and outcome the Schaffer Udall Election. 

Face The State is promoting Mary Smith.  Mary Smith and her husband are very much assets to the party but…and this is a big “but” to me, but I want a leader who will grow the party back to the loosely allied and successful organization it was in the early 1990’s.  It controlled the legislature and set the agenda then.

Some want a smaller, more pure party.  Not long ago, I told a well known politician that certain social conservatives (I was more specific) would be content if the legislature continued to have 40 Republican legislators as long as it was their 40.  We can't afford leadership that promotes or even condones that conduct/attitude.  Anyone who wants power in a democracy must be wiling to share power.   

I have a really bad feeling about Mary Smith in this regard.  If she becomes an active candidate, I will be more specific.