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Wood elected Hillsborough GOP chairman

Posted Nov 15, 2011 by William March

Updated Nov 15, 2011 at 11:02 PM

Art Wood of Plant City, previously vice chairman of the Hillsborough County Republican Party, was elected chairman Tuesday night.

Wood won a convincing victory over three other candidates, with 113 votes to 45 for Chris Shalosky, 26 for Carol Carter and 6 for Willis Bowick.

“Obviously I just feel overwhelmed with the support I got and the size of the job, but also the wonderful attitude that everybody has given me,” Wood said after the vote Tuesday night.

One of the new chairman’s main jobs is to prepare the party for local action in the 2012 election. Wood said he expects to have the first planning meeting for that effort Saturday, with all members of the executive committee invited.

He replaces Debbie Cox-Roush, who left the post to take a staff position with the Herman Cain presidential campaign.

The role of the tea party movement in the Republican Party was an issue in the election. Shalosky, who announced his candidacy after a gathering of tea party movement activists Sunday who wanted more representation in party leadership, had said his goal as chairman was inclusion of the movement in the party.

Carter was seeking to return to party leadership after resigning a local party office in 2009, following a controversy over her forwarding an email considered by some to be racially offensive.

Bowick is founder of a local black chamber of commerce.