UPDATED Former State Senator Randy Brogdon was elected today chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, defeating incumbent Dave Weston and fellow challenger Pam Pollard.
Weston failed to make it onto a second ballot and some of those in attendance said the process itself cost Weston support in that it was not well-organized.
Delegate Troy Fullerton wrote, “During the convention, it took an embarrassingly long time to get a credentials report–something that quite possibly had nothing whatsoever to do with Dave Weston’s leadership, nor with any underhandedness on the part of his rivals–yet insinuations and speculations were being circulated. But at any rate, it is simply untrue that Tea Party supporters took over the convention, or that raucous behavior on the part of any faction caused Dave Weston to not be on a second ballot. What DID happen was simply this—none of the three candidates received 50% of the votes, thus a run-off was held between the top two, Pam Pollard and Randy Brogdon. In the run off, Brogdon won–and won by a relatively slim margin.”
Brogdon defeated Pollard 52-48 percent.
Donna Windel wrote, “Weston was already on shaky ground coming into the day, but probably lost huge numbers of votes over the incredibly poorly organized credentialing.”
Estella Hernandez, a Hispanic businesswoman, was elected state vice chair of the party.
Here’s the Tulsa World’s report: http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagetest/oklahoma-republican-party-selects-former-legislator-randy-brogdon-as-chairman/article_7885637d-a1f6-5d5c-98f6-486d90aaf00d.html
Here’s The AP story: http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268748/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=h1XuGYIn
Good luck, Randy!
Brogdon should be ashamed of himself. He’s a political hack and took a job with the State Insurance Commissioner that reeked of political cronyism. Brogdon would have us believe that he, with no insurance industry experience, was the best candidate for this job? As a Republican, I’m ashamed that my party would elect a guy like this to lead the state GOP.
Whoever wrote this was not really at the convention. There were no “raucous procedural motions”. I’ve been to nearly every convention since 1972 and seen some “raucous” activities, but not today — just a few “point of order” stuff. Weston was already on shaky ground coming into the day, but probably lost huge numbers of votes over the incredibly poorly organized credentialing.
I’m with Donna, there were no raucous procedural motions but there were a lot of very frustrated delegates. It didn’t help that delegates who had pre-registered didn’t get through credentialing any faster than those who didn’t pre-register (which had been a promise of the Weston staff).
The convention started almost an hour late, the credentials report, when finally brought to the floor, was wrong on so many counties, reporting some with more than they had in delegates, and others being reported as no attendees when there were a dozen or more in attendance WITH credentials and ballots.
Randy Brogdon is a class act! Upon winning election, he returned to the stage with Pam Pollard and asked the crowd to give Dave Weston a standing ovation. He then turned the microphone over to Pam who called for GOP Unity! He is a breath of fresh air for the Republican Party!
Congratulations, Randy… and I too want to thank you, Mike, for editing the original post to reflect a more fair reporting of today’s Republican convention proceedings. Thank you!