Transcript Staff Writer

Cleveland County's Republicans have gone high tech.

And they did it for low tech reasons.

For the first time in their history, the Cleveland County Republican Party has its own Internet Web site, county chairman Roger Warren said Thursday.

The site -- www.okgopcc.com -- went live on May 14.

"Our main reason to do it was simple," Warren said. "We needed to get Republican voters involved in the county party."

By doing that, he said, local party officials could "divorce the county party from national party politics."

And that, Warren said, would help better protect the local party from the voters' wrath when those voters disagree with national party actions.

"What happens is, politicians will do something on a national level that people disagree with," he said. "And then the voters take it out on us here at the county level, but our guys didn't do it."

Framed in red, white and blue, the Web site features eight sections, including a message from Warren, an enrollment form for volunteers, three separate calendars and links for news, trivia and other political sites.

"This is going to be our main form of communication," Warren said. "It's far cheaper than doing lots of mailings."

The site also offers links to state Republican headquarters.

"Since this is Cleveland County's first site, we wanted to make sure it was connected to the other GOP sites out there," he said.

To build the site, Warren turned to volunteers -- starting with his wife, Cleona.

After he and Cleona developed the idea, they approached the county party's executive committee for approval.