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Carter, Wood seek to replace Cox-Roush

Posted Oct 26, 2011 by William March

Updated Oct 26, 2011 at 12:33 PM

Carol Carter, who resigned a previous Hillsborough County Republican Party office after a controversy over forwarding a racially demeaning email, will run to replace resigning party Chairman Debbie Cox-Roush.

Also running to replace Cox-Roush is veteran local party activist and current Vice Chairman Art Wood.

Cox-Roush is leaving the post to take a position in Herman Cain’s presidential campaign.

Carter announced her plans to run at a Republican women’t club gathering Tuesday night.

In February 2009, she resigned as one of the county party’s delegates to the state party executive committee after it was made public that she sent friends an email joke saying black people could get to Washington for President Barack Obama’s inauguration but couldn’t get out of New Orleans to avoid Hurricane Katrina.

Carter said in an interview today she shouldn’t have resigned, even though then state party Chairman Jim Greer was threatening to remove her from the post.

“It was a mistake,” she said of her resignation. “It was in the heat of what was going on, a snap judgment.”

Carter said at the time of the incident that the email was a joke she didn’t expect to be seen by anyone but the eight friends she sent it to, and that she was “sorry it was received in a negative manner.  I do hope that we are going to be allowed to keep our sense of humor.”

Asked whether the controversy will be a problem in her race for chairman, she said, “My philosophy’s always been that there’s no past in politics, only the future,” Carter said. She said she’s running for the future of her grandchildren—“I hope they’ll have a country to live in like I did.”

Wood, 66, of Plant City, has been vice chairman for three years and active in the party for about a dozen years. He’s head of a local credit union.

Carter said one advantage she could bring to the post is that she could spend full time on the job.

Wood responded, “I’ve been contemplating this for a number of years, and I’ve figured out how to fit it into my work schedule.”