Denial is not just a river in Egypt; it runs through Montgomery County

Ken Davis is either an eternal optimist or delusional.

The flood waters are just below Davis' bottom lip. He should be building an ark. But the embattled Montgomery County Republican Party chairman says he isn't worried that Democrats have overtaken Republicans in Montgomery County for the first time in ... at least 100 years.

"Don't worry, be happy" is Davis' mantra. Maybe it's the fact that Davis has less than 30 days left as party chairman.

On May 8, about 800 Republican committee members will gather to elect a new chairman. It won't be Davis. It might be Jim Vlahos, who some say is backed by Davis. Most likely it will be Bob Kerns, who narrowly lost to Davis in 2004 and 2006.

Four years of Davis' leadership has left the Republican Party on life support. The once-dominant GOP routinely loses elections, has seen donations dry up and is now facing life as the minority party in Montgomery County.

Davis and his brain trust (Bob Asher & Jim Matthews) have done nothing to reverse the party's fortunes. Most political observers blame the troika for much of the party's struggle.

From veteran political reporter Margaret Gibbons:

Montgomery County has 560,174 registered voters, including 245,659 Democrats and 238,126 Republicans, according to a report released Monday by the county's voters registration office after employees worked through the weekend to process new registrations and party switches.

Democrats, the new "majority" party in the county, now have a 7,533-voter edge over Republicans.

Davis told Gibbons that the Democratic onslaught is an anomaly, a one-time occurrence caused by interest in the Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama primary battle.

Nobody bothered to tell Davis that Montgomery County Republicans have been out-registered by the Democratic Party for the last 10 years.

Davis then told Gibbons it was George Bush's fault that more people in Montgomery County have registered as Democrats because the U.S. went to war in Iraq and gas prices went up and yada yada yada.

"None of these issues have anything to do with the county organization," Davis told Gibbons.

Davis was also quoted as saying, "Voters are continuing to elect Republican candidates in the county, so we must be doing something right." Again, nobody bothered to tell Davis that the GOP lost five county row offices in 2007 and one of its members, Jim Matthews, made a power-sharing deal with the minority member of the Board of Commissioners, allowing Democrats to make decisions they have no business being involved in.

One estimate has the Montgomery County Republican Party losing 70,000 registered voters since Ken Davis took over as party chairman in 2004. All politics is local, Ken. Accept the blame and go into exile. You've done enough damage.

I borrowed the cartoon from Writemarsh blog, which has been keeping a close eye on Ken Davis, aka Nero.

If you want to laugh out loud, read "Montco GOP chief isn't worried about Dems' surge in voter rolls" in today's edition of The Mercury.