Local Republicans came to praise former GOP county chairman M.A. Taylor, not to bury him, during their Thanksgiving feed Thursday afternoon, but, as usual, Taylor had to play contrarian.

After accolades from party officials for his many years as county chairman and work as a state representative before that, Taylor told admirers that his wife, Virginia, was the force behind him. For years she has manned party headquarters five days a week, he said, “and to much chagrin has carried work home to do Saturday and Sunday afternoon.”

Taylor then saluted President Barack Obama, now standard-bearer of the Democratic Party, who in his 10 months in office “has done more to help the Republican Party than I have in 14 years.”

It was typical M.A. Taylor, at least as those of us in the news media have come to know him — a little feisty, a little funny, always ready with a dig at the Democrats, even if delivered with some Central Texas whimsy.

Taylor has certainly earned a break from politics. True, at age 82, the lanky party official shows the urgency and quick wit of someone years younger. He tells me family obligations — caring for an ailing relative — spurred his decision to leave the post of party chairman, though it’s plain he doesn’t intend to abandon politics entirely. Party chairman Joe Hinton says Taylor will continue as vice chairman.

During the Republicans’ Thanksgiving luncheon at Ridgewood Country Club, Taylor thanked those who honored him, noting that the affair “would’ve been a good preview of my funeral — and I know there are some who would like to see that day come.”

That’s probably unfair to say, even of the Democrats, even if politics here in Central Texas is a bruising sport. At one point during lunch, Taylor told the crowd of a few hundred that, “as long as there’s a Democrat standing, I’ll be trying to sit on him.”

No doubt, Taylor is a big part of Central Texas Republican history, ranging from the surfacing of Republicans during the carpetbagger days after the Civil War, followed by decades in almost total eclipse as Democrats controlled political offices statewide — a situation that only began to change as the Democratic Party lurched further and further left nationally.

Local Republicans trace their current beginnings to 1954, when McLennan County had its first GOP primary. Party officials say there were 23,000 voters in the county then. Only 39 registered as Republicans.

Taylor, born on a farm west of Hewitt, says he really got involved in party politics in the campaign of Rollin Khoury, a Waco attorney credited with being the very first Republican elected to the Legislature from McLennan County in 1980.

Taylor served several terms in the Legislature, too. He takes pride in voting against every tax bill with the exception of a bill he sponsored to earmark a $5 fee on license plates to the county road and bridge funds across the state. “That way, I knew it would be going back to where it belonged.”

He also opposed a state lottery and efforts to gut blue laws that forbade most shopping on Sundays.

As a successful party chairman beginning in 1994, he won a reputation for toughness — something state Republicans admire, especially considering the many decades they spent in Texas’ political wilderness.

When I asked Taylor about his years of raising volunteers to help stage numerous functions at the Western White House west of Crawford, the former party chairman paused to talk about how much he liked President George W. Bush.

“I tell people he’s one of the nicest individuals you have ever met. In fact, if there is any flaw in his presidency, it’s that he should’ve been a little meaner. I’ve told him that. Democrats play hardball. I learned that in Austin when I was in the Legislature. If you’ve got something to win with, you need to use it.”

His only regret: the repeated failure to find a candidate who could defeat U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, a Waco Democrat who is nothing if not resilient.

Still, Taylor says he views each day with a measure of optimism, though some might argue the point: “It’s one less day that Obama will be in office.”