GOP subtracts McGhee from ticket

Here's a question you might not find on the Scholastic Aptitude Test: "What's the next number in this series: 7, 7, 5, 9?"

If you're the Hamilton County Republican Party, the correct answer is, "4."

That's the number of City Council candidates the GOP will have this year. They had seven endorsements in 1997 and 1999, five in 2001 and a full nine in 2003.

There are two competing strategies here. Endorse a short slate, and the party can concentrate its resources on just the strongest candidates. Go with a longer slate, and loyal Republicans are less likely to stray from the GOP slate as they get to the end of the ballot.

The longer slate also had the advantage of allowing the Republicans to broaden the base by getting fresh, diverse faces into the race. But after 2003's ticket produced mixed results -- Sam Malone won but Chris Monzel lost -- it's back to the short list: Malone and Monzel, plus challengers John Eby and Leslie Ghiz.

It's the shortest list the Republicans have ever had. We're talking a Charterite-sized slate.

And there's no room for Paul McGhee, a former Democrat who was campaigning as if he's a Republican -- and was lobbying hard for a GOP nomination.

New party chairman George H. Vincent wouldn't comment on McGhee's prospects in the party.

"If I knew who Paul McGhee was, I guess I could answer that," Vincent said, who was chairman of the endorsement committee before being elevated to party chair. (Later, party executive director Brent Sanders said the party was aware of McGhee, and would watch his campaign closely with an eye toward possibly endorsing him in 2007 if he proved his loyalty to the party.)

But McGhee said it wasn't his prior party affiliation that cost him the GOP endorsement -- it was his support of Uncle Milt's, a Burnet Avenue bar where police said patrons could buy cocaine with their booze. City Council voted 6-2 to seek the revokation of the bar's liquor license in 2002 (with Minette Cooper and Alicia Reece dissenting). McGhee, then president of the Avondale Community Council, said police didn't prove that the bar's owner knew of the problems there.

McGhee said he won't drop out of the 2005 council race and will run as an independent.

"My thoughts are, we are not changing anything. We are running," he said. "By not endorsing us, it has made us step it up two notches and run harder."