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Will heads roll at state GOP meeting?
Posted By katie allison granju
The Nashville Post conjectures that Saturday’s get-together of the TN GOP Executive Committee may result in at least one firing:
Since the story broke on Wednesday drawing attention to a press release issued by the Tennessee Republican Party titled “Anti-Semites for Obama,” the state party has been either publicly chastised or rebuked by the Republican National Committee, likely GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, GOP Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, GOP Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn and former GOP state party chair State Rep. Beth Harwell, just to name a few.
As this story has been circulating, NashvillePost.com has spoken with Republican members of the state legislature and major donors to the party and the tenor of those conversations have been, “Don’t use my name, but a head needs to roll.”
Almost universally, support for GOP chair Robin Smith among donors and elected officials remains strong and she is getting high marks for her overall leadership of the state party. However, those same individuals who asked not to be named out of deference to her want to see a shake-up at her office and are pointing squarely at her communications director, Bill Hobbs.
Among the issues these Republican stalwarts have with Hobbs are his propensity to make the story about himself or his beliefs, which they say are not representative of the entire party. They feel that there a number of strong issues that Republicans can focus on in this election year, yet the message coming out of the Tennessee Republican Party consistently lacks discipline or merit. These are just a few of the issues these influential party members had before Wednesday.
However, I spoke to at least one high-ranking state GOP leader today who told me that many party insiders are likely actually happy with the attention Hobbs’ much-criticized press release shined on Obama’s negatives.
And in fairness to Bill Hobbs, I can’t imagine that the folks who hired him to do the job of Communications Director not so long ago didn’t hire him to do exactly what he’s done with the controversial press release. They had to have known this was how he’d roll, since he’s been blogging about politics for years now. Like him or loathe him, his style is pretty well known, and in fact, he’s even been in public hot water in the past for the way in which he expressed his views on Muslims.
Feb 29th, 2008
