It is too bad that Maj. Gen. Bobby Christine has been called up to active duty with the Army National Guard, because he was really needed over the weekend to keep the peace between local Republicans.
Video of the Saturday morning “Mass Precinct” event shows a group of people working on paperwork at a table, when they are approached by Linda Parnell, 67, who, unprovoked, proceeds to hurl the contents of a cup of coffee into the face of former Columbia County Commissioner Dewey Galeas.
It appears the people sitting at the table were taking too long to fill out paperwork for Parnell’s tastes, and she decided that slinging her Starbucks around the room might get them to move faster.
Instead, the “Jerry Springer” moment earned Parnell an assault charge and a brief stay at the Columbia County lock-up, and it appears that Galeas was unharmed in the encounter.
Political parties at the local level have three main tasks; they exist to monitor local elections for fairness, support up and coming candidates for political office and work to bring public awareness to the overall aims of the group. In Columbia County, the Republican party is known more for fisticuffs than fiscal conservatism.
Columbia County is blessed to have a solid group of elected individuals running the county; however, the group of people that are supposed to be working to achieve grass-roots level support operate more like the Harper Valley PTA with Cousin Eddie as chairman.
There are two factions within the CCRP who have generational animosity against one another that is only one level below that of the Hatfields and McCoys.
Joe Edelmon is a relatively new face as the chairman of the group, and he would do well to simply dismiss Parnell from party events and purge his party of the element that works against the group’s common goals; otherwise, Columbia County would do better to simply not have a Republican party at all as, right now, the group seemingly exists only for entertainment purposes.
