Election 2012: Incumbent, two challengers vie for Taylor County Republican …

If elections were decided singly by conservative passion, the Taylor County Republican Party would have three leaders after the May 29 election.

Alas, voters will have the final say in who keeps, or takes over, the two-year volunteer position, which oversees the county’s Republican campaign and party-building activities, coordinates volunteers and precinct chairmen or chairwomen to get out the vote

Three candidates are seeking the post: incumbent Joy Ellinger and challengers Frank Beckendorf and Pat Hippely.

All three candidates espouse their passion for conservatism as a merit voters should recognize, but their expressed goals for what they would do in the role differs.

“This is a critical year,” Ellinger said. “We’ve got 1,000 people a week coming to Texas, and not from Republican states.”

To offset that potential Democratic inward rush, Ellinger wants Taylor County voters to come out in droves to offset more left-leaning votes in the big cities. That, she said, is one of the primary duties of chairmanship.

“We need Taylor County to come out and show their conservative colors, and the county chairperson is the one responsible for making that happen.”

Voter turnout is not the main impetus for Beckendorf’s campaign.

He doesn’t like how the local party has been run for the last two years and wants to shake up what he deems the “rule of the elite.”

“A handful of people are making decisions for all of the electorate,” Beckendorf said. “I want to give the power back to the rank-and-file members, to have all the members make a decision for the party and have the leaders enforce that decision instead of making their own decision without consulting members.”

He cites his master’s degree in political science, deep knowledge of political topics and “grass roots plan to get things in place to assist state and national candidates” as his qualifying pedigree for the role.

Hippely, who launched an unsuccessful bid for Abilene mayor last year, sees both voter turnout and a more popular control as important issues, but the primary reason she’s running is to use the volunteer post not as a podium to unify but rather to winnow county Republicans.

“I don’t want to unite

You can read the rest of this article at:: http://www.reporternews.com/news/2012/may/05/election-2012-incumbent-two-challengers-vie-for/

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Posted by RobertButler on May 5 2012. Filed under 2012 Presidential Campaign. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry