Gary Humble
Gary Humble is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Tennessee Stands, an organization working to secure liberty and hold elected officials accountable to the Constitution through legislation, litigation, and education. Follow Gary @garyhumble and visit www.tennesseestands.org.
Fake Outrage in Williamson County Engineered by Jack Johnson and His Goons.
As March 4th approaches and last-minute efforts heat up in an effort to win the hearts and minds of Republican voters, it is ever more critical that everyone take a step back to see the smoke screen that has been laid out in front of you.
In 2022, I challenged Williamson County’s incumbent state senator, Jack Johnson, in a Republican primary and walked away with 49% of the vote. After being outspent 5 to 1 and facing an opponent who was endorsed by the Governor, US Senators, Congressmen, and locally elected officials, Jack proved to be as vulnerable a candidate as anyone could have imagined. I went up against the machine and almost took out their golden boy – very embarrassing for a 16-year incumbent and sitting Majority Leader for the party.
A Quick Grassroots History
Since then, the grassroots conservative momentum in Williamson County has only grown. In 2023, conservatives showed up at our county’s Republican Party reorganization convention, which takes place every two years, and won all eight leadership positions by a margin of 2 to 1. And the actions of the local party since then speak for themselves. We now have a party in Williamson County that is vocal on conservative issues and unafraid to challenge the political establishment when conservative principles are put at risk. The change is palpable.
And Jack Johnson and his goons have made it known that they hate it. They hate the new party. And they hate you.
During the last two years, there have been two subsequent nominating conventions for seats on the county commission, one due to the death of a commissioner and the other due to an early retirement. And here is the honest truth, under the prior leadership of the local party under Cheryl Brown, those nominating conventions would have never happened. But they did. And once again, conservative candidates won those nominations by margins of more than 2 to 1. They weren’t even close.
A story about a recent convention (or caucus, as they say)
But it’s the most recent convention that is the most telling of all and may help you understand the current uproar about the pending reorganization convention on March 4th. The county commission had an open seat for District 10 due to the retirement of long-time commissioner, David Landrum. In typical fashion, called the Williamson County two-step, his resignation was held until certain members of the county commission (the established players) had their replacement in mind. Despite the desires of many Republicans across the county to hold the appointment and allow a special election to take place, the commission appointed…..wait for it…..Cheryl Brown (hand-picked by Jack Johnson). Yes, remember her? The same Cheryl Brown that was ousted as chair of the party in 2023 by a margin of 2 to 1.
After that appointment, the Williamson County Republican Party held a board meeting, which I and many members of the public observed, to determine how to move forward considering this appointment and blatant disregard for Republican voters. Interestingly, Cheryl Brown attended that meeting remotely via phone. Remember, as the immediate past president, Mrs. Brown still retains a seat on the board and is a voting member.
During that meeting, Mrs. Brown made an impassioned plea with the board as to why the party should forego a convention to allow Republican voters a say in nominating their own candidate, and to simply let her appointment stand. She personally requested that voters be silenced and that the party should not hold a convention, making her the de facto Republican candidate in the pending special election.
And more egregiously, during the board’s vote to hold a convention, Mrs. Brown did not recuse herself, but voted NO to her own benefit. Thankfully, only she and her sidekick agreed. The executive committee voted overwhelmingly to hold a convention and the rest is history. We now have a verifiable patriot in that county commission seat named Bill Petty, duly elected both by his Republican peers and in a special election.
There is a point to this story.
On three occasions now, the establishment players have learned that they cannot win in a convention setting. Why? Because conservatives are now engaged and showing up in record numbers. When we call, you answer, and we all win. They are losing their stranglehold on local politics, and it scares them to death.
A Plan in Motion
Enter, the Williamson County Conservatives PAC and their mastermind, none other than your local establishment hero, Jack Johnson. In December 2024, Jack put together a plan to try and take back the party and began directly fundraising for the new PAC in an effort to oust current party leadership (the ones you’ve elected). Of course, Jack will call us liars. Unfortunately for him, we have verified this information directly at the source, the donors to the PAC, who admit that Jack came asking them for money to “help conservatives in Williamson County.” So naturally, they gave. But….they did not know the PAC’s real intent.
With those funds, they have launched an all-out assault on the current leadership of the party utilizing tactics straight out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: (Rule 5) “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,” (Rule 10) “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive,” and (Rule 12) “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Brian Clifford, a sitting county commissioner, has been tapped by the elites to run as a part of this PAC’s slate as the chair. His message to Republican voters is that current party leadership wants to cancel your vote by holding caucuses instead of primary elections. First off, let us not get confused here, functionally, a caucus and a convention are the same things. Republican bylaws technically refer to it as a convention, but let’s not get caught up in semantics.
But here is the fact of the matter. Brian Clifford voted to appoint Cheryl Brown as District 10’s new county commissioner. And if Clifford has his way, there would have been no nominating convention and Republican voters would have had no voice in electing their next county commissioner. The Williamson County two-step would have been successful had it not been for the current party leadership, led by a group of true grassroots conservatives that was willing to buck the establishment and hold an election, the very thing that Clifford and all of Jack Johnson’s friends are trying to convince you they want to cancel.
The Real Aim of These Gaslighting Efforts
So, let’s get down to brass tacks. Why does Clifford and the gang oppose Republican conventions and why are they working overtime trying to convince voters that the party wants to cancel primary elections? Because they know that they cannot win conventions. They lose, every time.
But, why would they continue to favor the open primary system, you ask? Because in Tennessee, we currently have open primaries. And in Republican supermajority counties like Williamson, Democrats are able to crossover and vote in our Republican primaries, ensuring in some districts that the conservative loses, and the most moderate or left-leaning Republican wins. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the game is played.
The current leadership of the Williamson County Republican Party has not ever, and will never work to “cancel” elections. But they have, and will continue to work tirelessly to secure those elections. Conservatives across the state have been calling on the General Assembly to “close the primaries.” Here is what that means.
We want party registration in Tennessee and to end the practice of our open primary system. Effectively, we want to make it near impossible for Democrats to vote in our Republican primaries. Makes sense, right? We want only Republican voters to have a say in nominating their Republican candidates in a primary election. But that’s not what the goons want. And if you think hard enough, I’ll bet you can guess why.
To make matters even worse, lest you think this is only about control of the local party, I have been directly informed that there is more to the story. Jack Johnson is personally calling elected officials and large donors in preemptively asking for their support for Brian Clifford for Williamson County Mayor in 2026. That’s right. The same guy running to be chair of the local party, already has his sights set on the county mayor’s seat. How’s that for gamesmanship?
Let me close the loop on this charade with this simple and pointed ask. We need every qualified conservative Republican voter to show up on Tuesday, March 4th at the Franklin Marriott Cool Springs (doors open at 4:30 pm). And vote for the Elevate 2025 slate of candidates to keep our party moving in the right direction…a party for the people, not the politicians.
Chair: Steve Hickey
1st Vice Chair: Diane Chenard
2nd Vice Chair: Elliott Franklin
3rd Vice Chair: Courtney Laginess
Treasurer: Tim Raynaud
Asst. Treasurer: Brandon Bell
Secretary: Leigh Ann Cates
Asst. Secretary: Peg Raciti
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Gary Humble
Gary Humble