05/21/2005

Associated Press

More than a thousand party faithful re-elected Farrell Blount as chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party on Saturday, despite a challenge by Winston-Salem alderman Vernon Robinson.

Blount was elected by acclamation halfway through the roll call of delegates at the party's convention at the Asheville Civic Center Saturday.

Ellis W. Hardison, a delegate from Robbins in Moore County, was supporting Robinson because he wanted a change in leadership, but he said he would support the winner.

"I back the chairman 100 percent, no matter who it is," Hardison said. "I'm a Republican."

Trisha McLeod, a delegate from Transylvania County, said she was torn between Blount, who some Republicans have criticized for failing to lead the party to more statewide victories in the 2004 election, and Robinson.

"But I'll be OK either way," she said.

McLeod said she had not seen a television ad launched this weekend on Asheville stations by the Log Cabin Republicans, a national group of GOP members who support a more liberal treatment of issues about homosexuality.

"Those issues can be really negative, with people being so for or against, and no in between," McLeod said.

"In the world we live in today, I wish we could be more about loving and caring for each other and not worry about these sexual issues. That's where I differ with the (party) platform," which opposes gay marriage and adoption of children by gay couples."

McLeod said the gay-rights issue was a small part of the larger Republican agenda, which she supports.

"No one adheres to the entire platform of the party," she said. "Everyone is going to have a difference with something in it. But we're still united as a party."

Conservative newspaper columnist Rich Galen told a luncheon audience that party unity and grass roots organization was essential to secure political victories.

"This is where it begins, at the local level," said Galen. "In America, politics is truly a ground-up system. And the states with the best county organizations will win."

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On the Net:

N.C. Republican Party: http://www.ncgop.org

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Information from: The Asheville Citizen-Times, http://www.citizen-times.com