Monday, April 09, 2012

Is the 7th District Chair Race Back to Two Candidates?

Horry County's Ace in the Hole, Debbie Harwell, Drops Out ???


    We missed this weekend's big GOP get together in Horry County.... Yes, we're still a bit under the weather from all these allergies and reactions to the meds we were prescribed.  Today was the first day in two months that we didn't take some kind of pill, and it's seemed to help.  It appears that we may have missed some big news, at least as far as the new 7th District Chair's race is concerned.  Though things like this are never 100%, it appears that Debbie Harwell will not be submitting her name for consideration...


    No, this is not a total surprise to us.  A couple weeks ago in Florence, we heard that Harwell's husband had taken a turn for the worse, so it's appears to be a similar situation to what caused her to drop out of the Congressional race.  Hopefully, everything works out okay for her, and she'll be able to contribute to the party in the near future...


   Though not a lot of people in the party care much about the intraparty selections, Harwell's absence makes the race a lot different.  Basically, all three announced candidates - Harwell, Tom Grimes and Elijah Jones - had made the rounds, and they were able to get a good idea on what delegates they had a shot at.  Now with Horry County's 46 delegates to the convention up for grabs again, it blows the race up.....


    The first question is will there be a new candidate for Chairman from Horry?  Maybe... Hey, we can speak from personal experience that you can NOT announce or even intend to run, then walk into the convention and suddenly become Vice-Chairman... Luckily, we are not a delegate to any convention, so our odds are pretty low this year!  But, the immediate question would be just how motivated would a new person be if they decided in the last week or two to run?  Add to that the fact that yeah, 46 delegates is by far the most in the 7th, but it's only about 1/3 of the total vote.  The 7th does not live by Horry alone....or Florence.


    Assuming that no one suddenly eminates from Horry, both Grimes and Jones have a free for all on their hands.  Seeing as how both are from Florence County, delegates in Horry have to be suspicious of whether either will have any focus on The Beach at all.  That, in short, is the race in a nutshell - whoever can convince Horry that they will not be a Pee Dee-centric Chairman will pull it out.  Funny that a county with NO candidate in the race will be the Kingmaker, but that's how it will go.  We have no doubt that Johnnie Bellamy has become a much more popular person than she was a couple weeks ago...  Long live the Queen !!!!


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1 comment:

Moye Graham said...

No doubt Mr. Grimes has proved that he is not just interested in Florence County. Just ask any of us in the Sixth where he is the current Chairman. Lets hope the 7th will choose wisely and choose Mr. Grimes to lead them.