On Saturday, May 1, Republicans from around the Fifth Congressional District of Virginia will gather on the campus of Hampden-Sydney College near Farmville in a convention for the purpose of electing a new chairman. Current chair Tucker Watkins is stepping aside.

Two candidates are seeking the job: former Albemarle County Republican Chairman Christian Schoenewald and Franklin County GOP Chairman Bill Stanley. Last year, Stanley ran for chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, a post now held by Pat Mullins. Schoenewald was once a candidate for the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors.

When Charlottesville Republicans held a mass meeting earlier this month, Schoenewald and Stanley were there to campaign and meet with potential convention delegates. The Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner interviewed both of them about their strategies for winning the chairmanship and how they plan to bring together different groups within the Republican party – social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, libertarians, and Club for Growth types, among others – as a unified force that can win the November 2010 election.

Both candidates said that they planned to travel around the district to attend mass meetings, where they can most readily meet with activists and potential delegates. Both said they would make telephone calls to speak personally with delegates to – in Schoenewald’s words – “try to persuade them over to my side.”

As to how to engender party unity, Stanley said simply:

“I think it’s a simple strategy. If you read the Republican Creed, and you stick to the Republican Creed, and elect candidates who are principled and adhere to the Republican Creed, then all of those types of conservatives will get behind that candidate.”

Schoenewald said it was important to return the focus to local committees. “That’s where the volunteers are, where the workers are.”

He added: “We can best merge our similarities at the local level. Once we start to move higher and higher, the divisions become stronger and stronger.”

Speaking of his experience in Albemarle County, Schoenewald said that “when I was chair, I had people who were social conservatives, economic conservatives, libertarians,” people of “all stripes working together on the committee to win elections.”

Schoenewald stated that “you merge people together on their similarities of philosophy, not their differences of implementation. You can best do that through the local committees.”

The winning candidate for district chairman will go on to lead Fifth District Republicans in the race to win back the seat now held by Representative Tom Perriello (D-Ivy), who narrowly defeated former Congressman Virgil Goode in 2008. Schoenewald said the prospects of the GOP taking the seat are good.

“We have seven candidates who look to be very strong,” he said. “We have a sitting congressman who has some issues with being straightforward on what he believes in and how he votes. I think that we are in a very good position to win the 2010 election in the Fifth District.”

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