Oneida native to chair national GOP

November 23, 2006

By BEN GARRETT
Independent Herald Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Oneida native has been named to head the Republican National Committee.

Robert “Mike” Duncan, of Inez, Kentucky and a 1968 graduate of Oneida High School, was nominated by President George W. Bush on Thursday as chairman of the RNC, which directs the national Republican Party.

If the 168-member RNC approves the president’s nominations in January, U.S. Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, nominated by Bush as the general chairman, will serve as the public face of the party and its chief fundraiser, while Duncan would run day-to-day operations of the party.

Jo Ann Davidson was re-nominated as co-chairman of the RNC by President Bush.

“Quite simply, the RNC could not have selected a more talented man to serve as chairman,” U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell told the Lexington Herald-Leader Friday. “Mike is battle-tested and ready for the challenge of this position.”

“Duncan has been involved with grass-roots politics for a long period of time,” Bush said Thursday. “He comes from a Democrat state that is now a Republican state because he understands that you win votes by organizing and turning out the vote.”

Duncan has long been active in the Republican party, including as a volunteer for former Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. of Huntsville. He has worked in various campaign positions for Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and current President Bush, and in 2000 chaired the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. He was the Central States Chairman for the 2000 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, and was a delegate at Republican National Conventions in 1972, 1976, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004. He also took a sabbatical to work in the Bush White House.

Duncan got into politics at the age of eight, handing out campaign cards for his uncle, Clarence Smith, who was running for local office in McCreary County, Kentucky.

Duncan, who with his wife, Joanne, is principal owner of two community banks with five offices in Eastern Kentucky. In 2005, he was nominated by Bush to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s board of directors.

Originally from McCreary County, Duncan said his family built a house in Oneida so he could attend school in the Oneida Special School District. His father, now 78, still operates a store in Strunk, Kentucky.

After graduating from OHS as a member of the Class of ‘68, Duncan graduated from Cumberland College in 1971 and from the University of Kentucky’s College of Law in 1974.

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