On March 5 GOP county committeemen elected a political neophyte, Lee Roupas, the chairman of the Cook county Republican party. With the backing of former chair Liz Gorman and ally Maureen Murphy, among others. he received roughly 102,000 votes to defeat long-time GOP loyalist and Northfield township committeewoman June O’Donoghue, who received 74,000 votes.

Roupas says he’ll work to strengthen the county GOP, but initial signs aren’t encouraging. I sincerely hope I’m proven wrong, as I want to see a revitalized county GOP to counterbalance Democratic corruption.

So I’m puzzled and disheartened by what county Republicans apparently consider to be qualified leadership. Roupas was head of the Young Republicans at George Washington University in 2004. That same year he lost a race for president of the student association in a 32–68 per cent landslide. In 2006 Roupas fresh out of college was elected committeeman for Palos township. e. Last April he lost his only real political race, for a seat on the Consolidated District 230 school board. He finished last in a four candidate field, failing garner the top vote totals in 23 of 53 of his own Palos township precincts, and finishing dead last in eight.

Yet county Republicans saw fit to elevate Roupas, who’s still in law school, to lead their political organization. This is the same party criticizing Barack Obama’s supposed lack of experience?

Now consider the Chicago GOP, which elected Gold Coast 42nd ward committeeman Eloise Gerson its chair in a close race March 5. Gerson won a second ballot vote 20,000 to 19,000. By most accounts Gerson has been a key part of what is arguably the most active GOP ward organization in Chicago, working for years with former 42nd ward Committeeman Richard Gordon to build up that organization in the midst of an overwhelming Democratic presence.

A Peruvian native, Gerson came to America as an exchange student, learned English and graduated from Loyola University with a degree in Marketing & Advertising. She became an account executive for an advertising firm, obtained her real estate license and got into to real estate investing and management.

Soon after earning American citizenship in 1992 Gerson became involved in Republican politics. She joined the 42nd Ward Republican organization in 2000, became its president in 2001, and worked closely with Gordon. She’s served as an election judge, poll watcher, voter registrar, and has recruited iudges of election for the 42nd ward. She was elected as a delegate to the 2004 Republican national convention, where she served as an Illinois delegation deputy whip.

Gordon called Gerson “a tireless worker” who “has played a central role in the development of the 42nd Ward GOP into one of the most effective Republican organizations in Cook county.” With Gordon’s blessing, then Cook County Republican Chairman Gary Skoien appointed Gerson 42nd Ward committeeman after Gordon stepped down due to business obligations in January 2007.

Soon thereafter Gerson experienced the rank nature of the co-opted GOP in Cook county. When Skoien himself resigned three months later due to family obligations, Liz Gorman was voted in to replace him. One of her first acts was to dump Gerson and replace her with someone loyal to her. Now Gorman has apparently succeeded in orchestrating the election of someone she has hopes of controlling. My question is, why did other committeemen allow it?

Whatever faults Cook county Democrats exhibit, and they exhibit many, they don’t entrust their political organizing to young and inexperienced people with no track record, no matter how earnest and dedicated those people may be. The Democrats assign those tasks to proven veterans, people who’ve attained political elected office like Joseph Berrios, Ike Carothers Karen Yarbrough and Alderman William J.P. Banks.

As an outsider, I make no claims to have any particular insight into the inner workings of the Cook county GOP. So I’ll quote from several insiders, whom I sincerely hope know something I don’t.

John Curry, the 32nd Ward committeeman, wrote on ChicagoGOP.com that Roupas had impressed the assembled committeemen at the GOP county convention “with his poise, passion, and background as a staffer for President Bush and the RNC.”

Excuse me, but Roupas was head of the Young Republicans at George Washington University, not a Bush/RNC staffer. Perhaps Curry would educate us as to exactly what Roupas did for the Bush campaign as a college senior?

Bob Shelstrom is a political activist who was nominated to appear on the November ballot as a Republican state senate candidate, and is a regular guest columnist in the Southtown-Star newspapers. He recently wrote, “I’ve met and known much of the past Cook GOP leadership, and I can tell you that Lee is the smartest, most charismatic, most politically savvy and best organized person to hold that office in recent memory.”

Shelstrom calls Roupas “a bridge builder”, who “understands political leadership and realizes that if someone agrees with you on 70% of the issues, they’re your ally, not your enemy.”

Conservative Bridgeport community activist Carl Segvich recently managed to break the hold Democratic committeeman John Daley had on the 11th Ward Bridgeport GOP organization, so he deserves his props. To paraphrase the late, great Frank Sinatra, “if you can break it there, you can break it anywhere.”

Segvich, however, agrees with Shelstrom on Roupas. writing, “I would say we have new life with Cook County chairman Lee Roupas. I think he’s smart and he’s experienced enough—even though he’s just 25—to be able to lead the Cook County Republicans to be an honest organization.”

Addressing the issue of Roupas’s youth, Shelstrom cautioned against underestimating Roupas, concluding, “You won’t find a more mature and focused person in our party.”

With all due respect to Shelstrom and Segvich, if it’s true there’s not “a more mature and focused person” in the Cook county GOP than a 25 year old law school student with two election defeats already, just what does that say about the Cook county GOP?

Maybe I’m wrong. But Roupas will need to be the antithesis of some of the people who supported his election, people like Gorman and Murphy. He’ll need to show that, unlike them, he believes that agreement 70 per cent of the time indicates an ally, and that he’ll avoid treating such people like blood enemies.

Instead, he’s apparently showing that he’s willing to lean on some of the same people who’ve been responsible for the gutting of the Cook GOP’s power and influence. I’m not encouraged when I hear that people like ex-Cicero and Betty Loren Maltese mouthpiece Dave Donahue, who’s closely allied with Ed Vrdolyak and Liz Gorman, is making calls to elected Republican officials, ostensibly on behalf of Roupas.

Roupas needs to realize that his most immediate enemies aren’t in the Democratic party, but within his own party. He’s faced with disloyal Republicans who won’t shoulder the burden of party building and crafting a coherent message to effectively confront Democrats in Cook county. As one web poster on the Illinois Review site put it, “Wait until Lee Roupas hits the reality of the Cook GOP. It ain’t like running a chapter of Young Republicans.”

If he wants to avoid being just a Gorman clone, Roupas needs to start paying attention to slating qualified Republican candidates for local races. He won’t have to just raise the bar that Gorman, Murphy and others have set for GOP candidate recruitment, he’ll have to pick it up off the ground. The recruitment of opponents to run against such south Cook County Democrats as Sen. Edward Maloney, and Reps. Kevin Joyce, James Brosnahan and Kevin McCarthy has been non-existent. The result is those four will be running unopposed this November.

Things are equally bad in my area to the north in Proviso and Leyden townships, where Republicans have been in bed with Democrats for decades, much to the detriment of both the average taxpayer and to anyone who values a robust political debate.

Segvich told the Chicago Reader he won the 11th ward GOP committeeman office “by appealing to the people who are really sick and tired of the betrayal of the public trust.” Segvich’s 11th Ward is a microcosm of the county GOP organization- Republican in name, but riddled with Democratic shills.

“It was a house of cards—just a shell,” Segvich told the Reader’s Mick Dumke.

Knocking over a house of cards isn’t difficult, but you do have to at least be willing to give a little push. I would think that the first to be pushed – out the door—must be those Republicans who routinely see fit to collude with Democrats against their own party’s interests. Breaking the strangle hold Democratic operatives have on much of the Republican party in northern Illinois—as Segvich did in Bridgeport—is a prerequisite for doing anything effective to change the fortunes of the Republican party here.

As I said, I’m an outsider, who can only watch and take note. For better or worse, Lee Roupas is now leading the Cook county GOP. The question now is, whom is he bringing in to assist him. People dedicated to reinvigorating the party? Or the same old line up that’s worked hard to keep it prostrate at the feet of the Democrats?

We’ll know soon enough.

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Bill Dwyer is a regular political columnist for The Chicago Daily Observer.