RALEIGH, N.C.  – North Carolina Republicans picked former Raleigh mayor Tom Fetzer on Saturday to marshal the state GOP’s message, manpower and money leading up to elections next year headlined by a U.S. Senate race.

Fetzer beat Lee County Commissioner Chad Adams to become state GOP chairman on the second ballot after an initial round narrowed the four candidates. Adams bowed out when it seemed clear Fetzer would win, and the state Republican convention proclaimed Fetzer the winner without completing the votes cast by about 1,600 delegates.

The election was hotly contested as the party tries to rebuild in the wake of disappointing election cycles in 2006 and 2008.

Since 2006, Republicans have lost their majority in the state’s congressional delegation. In 2008, Sen. Elizabeth Dole was soundly first time since 1976 with Barack Obama’s victory. Growth in Republican voter registration lagged behind Democrats and independents.

Fetzer, 54, was endorsed by U.S. Reps. Sue Myrick and Patrick McHenry, former U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth, and former Gov. Jim Holshouser.

He stressed that he was a proven fundraiser, had the influence to recruit the best Republican candidates, and was an experienced grassroots campaigner.

Fetzer worked with former U.S. Sens. Jesse Helms and John East, and served as an assistant cabinet member in former Gov. Jim Martin’s administration before being elected to the first of three two-year terms as mayor of Raleigh in 1993. He also ran a high-end GOP political consulting firm the past five years.

“If we mean to end the Democrats’ domination of our state’s politics for over a century, let it begin here,” Fetzer said in accepting his nomination Saturday. “We are leaving here today united – one team, one goal.”

Adams, 42, presented himself as the upstart running against a failed Republican Party bureaucracy in Raleigh. He was on leave from his job at the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Raleigh.

“The state chairman must come from a volunteer background in order to understand how to run this party,” he said. “The Republican Party will never be a party to contend with until it realizes it starts at the precinct level and works its way up.”

Former Guilford County GOP chairman Marcus Kindley and Bill Randall, a retired Navy veteran from Wake Forest, fell out after the first round of balloting.

Former Duplin County GOP chairman Dale Rankin said he came to the convention planning to vote for Kindley, whose ideas he heard fleshed out during frequent appearances on a Wilmington talk radio station. But after his second choice of Randall bowed out he said he decided to back Fetzer.

“I just felt like between the two of them he just had the most experience,” Rankin said.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Newly-Elected Wake County GOP Chair Claude Pope Jr. tonight promised Republican Delegates at the party’s 2009 county convention that under his leadership, the GOP would “recruit and endorse and support and elect common sense candidates” who support community based schools, and who oppose the constant reassignment of students solely for the purpose of achieving so-called “economic diversity.”

“The real North Carolina Education Lottery is busing our school children from one end of Wake County to the other to meet the liberals’ social agenda.  It’s time to stop gambling with the future of our children and restore community based schools,” Pope said in his acceptance speech.  School Board elections are scheduled for this coming October.

Pope said the Republican Party would concentrate on four themes under his leadership:  Fiscal Conservatism, Personal Responsibility, Focus on Families and Neighborhoods and Government Accountability.

The annual County Republican Convention, held at Daniels Middle School in Raleigh, had twice as many attendees as the 2008 convention, and elected new officers for the 2009-11 term.  The delegates also heard speeches from several candidates for the office of state party chairman, and from Ron Margiotta, the only current Wake County School Board member opposed to the reassignment plan. Mr. Margiotta’s opposition to the reassignment plan has the full support of the Wake County GOP.

Pope, a Wake County native and Raleigh businessman, addressed the convention after thanking outgoing Wake GOP Chair, David Robinson for his 4 years of leadership.  Delegates gave Robinson a standing ovation for his job performance.

Additional convention business included the election of delegates and alternates to Congressional District and State Conventions, which will be held later in the year.

WASHINGTON – And then there were two.
 
Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis has dropped out of the race for Republican Party chairman.

That leaves former Maryland Lt. Gov Michael Steele and GOP Chairman Katon Dawson going head-to-head in the sixth balloting for the right to head the Republican National Committee.

It’s all but certain one will come out the winner.

Of the 168 votes to win, 85 are needed.

Current chairman Mike Duncan dropped out earlier after failing to get enough support for re-election.

RALEIGH, N.C. – A former Democratic National Committee chairman apologized Sunday for suggesting that Hurricane Gustav’s expected arrival as Republicans prepare to open their national convention is a sign God favors Democrats.

During a flight from Denver to Charlotte last Friday, Don Fowler – who was DNC chair in 1995 and 1996 – was recorded telling a fellow passenger that it appeared Gustav would make landfall today.

“That just demonstrates that God is on our side,” Fowler added, according to a video posted on YouTube under the headline: “Fowler Fouls: Hurricane is God’s Favor To Democrats.”

The person who recorded the conversation is not identified. The person whom Fowler was talking to is not visible in the video, but was identified on the conservative Web site www.redstate.com as Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C.

On Sunday, Fowler told The Associated Press that he was making fun of comments made by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said the attacks were God’s punishment for abortion, homosexuality and other sins.

“This is a point of national concern. I think everybody of good will has great empathy and sympathy for people in New Orleans,” Fowler said. “Most religious people are praying for people in New Orleans. There is no political connotation to this whatsoever. This was just poking fun at Jerry Falwell and the nonsensical thing he had said several years ago.”