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RALEIGH — The next chairman of North Carolina’s Republican Party is going to have a rebuilding task, say rank-and-file activists, elected officials and those running for the job.

When the party gathers for its convention June 12-14, members will look back at a 2008 election that did not go according to their plan. A Democrat won the state’s electoral votes for the first time since 1976, and legislative Republicans were unable to make headway in taking back control of the General Assembly.

The next chairman “is going to have to identify to the state again who the Republican Party is and what our goals are,” said Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes, who is sergeant at arms for the party convention and therefore publicly neutral on the chairman’s contest.

“We allowed others to define who we are,” Barnes said of the 2008 campaign. “Even amongst some of the folks within the party, we aren’t sure who we are.”

With no Republican in the governor’s mansion and Democrats in control of seven of the other nine statewide elected offices, the new chairman will be leaned on as a voice for Tar Heel Republicans. That’s all the more so as U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, who was frequently on the stump with other candidates in 2008, will be busy defending his seat in 2010.

In the Coke-vs.-Pepsi war of politics, the Republican brand has lost customers for a variety of reasons, say the four men running for party chairmen: former Guilford County Republican Chairman Marcus Kindley, former Raleigh Mayor Tom Fetzer, former think tank Vice President Chad Adams and Bill Randall, a retired Navy man who lives in Wake Forest.

“The Republicans did not do a good job at differentiating between sound, fundamental, conservative principles and what the Democrats had,” said Randall, who since leaving the Navy has worked for a business consultant and for the U.S. Census.

Like all four men running for the office, Randall said, the Republicans need to better articulate Republican themes such as more limited government and lower taxes. And all say those themes will help draw donors, voters and volunteers back to the party.

“If you have a product that has lost its appeal, if you have a product that people do not see the value in it, you can market it all you want, it’s not going to sell,” Randall said.

Randall is the least-known in North Carolina, moving here in 2008 because of his wife’s job opportunity. More than the other candidates, he puts religion front and center of his public presentation, naming his Web site www.pray4ncgop.com.

Randall said the point is not to remake the party as the party of God — those who do are “misguided,” he says — but to advertise something about himself.

“To me, the Republican Party best embraces those core principles that I believe in,” he said. “I do not have to hang my faith up on the door to act in accordance with conservative principles.”

Kindley, too, often talks about his faith background — he is a lay-minister at a Methodist Church — but emphasizes his experience in business and as a county chairman in making his pitch to the convention delegates.

“We need to look at every county as a franchise and help those franchises succeed,” Kindley said.

Among the things that elected officials say the party needs to master are its propensity to cast out members who disagree on one policy issue or another — labeling such apostates as RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only.

“This either-or politics, the days of that are long gone,” Barnes said.

Kindley and the other candidates seem to agree with that sentiment, to a point.

“We’re never going to agree on anything 100 percent,” Kindley said. “But there are some things upon which every Republican should be able to agree. For example, big tax increases should be something GOP officials fight against rather than embrace, Kindley said.

Fetzer, who talks a lot of fiscal austerity as well, puts social issues front and center.

“We’re a pro-life party,” Fetzer said.

When asked whether the party should back candidates who agreed on all other issues but not that one, Fetzer said, “It’s in the party platform. If you’re going to run as a Republican candidate, you ought to read the Republican platform and be comfortable with it. ... I don’t think the party should retreat or waver from those core values.”

In interviews, Fetzer, Kindley and Randall also raised pushing for a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman as a social issue Republicans need to do a better job of talking about.

As with any political campaign, there are some sharp elbows being thrown in this race. One of the sharpest thrown by a radio talk show host provoked Fetzer to sue late last week over the suggestion he was gay — a notion he called “a lie written by a lying coward.”

For his part, Adams emphasized tapping grass-roots movements sympathetic to the Republican Party. He points to the “tea party” protests, at which people have rallied against tax increases, as a movement from which Republicans ought to draw strength.

“I want to get those activists back in the party,” Adams said. “Our strength is at the bottom, not from the top down.”

Adams said he would like to see a discussion about closing the Republican Party primaries rather than allowing unaffiliated voters to cast ballots.

While he initially supported the idea of appealing to people who weren’t necessarily registered Republicans, Adams said open primaries have helped lead Republican candidates away from a conservative bedrock.

In interviews, all four men talked about similar themes. What delegates to the state convention will have to decide is which one of the four is better able to make those themes come to fruition.

Randall said he has been frustrated to see delegates lining up behind other candidates without at least talking to him. Meanwhile, Kindley said he thought the playing field was more fair than in 2007, when he lost to Linda Daves of Charlotte.

But based on big-name endorsements, Fetzer might be considered the front-runner. He claims support from former gubernatorial candidates Fred Smith and Richard Vinroot and former U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth.

Adams, who pledges to be a “full-time chairman,” can point to endorsements from Supreme Court Justice Bob Orr and is known in some circles for his work with the John Locke Foundation, part of a network of conservative think tanks based in Raleigh.

Bill Wright, current chairman of the Guilford County Republican Party, said he expects there to be several ballots, with the delegates having to winnow their choices.

“There’s going to be plenty of votes for all four of them, to tell you the truth,” he said.
 

Contact Mark Binker at (919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com