"First, We'll Take The 6th, 7th, and 13th, And Then It's The State GOP in 2007!"
Rumors have it that some of the district "convention" meetings that will be taking place tomorrow morning are actually the results of a few months of planning by the same crowd that had tried to oust Alec Poitevint back at the May 2005 state convention.
We denote these "conventions" in quotes because it is really not a convention in the usual sense of the word. It is a meeting of combined executive committee meetings to re-align the new district maps.
In the new 6th, Maria Strollo will be facing Ray Warren. In an e-mail sent out a few weeks ago, Maria claimed that SHE was the "acting chairman" of the new 6th District until tomorrow's meeting could be held to vote her in. That was a misstatement at best and out-and-out lie at worse. (Say, Maria...try reading the state party rules every once in awhile, okay?)
Ray Warren is the chair of the former 4th congressional district and is running against Maria. Ray brings 30+ years of dedicated service to the Republican Party.
In the new 7th District, Kathryn Gartland is running against B.J. Van Gundy. B.J. is a former Gwinnett GOP Chair, and former Bush-Cheney Recount Team Leader (from 2000), while Kathryn is best known for being current Gwinnett GOP Chair Gregory Howard's right-shoulder Devil (you know, the little devil that pops-up on someone's shoulder and encourages someone to do stupid and idiotic things...that's Kathryn's job right now).
In the new 13th District, it will be an election between Camilla Moore and Dawn Strickland. Camilla is a longtime activist and was chair of the previous 13th. Dawn is best known for being pals with Anthony-Scott Hobbs and Frank Molesky, two people who would easily place in the top 10% of the worst people (in terms of lacking in character and integrity) ever in Georgia Republican politics. Seriously.
Which, actually, segues nicely into the subject at hand. You see, back in May of this year, there was an attempted "coup" at the state party convention. Maria Strollo and Kathryn Gartland were in the Anthony-Scott-Hobbs-for-Chair camp, against the Alec-Poitevint-and-Sonny-Perdue camp.
The Hobbs coup never quite got off the ground...but, it looks like they haven't given-up. You see, with having Gartland and Strollo as the 6th and 7th district chairs, Hobbs can start laying his groundwork for his bid for chair in 2007. (cough!-cough! No, we're not kidding...that is his aspiration.)
Dawn Strickland's best claim to fame that we know was that when she sits on any nominating committee, her favorite question to ask any potential delegate is (we kid you not): "What kind of Christian are you?" In a political party, that kind of question is akin to "What's your favorite sexual position?" That is, not relevant to the job for which one is applying.
If any of these three (Maria Strollo, Kathryn Gartland, Dawn Strickland) get elected to the respective districts they are running for, you can pretty much be guaranteed of, at minimum, these two things: 1) A whole lot of drama politics whereby they make a lot of noise and demands for others to do things at their command, all the while claiming that whoever was in charge before sucked at their job, and 2) the districts they control will become as divided as the Cobb GOP has been divided for the past 4 years.
And, of course, if any of them are elected, ASH will have someone he can work with in cahoots to screw-up other Republican activists' lives. Which is a great result if you're the Democrat Party hoping for some more complete idiots to take over the Republican grassroots as much as they have taken over the Cobb GOP.