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CROSSING DOUGHERTY COUNTY PARTY LINES
GOP looks for quality candidates

• The chair of the Dougherty County Republican Party says the GOP looks for quality candidates in a Democratic stronghold.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Karen Kemp’s always been fascinated by this country’s elections process.

Her grandfather was an active “yellow-dog Democrat,” her dad a staunch Republican. So the fact that the Sylvester native chose to get her degree in political science at the University of Georgia came as a shock to no one.

But it was during a visit to the Republican National Convention in Atlanta, where a young Kemp met eventual President Ronald Reagan, that her political activism was truly born.

“Politics in Georgia were somewhat lopsided for so long,” the chair of the Dougherty County Republican Party said last week during election qualifying. “When you consider that there was no Republican governor in the state after Reconstruction until Sonny Perdue was elected, I just did not feel a (political) connection to the personal values that formed my social conscience.

“I became more engaged working with the Bush/Cheney campaign in the state, and the more engaged I became, the more convinced I was that (Republicans) adhered to my core values.”

Kemp’s growing activism landed her the chairmanship of the local Republican party 18 months ago, and she’s since worked to help elect GOP candidates in a county that is decidedly Democratic.

“Obviously, we’d like to see more Republican candidates running for office, but I think it’s more important to get (Republicans) in the community actively engaged in the elections process,” she said. “I personally love Albany, and I’d like to see our candidates with more seats at the table.

“But I also think the quality of the candidates is an even more important factor. We try to encourage the members of the party to stay informed on the issues that define the various elections.”

Kemp, whose husband, Major Scott Kemp, is an active-duty Marine whom she has “put on the plane to Iraq four times,” said that, despite a growing disquiet over the policies of the Republican Bush administration, she believes in the job the U.S. military is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I certainly don’t understand all the decisions our commander-in-chief has made, but I do believe in the progress our troops have made,” she said. “I don’t believe we can give up over there; quitting cannot be an option.

“I feel deeply for every family that has lost a loved one in the war, but I never question Scott’s going over there. I’ve seen the difference from when he was in Fallujah during the worst of the fighting and the last time he was there when he walked the streets safely.”

Karen Kemp, who is one of the county’s three Republican delegates who will attend the party’s national convention in Denver, said the GOP has a strong contender for the presidency in Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

“I think he’s a great fit for this time,” she said. “He embraces the conservative values of the Republican party, and he has shown that he votes his conscience. He’s a veteran and a hero, and while I am loyal to the Republican party, I think McCain’s willingness to vote his conscience will allow him to work with both sides of the aisle.

“I believe strongly in the two-party process, and I think overtly partisan politics is one of the things wrong with our country.”

A nonprofit volunteer whose work includes 10 years as director of development at Darton College, Kemp is currently the executive director of the Lily Pad SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examinor) Center in Albany. Her younger daughter Kellen Cooper is the reigning Miss Albany, and her daughter Caitlyn Cooper recently earned a degree in — you guessed it — political science at UGA.

This is one family where the fruit, obviously, doesn’t fall far from the tree.

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