Both Parties To Choose New Leaders Member Of Republican’s ‘Mainstream’ Wing, Longtime Demo Committeeman Have Inside Track

Republicans and Democrats in Spokane County will have new leaders this month after they gather for reorganization meetings.

They are the elections after the elections, the ones decided by the little-noticed and oft-ignored last position on the general election ballot, the precinct committee officers.

GOP Chairwoman Charlotte Karling and Democratic Chairman Jimmy Sirmans are both retiring. In the past, such vacuums sometimes prompted bruising fights for control of both parties.

This year, however, the factions seem more intent on expanding this fall’s successes than losing ground to fratricidal warfare.

Bill Hyslop, former U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington who is now in private practice, has the inside track for the top post in the county GOP when the newly elected precinct committee officers meet Saturday morning.

Democrats, who meet a week from today are likely to bestow their top post on Ken Pelo, the recently retired wrestling coach at Rogers High School and a longtime precinct committeeman.

Although a member of the Republicans’ “mainstream” wing, Hyslop is acceptable to the Christian conservatives who make up the party’s fastest-growing faction.

The two factions worked out a truce to share power in the early 1990s. Karling and her predecessor, Duane Sommers, were both associated with the Christian conservative wing, but other party officials were from the group variously described as moderate, mainstream or “traditional” conservative.

“The party needs someone of his stature to lead … someone interested in reconciliation,” said Karling, who took over the chairmanship in 1995, when Sommers was appointed to the state House of Representatives.

She decided not to seek a second term because it was beginning to affect her staff job at the Union Gospel Mission.

The Republicans had a potentially fractious year, with wide open primaries for both the presidential and gubernatorial nominations. But each faction had a nominee in those top spots.

Sen. Bob Dole was the mainstream choice for the presidency, and state Sen. Ellen Craswell won the gubernatorial bid by mobilizing Christian conservatives.

But they worked together for the general election.

“The moderates really did a good job of backing Ellen … They came to her rallies and her fund-raisers,” said Lynn Schindler, former county vice chairwoman and a leader of the Christian conservative wing. “It’s really a good, together party.”

Although a challenger could arise at Saturday’s meeting, no one else has announced a candidacy, said Schindler, who is backing Hyslop.

Neither faction appears to have an overwhelming advantage in the precinct committee officers elected last month. Both sides appear to have gained in some precincts and lost in others.

Reluctant to assume he is a shooin, Hyslop is talking in measured sentences about building a broadbased party. Some of the differences that have plagued Republicans in past years have been personal, others have been ideological, he said.

“We are making every effort to have everybody be included,” he said.

Democrats are also searching for a replacement. Like Karling, Sirmans, the pastor of the Solomon Temple Community Church, said he can no longer hold both jobs.

“Being chairman is a full-time job,” he said. “I needed to concentrate on my ministry.”

Enter Ken Pelo.

“A lot of people have asked me to take the position. I think it’s proof that if you hang around long enough, you can get elected to something like this,” Pelo joked.

The Democrats’ internal struggle in recent years has centered not on ideology, but on allegations of racism as party leaders struggled to deal with members who reportedly used ethnic slurs.

Sirmans, an African-American, said one of his goals in the last two years was “to get that behind us” and improve the party’s image.

“Folks weren’t having to run against the racial slur, but could proudly run as Democrats,” he said.

If elected, Pelo said he’d like to continue the work to attract young people to the party and try to regain lost legislative and congressional seats.

“We had good candidates who ran great races. We didn’t win and we should have,” he said.

, DataTimes