In a surprise announcement before an audience of elected Republican officials on Thursday, Fort Bend County GOP Chairman Gary Gillen said he and a slate of top party officers have quit.The Republican crackpots who have run the Texas Republican Party are doing as such extremists ultimately always do - they are thoughtlessly overreaching. Where is this going?
Citing untenable political differences with what he termed “a number of fringe elements in the party,” Gillen said he, party Treasurer Richard McCarter, Secretary Nancy Porter and Parliamentarian Dick Hudgins have resigned effective immediately.
“We have a problem in Fort Bend County that I’d like to bring to your attention,” Gillen told an audience at a luncheon meeting of the West Fort Bend Republican Women, at Katy’s Falcon Point Country Club. “We’re facing nothing less than a hostile takeover” of the county Republican Party.
Gillen did not identify members of a group he said gradually drove him to Thursday’s decision, but at one point in an interview after his announcement said, “if the executive committee of the party are not interested in helping all of our candidates equally, I am not interested in working with them.”
Fort Bend County Clerk Dianne Wilson, who attended the luncheon, also said “I don’t blame Gary” for quitting.
“It’s been a nice 30-year ride with the party,” said the long-time elected official. “I’m glad I came in at the beginning; now I can see the end.”
This is going to make congressman Nick Lampson's reelection a bit easier. Nick Lampson is the Democratic Congressman who took Tom DeLay's seat in Congress when DeLay resigned after being indicted.
Whether this is a reaction to the growing trends towards Democrats in Texas or it is just the normal falling-out of extremists after they have had power for a while is not yet clear to me. Whichever, it is really good news for us Texas Democrats.
[ h/t to HAL at Half Empty. ]
See also Republican State Legislator Kirk England switches to Democrats.
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