Marion Co. Republican Chairman Kyle Walker Turns Back on GOP Party Workers, Appoints Hamilton Co. Resident David Brooks to Chair Center Township

The biggest mistake Tom John made as Marion County Chairman was to strip party workers of their power in favor of an autocratic structure in which decisions are handed down by the county chairman. That doesn't work in a volunteer organization, such as a political party. As one high-ranking Republican told me, if the county chairman doesn't give the party workers authority in the process of selecting candidates, the whole organization is weakened.

New Marion County GOP Chairman Kyle Walker had a golden opportunity to give back some power to the party workers and re-energize the party faithful. Instead Walker turned his back on the party workers to continue with the Tom John autocratic model of party leadership which has failed so miserably in terms of rebuilding the local GOP. Exhibit A is Walker's decision to appoint Hamilton County resident and hatchet man David Brooks to continue in a leadership role in the Marion County GOP organization, this time as Center Township Chairman.

Center Township, believe it or not, is the most important township in terms of control of the GOP organization. The township doesn't produce a lot of Republican votes in elections, but it has something more important to autocrats like Tom John and Kyle Walker. It has numerous precinct committeemen slots most of which remain vacant until filled by the county chairman.

These positions are critical in county slating contests and the county convention. When the county chairman wants to outvote elected, working PCs, the people who do the grunt work in the party, he simply appoints scores of "mummy dummy" PCs to slots in Center Township and other townships. Often these people don't live in the township and some may not live in the county or even the state. Certainly they don't do any work in the party. The job of a "mummy dummy" PC is simply to attend slating and vote the way the county chairman wants, offsetting the votes of those real PCs who do the work.

No one is better at finding and filling PC slots with warm bodies who will vote the way the chairman wants them to than David Brooks. Brooks also excels at making threats to existing party workers who won't agree to support the chairman's favored candidate. Brooks, who has previously worked as a township chairman in Pike and Center, has never shown the slightest interest in rebuilding the party. His sole focus has been on ensuring that party leaders get their way, even if that means stepping all over party workers.

Since Walker's decision, some Center Township Republicans have contacted me outraged not just that Walker is going outside of Center for leadership of the township, but that he went outside the county. They are none too pleased to have to serve under David Brooks.

Walker has been in office only a month yet he has demonstrated that he couldn't care less about bringing reforms to the party that will make the Marion County GOP organization stronger by strengthening the grass roots. Hopefully his term of office will end with Mayor Ballard's inevitable crushing defeat in November of 2011. The Marion County Republican Party deserves better than a younger version of Tom John. We need a house-cleaning of people like Kyle Walker, Tom John, Carl Brizzi, Joe Loftus, and Robert Grand, and that housecleaning needs to start after the next election. They need to be held responsible for what they've done to our party.

Note: Pictured are Kyle Walker and David Brooks.