It is time to straighten out some facts regarding what happened in Sullivan County.
Robert Spencer was booked for an event in Eastman, a private community in Grantham. The venue is supported by HOA fees. A Muslim family lives in that community, in full view of the venue, and supports it through their fees. This is not a public place. This family moved here from Lebanon (the country), legally, to be Americans and part of our society. They learned of the speaker and raised a concern. They were afraid that this event would make their friends and neighbors look at them differently. They brought their concern to Randy Britton. Capt. Britton made a phone call. There was an opportunity here to have a reasoned conversation.
Instead, Keith Hanson got combative and then called Britton out on his radio show. In print, he called him a traitor. Captain Britton (US Navy, ret.) gave 25 years of his life defending you. He is not a traitor and we don’t get to throw that stone. At this point, the combative nature of the communications made this venue a non-starter.
It was moved to another private venue in Claremont without letting the venue know who the speaker was. Because of this mismanagement, they learned of the identity from groups protesting the event and bailed out. It eventually got held in a church. The event was a complete failure. Ticket sales were abysmal. Some have made this a free speech issue. These were private venues, and the family raising the concerns initially actually pays money for and is part owner of the venue. If you owned a venue, that you can literally see from your front door, and Planned Parenthood or Antifa wanted to hold an event, would you complain? I would.
Mr. Hanson was not asked to step down for booking Spencer. He was asked to step down for “managing” this mess by calling people names, some vulgar, and not trying to fix it, and outstanding questions about accounting for committee money. For these and a variety of other reasons, he decided to resign and we are still cleaning up. I have made a point of not bashing him publicly after the events that happened. It is unfortunate that Grok has made reply like this. Keith is a good guy. He just wasn’t a good administrator of the county committee and I mean him no ill will.
I don’t particularly care what I’m called. Skip Murphy now joins Ray Buckley in using that tactic when they don’t have facts and I’m used to it, and I’m still here. It is disappointing though because I was happy to see to Grok finally become regarded as an actual news source this year after breaking the Doug Ley story. This article doesn’t help. As for criticizing Mr. Beard and myself, let’s really set the record straight.
We were the only county where Republicans won in the last election. Some maintained a majority, but we flipped a Democrat majority and we did it by winning seats that favor Democrats. I was also the only Republican State Representative in Sullivan re-elected in 2012. We had just one Republican Representative when I started doing this twelve years ago and now we hold a majority. That is our record. We are busy “spanking” Democrats and have an actual record to prove it. Instead of beating up Mr. Beard and myself, maybe ask us how we did it. We are proven winners. Sullivan County right now has Republicans holding down seats that were owned by Dems and instead are turning in consistent votes to stop new taxes and defend your 2A rights. As a side note, Mr. Beard is considering another run for Executive Council. You can have him or you can have Volinsky 2.0. I’m voting for Beard, a proven winner against the odds.
Steven Smith, Chair – Sullivan County Republican Committee
