Throughout this past election season, Hillsborough Republicans emphasized that they were more organized than they were in 2008, when Barack Obama defeated John McCain by 7 percentage points, helping him win the Sunshine State and the national election.
Hillsborough is considered one of the most important and influential swing counties in the country (not to mention it was the host of the RNC). Republican Executive Committee Chairman Art Lee vowed the results in Hillsborough would be a different story this year, and that the coordination between the local party and Mitt Romney's team was infinitely more organized than in 2008.
So what happened? Obama defeated Romney in Hillsborough by 6 points, 52-46.
On Tuesday, the committee held its second organized meeting since the November election. Some party leaders were upfront about their disappointment in last month's results, and vowed to do better in 2014 and 2016.
In official business, party members elected East Hillsborough state Sen. Tom Lee to be their new chairman, and former chair Debbie Cox-Roush was named vice chair. Just as interesting were some of the comments made by officials who spoke before the 193 voting members of the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee; none more so than former County Commissioner Chris Hart, who was a candidate for party chair before he conceded to Lee during his nominating speech.
Hart began by making a sly reference to one of Mitt Romney's biggest unforced errors of the campaign, the Boca Raton tape that indicated he didn't really care about people who receive public assistance and/or don't pay income taxes.
"47 percent of the people in this room will like it. And 47 percent won't," Hart joked about his prepared comments.
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2012.