New GOP Chair David Shafer
In what many are calling the longest state convention they can remember, former state Senate Pro Tem David Shafer on Saturday night was elected chairman of the Georgia Republican Party.
A total of 1,538 delegates attended the convention at Savannah’s International Trade and Convention Center and over 59 percent of them voted for Shafer as the new leader to succeed John Watson. He beat Scott Johnson (28 percent), Bruce Azevedo (13 percent) and Mary Kay Bacallao (1 percent) in the first and only round of voting. The tally came in a little before 7 p.m. The convention opened at 10 am and voting by the party faithful began at 4:45 pm with ballots being passed out and then cast at about 5:25 pm.
Other activists winning slots on the party’s Executive Board were:
Carolyn Fisher was elected First Vice-Chairman
Brant Frost was elected Second Vice-Chairman
Michael Welsh was elected Secretary
B.J. Van Gundy was elected Assistant Secretary
Joseph Brannen was elected Treasurer
Vikki Consiglio was elected Assistant Treasurer
InsiderAdvantage interviewed many delegates who felt that Shafer had the best experience (he was the party’s executive director in the early 1990s) as well as the most impressive fundraising ability. He also distributed a pamphlet that outlined the specifics that he would implement ranging from building campaign management/candidate training programs to expanding communications technology and strengthening the party’s legal team “We cannot allow Stacey Abrams or the far left extremists to overturn the results of our free and fair elections,” he pledged.
Shafer’s election is also a vindication of sorts for the former Gwinnett County lawmaker who narrowly lost a GOP primary last year to now-Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan.
A footnote: Convention chair Rep. Barry Fleming and two parliamentarians were kept busy answering questions and denying resolutions that didn’t make the application deadline, but one strange issue stood out. Complaints surfaced after a six-year-old boy was spotted wearing a delegate badge. Longtime parliamentarian John White had to rule “no way.”
