A political party consists of a number of disparate elements: voters, elected officials, donors, activists, public advocates, official party organs, think tanks, and outside campaign professionals. In the Republican Party of today, some of these are in healthier shape than others. Hardly any part of the party is in worse condition right now than the official party organs at the state level. In one state after another, the official Republican Party is at best useless and at worst an affirmative enemy of the party’s causes and electoral chances. Some state parties have been taken over by zealots and lunatics, some by more cold-blooded grifters. The Arizona Republican Party’s efforts to censure anyone who dares win a statewide election in their state as a Republican is an icon of idiocy.
It’s time to take the party back from the party. In Georgia, Brian Kemp is ready. Fresh from winning a thumping reelection against the determined opposition of Donald Trump, Kemp is looking for a divorce from the official state party, and he wants his donors to go with him:
Gov. Brian Kemp took his most significant step yet to break from the Georgia GOP and bolster his own growing political network, telling high-dollar donors that the 2022 midterm was a sign “we can no longer rely on the traditional party infrastructure to win in the future.” His remarks came Wednesday at an Atlanta luncheon for the Georgians First Leadership Committee, a fundraising vehicle created by a Kemp-backed law that can tap unlimited contributions. . . . Kemp is expanding the committee’s mission. He’s hired veteran staffers to lead the organization and told donors Wednesday he now wants to “build on our victories” from November.
The state GOP’s clout has waned considerably under embattled chair David Shafer, who infuriated key leaders and activists by openly siding with Donald Trump-backed challengers to Republican incumbents last year. Every one of Trump’s candidates in those races was humiliated in the primary, and Shafer recently announced he wouldn’t seek another term amid a brewing revolt from influential party activists.
Shoot at the king, you best not miss. Shafer may have thought the king of the Georgia Republicans was Trump, but it turned out to be Kemp, who has not forgotten. A state party chair who backs a primary challenge to his own party’s sitting governor is a fool who deserves to have his organization burned to the ground. Other Republican governors and senators who find that their state parties are doing more harm than good should take notice.