Getting the band back together

A few weeks ago, our Editor-in-Chief, former State Representative Scot Turner reached out to me with the question I have been waiting 12 years to asked, “Would you like to come back to the front page of Peach Pundit?” Since then, I have been trying to think of how I would reintroduce myself to a new generation of Peach Pundit readers.

I was on the front page, invited by Erick Erickson who started this blog site as a local companion to his national ventures like RedState.com. Eventually Erick moved on (from both RedState and Peach Pundit) and, in the middle of a hotly fought state house race in 2010, I stepped down from the front page.

For most of a decade, at a time when blogs built community, social media was limited to mostly MySpace, and Republicans were being to solidify their hold on the reins of power in Georgia, what was posted on PeachPundit became the scuttlebutt everywhere from party meetings to the halls of the Gold Dome.

If you are new to Peach Pundit, or Georgia Politics in general, you may only know me as the former Chairman of the Cobb County Republican Party who ran unsuccessfully for Chairman of the Georgia Republican Party against David Shafer. But my involvement in Georgia politics goes back much further than that, starting in 1994 in the UGA College Republicans. In addition to being Chairman of Cobb County, I have served as Chair of the 11th Congressional District, State Chair of the Young Republicans, and Vice-Chair of the Georgia Republican Party. In all, I have served on the Executive Committee of the Georgia Republican Party through five state Chairs: Ralph Reed, Alec Poitevint, Sue Everhart, John Watson, and David Shafer. I have also worked in politics, but those days are long behind. Where I can bring that institutional knowledge into my posts, I will.

What Scot Turner, Buzz Brockway, and Jason Pye have done to bring back a great community of writers and activists, is exciting and I am honored to back again. It may not be a mission from God, but it’s good to have the band back together.

You can also follow me on Twitter @jasonshepherd