Totally Called That

POST POLITICS

SIG: A.C. Kleinheider

HED: Hobbs too big to fire

It wasn’t 24 hours after Chris Devaney was elected GOP Chairman two Saturday’s ago when the inevitable speculation began. Surely, the consensus seemed to be, Bill Hobbs’ controversial stint as communications director of the Tennessee Republican Party would now be coming to a close. No longer a matter of if, but a matter of when.

Putting his tumultuous tenure, the departure of Hobbs in the near term would not be an unsafe bet. New party chiefs like to bring in their own people. That’s the way political jobs work. Leaders like to have people who they trust. A loose cannon holdover from a previous regime is not an incoming chairman’s ideal candidate for his message man.

And Hobbs is no ordinary loose cannon. Ever since he was installed as communications director in October of 2007, betting pools have been organized around predicting the end of the controversial blogger’s tenure at the TNGOP.

Yet, through controversy after controversy, Hobbs has remained. After his most infamous episode, the Anti-Semites for Obama press release, where Hobbs referred to Obama by his full name while displaying a picture of him in native Somali garb, more than a few media outlets wrote of Hobbs’ eventual demise as a virtual certainty.

Yet Hobbs persevered. He was not fired when he continued to blog personally while flacking for the party early in his tenure and he was not fired after producing a video about Michelle Obama which caused the now-President to call out the TNGOP on national television.

But after each and every controversy, the rumors would begin anew. “He’s got another month,” they’d say. “They are gonna wait until the end of session,” you’d hear.

But after each incident, he was still standing in charge of the party message.

“That was then, this is now” is what those constantly prophesying Hobbs’ demise will say now. With this new chairman, they say, a skilled pragmatic operative with ties to the moderate faction of the party, Hobbs is certain to fall.

Maybe he does fall this time. But, after all that has happened, can you really bet against the man?

John McCain won a landslide against Obama in the state in 2008. The GOP took a numerical majority in both houses of the state Legislature. With a strong Democratic tide against the party nationally, TNGOP came up smelling like a rose. Where Republicans across the country could do no right, Hobbs and the TNGOP were golden.

Now, it’s possible all that would have happened regardless of whether Hobbs was at the party or not. But in politics, you get the blame when things are bad and the credit when it’s good. And things were very good for Republicans in 2008.

It happened on his watch. He gets the credit. Deserved or undeserved.

Does Devaney have the power to fire Hobbs? Sure, he does. The question is: Does he want all that goes with it?

While Devaney can take Hobbs’ title and his paycheck, he can’t control him. As many inside and out of the TNGOP have learned, Hobbs is not one who plays “the game.” Most people in politics, when their number is called, they go quietly. They take the opportunity to resign without incident.

Does Hobbs strike you as that kind of person? No? Me neither.

If Hobbs doesn’t like the way he is taken out, he could make things very messy for this new chairman. A chairman, as it happens, stands accused of being the puppet of the party’s moderate faction. How comfortable will the ideologues be with the new chairman if one of his first acts is to put the right-wing, new media communications director out on the street?

You think that’s not gonna make Red State, National Review Online, Politico and Instapundit? Devaney will have it hard enough convincing folks he is not in the back pocket of Tom Ingram, Bob Corker and Bill Haslam. Firing Hobbs is a mess he doesn’t need.

Just like only Nixon could open up China, only an ideological conservative can fire Hobbs. The establishment may not like Bill Hobbs but the man is wearing a bulletproof vest emblazoned with the year 2008.

TNGOP would do better to hire a Press Secretary to deal with the media and let Hobbs pursue various strategies online at his leisure if they have a beef with his media relations skills. Going to war with Bill Hobbs in the blogsphere is just not an option for the TNGOP as they prepare to add the governor’s mansion to control of both houses of the legislature in 2010.

You can start up your pools again and place your bets, if ya like, but my money is on Hobbs leaving the party voluntarily — or not at all.