"I am going to run for Chris Devaney’s seat as Chairman of the Republican Party," said Ron Harwell today in an email exchange with members of the 9-12 group. "I ran for the Chairman of the TN GOP in 2010 and lost," he says. "I plan to run again in December of 2012. I can use all the help I can get. The votes for Chairman are done by the State Executive Committee. Please talk to any SEC Members you know about helping me get elected."
Ron Harwell is a member of the local 9-12 group and former Republican primary candidate for the U. S. Congress. In 2010 Harwell came in fourth in a five-man race for the Republican nomination for Tennessee 4th Congressional District. Scott DesJarlais won that seat garnering 27,812 votes to Ron Howell's 9,237 votes.
There is a rebellion taking place in the Republican Party led by anti-Agenda 21 conspiracy theorist, those fearful that the State of Tennessee is in danger of falling under Sharia law, and by gun rights advocates who think gun owners should be allowed to carry guns anywhere even if private property owners do not want guns on their property.
While these three fringe movements make up the bulk of the disgruntled Republican, others have a general sense that the party fails to represent conservative values and that many in the leadership of the Republican party are almost indistinguishable from Democrats and are RINO's, which is an acronym of "Republican in Name Only."
I would not accept that this disgruntled faction of the Party is more conservative than establishment or mainstream Republicans. I do not think embracing weird conspiracy theories is a conservative position, nor is distorting the meaning of the second amendment, nor saying that Muslim are not covered by the First Amendment. Real conservatives are rational and they support the Constitution. This faction however often claims to be the real conservatives in the party and the mainstream press will often refer to them as the more "conservative Republicans."
This faction is currently challenging Debra Maggart in her reelection and they recently took out a full-page $5000 ad in the Tennessean lambasting Governor Haslam because his administration hired a highly qualified native Tennessee attorney, who happens to be Muslim, for a post in the Department of Economic and Community Development.
This fringe faction of the Party is planning to take over more county parties and run more candidates for the State Executive Committee and take over the Executive Committee and elect one of their own to the post of Party chairman.
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