At the recent North Carolina Republican Convention, Hasan Harnett was elected Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. This was not the choice of the establishment Republicans, but it was a really good choice. My husband and I met Mr. Harnett at the Convention and were very impressed. Aside from being a man of many accomplishments, he is a man who knows how to think outside the box. His entrance into the Convention to make his campaign speech was an indication of that–he was proceeded by a group of drummers that energized the Convention.

The Charlotte Observer posted a story about Mr. Harnett on Friday.

The story included the following:

Harnett gravitated to politics after meeting the late Tim Johnson, a GOP activist who founded the Frederick Douglass Foundation, which bills itself as “the largest Christ-Centered, Multi-Ethnic and Republican ministry in America.”

“Harnett was always a conservative, but he kind of got woken up to the fact that the Republican Party (was) closest to his values by Tim Johnson,” said Daniel Rufty, the GOP’s 12th District chairman.

Harnett was a Democrat when he voted in the 2008 presidential primary. He said he bypassed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and wrote in Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican.

He switched parties in 2010, according to election records. That’s when he helped the campaign of Christopher Hailey, a black Republican running for Mecklenburg sheriff.

“Whenever I needed help, he was there,” recalled Hailey.

After that campaign, Harnett began working on the state party’s efforts to recruit more minorities. At the same time, he was learning more about politics. In 2011, he was chosen as a fellow in the N.C. Institute of Political Leadership, which has groomed state political leaders for nearly 30 years.

As a former Democrat, I can totally relate to his journey to the Republican Party. The Democrat Party abandoned its conservatives a long time ago, and the Republican Party was to only place for them to go. Mr. Harnett represents the leadership we need in order to be the Republican Party we were founded to be–smaller government, more economic growth, and policies that enable people to prosper–not just enable them. I am looking forward to the next year with him in charge of the North Carolina Republicans.