15 Delegates To Be Chosen TonightÂ
The Campbell County Republican Delegate Convention is being held tonight at the Wilder City Building, at 520 Licking Pike, to nominate 15 local delegates who could represent Kentucky at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 18-21.
But some county Republicans were miffed by the timing of the meeting and were confused about its purpose.
Kevin Sell, Executive Committee Member of the Campbell County Republican Party, said the meeting was called by the Campbell County Republican Party, at the behest of the Republican Party of Kentucky. He will chair the meeting tonight, which is set for 7:00 p.m.
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| Kevin Sell will chair the meeting tonight. LinkedIn. |
“The reason we had to schedule it so quickly was because of the Presidential caucus (on March 5). Everything we’ve planned lately has been forced into a complicated timeline because of it. We’ve been somewhat hamstrung by our own rules,” said Sell.
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An update on the meeting time and place was first sent out via email, then a Facebook post from the Campbell County Republican Party was published on Saturday, March 19 at 6:45 p.m.
Others received robocalls from Sen. Jim Bunning asking county Republicans to attend the meeting in Wilder. In part, the recording said, “this election may come down to politicians deciding who our candidate is, so this may be the last chance you have to truly have a say in (the nominee),” said Bunning in a recording.
Sell told Fort Thomas Matters that the 15 local delegates will be made up of a mix of county elected officials and localstakeholders. The meeting tonight will also nominate 15 alternate delegates. Once those nominations are confirmed, they will be added to larger pools within the district and state, who’ll ultimately make up the delegates who will help choose the party’s presidential nominee.
It’s not clear who the delegate nominees will be in Campbell County, but Sell said he believes the list will be enough to make everyone happy.
“The slate of nominees that we’ll be presenting tonight is pretty inclusive of everyone’s interests. We have a boatload of county elected officials this time,” said Sell. “It should be a rather quick meeting because the RPK rules are pretty specific as to what business will take place tonight, but the length of the meeting will depend on what the majority of those in attendance will do.”
Tim Nolan, a former Campbell County District Judge, said that his contingent of Campbell County Republicans intend to nominate their own slate and he hopes the process will allow for an open discussion of the nominating process. He said he was forwarded an email about the time and place of the convention late Saturday night.
“We’ll have our delegates that we’ll nominate,” said Nolan. “If we win, we win and if we don’t, we don’t. But that’s the way democracy should operate.”
There has been a major riff between the two contingents of the Campbell County Republican Party, which dates back over a number of years. The makeup of the Executive Committee of Campbell County was due to be voted on this year, but has been pushed back to 2017 by the state party due to the need to have uniform leadership to help facilitate the Presidential Caucus, which took place earlier this month.
“I think Mac Brown (the Kentucky GOP Chairman), is well aware of the problems that exist in Campbell County. We hoped that this would have been resolved this year,” said Nolan.
All Campbell County registered Republicans are eligible to attend and vote tonight, so long as they’ve been registered by December 31, 2015 in the county. The meeting will take place in the basement of the Wilder City Building.
