Greenville County Republican Party chairman and S.C. Republican Party first vice chairman Patrick Haddon has a full-on campaign going to make him the next chairman of the SCGOP. The amount of people involved and the seriousness of the undertaking points to the powerful position the state party holds in South Carolina.
Ahead of the May convention, Haddon has a couple volunteer coordinators, a couple grassroots coordinators, a person running the political side, one doing social media and two people managing the effort. As far as staff goes, the eight or so people behind the campaign are an amalgam of staffers from the campaigns of Atty. Gen. Alan Wilson and Lt. Gov. Ken Ard.
On the financial side, he’s got some heavy-hitters going to bat for him. For instance, S.C. Federation of Republican Women president Betty Poe is said to be helping bring in the dollars to keep the campaign running. With the people joining up, Haddon’s finance operation looks pretty strong.
As far as staff goes, Todd Kincannon is the senior campaign manager, while Katie Welborn is the other campaign manager. Chris Godbey and Jon Parker are coordinating the grassroots, Kathryn Calhoun Dennis and Chandler Hudson are heading up the volunteer operation, while Katie Wiederman acts as political director and Somer Grasser handles social networking.
In his run for first vice chair, Haddon sported an extensive list of endorsements. It will be interesting to see how state activists and officials begin to pair off in the next few months. Right now, the other announced candidate in the race is Newberry County Republican Party chairman Chad Connelly. We don’t have access to who all is on the Connelly team and we will give you an update as soon as we do. There have been a lot of buzz about Justin Evans, who has been working with State Treasurer Curtis Loftis, providing Connelly “strategic advice.” We cannot verify that rumor.
