Four weeks ago, Greg Sandlin told six counties exactly what he stands for.
"Advance our conservative values." "Grow the party." "Recruit and train future leaders." His words, sent to Peterson Media Group on June 28 and printed by Thunder Radio on June 29. He described his two terms as county chairman as carrying "the goal of growing the party and recruiting conservative candidates to run for local and regional positions," and asked Republicans in Coffee, DeKalb, Franklin, Grundy, Lincoln, and Warren counties to send him to the Tennessee Republican Party's State Executive Committee.
Then he endorsed a candidate whose signs say "Paid for by the Coffee County Democratic Party."
Read that again. The man asking to help govern the Republican Party at the state level is publicly backing a candidate the Democratic Party is funding.
Disclosure, up front, because you deserve it. Brandon Champion and I are both on the August 6 ballot for Tullahoma alderman. I have said publicly and repeatedly that he is a Democrat, and I said it long before Greg Sandlin's endorsement ever showed up. You know where I stand. Now check every fact below against the documents and decide for yourself.
This is not a slip. It is a pattern.
Greg Sandlin was Chairman of the Coffee County Republican Party twice, in 2007 and again in 2023. Twice he held the keys to the Republican primary ballot in this county. And when Republicans raised concerns about non-Republicans running on our ballot, he did not just allow it. He fought for it.
Here is what he told me directly, in writing:
"Few people get it. There will be no Democrats or Independents on the March or August ballot. The Republican primary IS the election. We need to treat this with the respect and inclusiveness it deserves."
That is the Chairman of the Coffee County Republican Party arguing that because the Republican primary is the only election that matters, it should be open to everyone.
Think about what that actually means. He is not describing a party primary. He is describing a public utility. Under that logic there is no reason to have a Republican Party in Coffee County at all. Print one ballot, let anyone who wants to file, file, and call it a day.
If the Republican primary really is the only real election in this county, that is an argument for recruiting more Republicans to run. Which, according to his own announcement, is the job he says he was doing.
He had the authority. He chose not to use it.
He will tell you his hands were tied. They were not.
Tennessee law, T.C.A. 2-13-104, gives a political party the power to decide whether a candidate is a bona fide member. The Tennessee Republican Party bylaws spell out the standard in Article IX, Section 1(A)(1): a bona fide Republican is someone who has voted in at least three of the four most recent statewide Republican primaries.
The standard existed. The authority existed. The chairman declined to use it.
And here is the part that should end this conversation.
Greg Sandlin's own bona fide status was reviewed and approved on the Secretary of State's filed candidate list on March 24, 2026. That standard was good enough to put his name on the ballot in March. It was never good enough to apply to the candidates he was protecting.
You cannot call a rule unworkable while you are standing on it.
What this office actually does
Most people have never heard of a State Executive Committeeman. That is exactly why this matters.
The State Executive Committee sets party rules. It decides bona fide Republican status. It governs ballot access. It handles county party compliance. Across six counties.
This is not a disagreement about values. This is a man asking to be promoted to gatekeeper on the strength of a record of holding the gate open.
We have already lived with the consequences
Pride flags hung in Tullahoma classrooms for years. The school board had the authority to take them down that entire time. It did nothing.
It took a petition. It took roughly 700 of your neighbors putting their names on a piece of paper. Only then did that board find the will to act, and when it finally voted, it voted unanimously. Every single member who had tolerated those flags for years suddenly discovered they should come down.
That is not leadership. That is a board that moves only when the community drags it.
This is what happens downstream when a party stops checking credentials at the door. You do not get conservative governance. You get people who wait for a petition.
The excuse you are about to hear
They will tell you Tullahoma races are non-partisan and party does not matter.
If party does not matter, the Coffee County Democratic Party would not be buying the signs.
If party does not matter, Greg Sandlin would not be asking Republicans to elect him to a Republican Party office.
He is running on party while telling you party is irrelevant. Both cannot be true, and he knows it.
August 6
Advance our conservative values. Recruit and train future leaders. That is what he told six counties four weeks ago.
Now you have his record. Endorsing a Democrat-funded candidate. Fighting to keep non-Republicans on the Republican ballot. Calling our primary an open election that belongs to everyone.
Decide whether the record matches the sentence.
State Executive Committeeman, District 16. Republican primary, August 6. Early voting ends August 1.
Vote like the party belongs to you. Because it does.
