November 2, 2008 - 22:06

MontCo GOP’s voter registration drive stalled early

In July, Montgomery County Republican Committee Chairman Bob Kerns took to the steps of the Norristown courthouse to announce an ambitious goal: the party would hire a team of professionals to bring back Republicans who had left the party to participate in the historical Democratic primary a few months earlier.

"We hope to bring the little elephants home," Kerns said at the time. "It's time to come back to the Republican Party."

As Election Day nears, it hasn't exactly turned out the way Kerns was hoping. Work the party has done for the McCain campaign, Kerns told PolitickerPA.com recently, meant the program had to be put on hold.

"That made up put our registration program on the back-burner for a couple months," he said.

Kerns emphasized that the initiative was still open, and would continue after the election. But he said no numbers were available for registrants that had been brought back to the party.

The stakes are high for the county party in a slate of down-ballot elections this week, and the registration disadvantage will only make things harder. Democrats now outnumber Republicans by more than 24,000 voters in the suburban-Philadelphia county, double the party's advantage six months ago.

"It's going to be an ongoing program," Kerns said of the registration drive. "What I'd like to do is look on that program on a yearly base."

Dan Hirschhorn is a PolitickerPA.com Reporter and can be reached via email at noreply@politicker.com.

Related topics: Montgomery County, Bob Kerns

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