Call Me MISTER Reino...... I'm the New Vice Chair of the Florence Republican Party !

Mike Reino FINALLY wins an Election..........

Ladies and Gentlemen, I finally have some semblance of political legitimacy.... Yeppers, I was voted in as Vice Chair of the Florence County Republican Party by unanimous consent. I spoke with outgoing Vice Chair Kim Stroud before the meeting, and asked if he was running again. Kim said absolutely not, and I asked for his blessing. Kim not only gave it, but he nominated me. It was very classy.

I want to thank Chairman Tommy Phillips , Executive Committeewoman Shelby Phillips, and especially Tom Grimes for helping to quickly organize it. By the way, Tom will be running for 6th Congressional District Chair next year, and he has my support. I also would like to thank Governor Sanford, Attorney General McMaster, Tag Romney, and the reps for Rudy Giuliani and Duncan Hunter for coming to the Pee Dee.

That will be a major focus of my term - to have the Presidential campaigns make it to Florence on their tours, and to drop a little money our way to make the Florence GOP a more viable group. I also want to work on some fundraising events, like other counties do, and to make our monthly meetings better and to get more people at them. There is a major disconnect between the Joe's who do the legwork, and the moneypeople who rarely show up, except to be a delegate or shake a bigwig's hand. Enabling the party to use technology to keep it's members up to date needs to be addressed as well. This may be harder than I thought..........

Hopefully, I will live up to the hype and the title. Time will tell. If you plan on congratulatig me at the State Convention, you might miss me. I will be on my trip from May4th to the 14th, so I will have to work the following Saturday, which is the convention date. I'm sure it will survive without me.

So, I guess this nails the coffin shut on my running for office in the near future. No problem - I might prefer working on politics from the back bench. Remember, if you want your candidate to get anywhere in Florence, you're gonna have to go through Reino !!!