Conversation with new Hillsborough REC Chair

This interview appeared in today's Tampa Trib.

New GOP Chairman: Loss 'Won't Happen Again'
By WILLIAM MARCH

TAMPA - Debbie Cox-Roush, new chairman of the Hillsborough County Republican Party, ran for the post because she wasn't happy the county voted for Barack Obama, and vows local Republicans won't let that happen again.

Before Obama's win, Hillsborough went Democratic for president only twice in 40 years, for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1996.

In an interview last week, Roush rejected the idea that Obama's success indicates any trend or Democratic tide. Republicans, she said, didn't do their grass-roots organizing as well as in 2004.

Her slogan, she said, will be, "There's no past in politics."

Roush is taking over a local party organization that has surged in membership and activity for about five years, partly with an influx of conservative Republicans from eastern Hillsborough County.

...Will the local party's dynamic growth continue, or has it made all the gains it can?

"Actually it is continuing. Since taking over as chairman of the party, we have had hundreds of calls from new persons in Hillsborough County wanting to get involved, wanting to take action, wanting to become part of our grass-roots. As of our January meeting, we inducted 72 new executive committee members."

When inductions of new members are completed, she said, the total will be 427.

..."I want people to be part of our party because they're Republicans. ... It doesn't matter the color of their skin, their race, their gender, their sexual orientation. As long as we all have the same values, that's what's important to the Republican Party."

Read the entire interview here.