Hillsborough County Republicans Tuesday night voted in Art Wood to be their new chair, succeeding Deborah Cox-Roush, who resigned last month last month to work with the Herman Cain presidential campaign in Florida.
Wood was the establishment choice, having worked the past three years as Cox-Roush’s Vice Chair, and the chosen nominee of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and her former boss, State Attorney Mark Ober (who gave a nominating speech for Wood in his best stentorian delivery).
There were well over 200 people in attendance at the party’s new headquarters in (the hard to find) River of Tampa Bay Education Center, and 193 local Republicans cast ballots.
The breakdown was as follows: Wood took a clear majority of votes with 113; Tea Party favorite Chris Chris Shalosky, an extremely late entrant into the race, came in second with 45 votes; controversial former state committeewoman Carol Carter was third with 26 votes, and K.C. Willis Bowick, founder of the Tampa Bay Black Chamber of Commerce, was last with 6 votes.
This article appears in Nov 10-16, 2011.
