A Disbanded Republican Party is Rebuilding From the Grassroots Up

An interesting political event happened in Gainesville the other day. The Hall County Republican Party disbanded. It literally had a meeting and did away with itself. Now ... before you get upset if you are a conservative, or relieved if you are of the Democrat persuasion, one of the principles of the Republican Party is that every two years it restructures itself from the ground up, and this meeting was the beginning of that process.

What happens is this: The Republican Party begins at the precinct level and elects delegates to a county convention. You possibly saw the notice in the paper, or read it on the local GOP website, or if you are an active Republican you got a postcard announcing Precinct Mass meetings. But these are not just meetings for active Republicans. The notice had this line in bold type: "All Hall County residents who are legally registered to vote and believe in the principles of the Republican Party are urged to participate in this process."

The local Republican Party held that meeting Saturday, February 8, at the Georgia Mountain Center, and in that big room you could see groups of people gathered around the sign signifying their precinct, electing delegates to the Hall County Republican Convention which will be held on March 8. As of right now, the local GOP is in sort of a caretaker situation, with outgoing party officers running things till the new elections are held.

At the March meeting, the delegates from the precincts will elect new Hall County officers, and also will elect delegates to the 10th District Convention and the
Georgia State Convention. The delegates to those conventions will elect their officers, and also elect a certain number of delegates to the national convention.

This process of electing the ruling bodies of the Republican Party from the grass roots up is one of the reasons I personally like the GOP, and it is a major difference from the system used by the Democrats. Not only is this happening to the Hall County Republican Party; it is happening all over Georgia and all over the nation. And this was the year that the Republican Party literally disbanded, turned its operations over to caretaker officers, and started the process of electing new delegates and officers from the grass roots level of every precinct in the United States.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.