Tea Party Delivers First Blow to Business As Usual in Michigan

Saul Anuzis, Michigan’s current Republican National Committeeman was ousted this past weekend and replaced by Dave Agema. Michigan’s National Committeewoman, Holly Hughes, was also sent packing and replaced by Terri Lynn Land.

Much has been written about Saul’s effort in Michigan to make Mitt Romney the nominee, before and after the primary. He still swears up and down he did nothing wrong, but perception works both ways, and as I walked around and spoke with many grassroots Republicans, the feeling was that Saul’s story didn’t wash. Many spoke about Hughes having something to do with the primary aftermath distraction, something I hadn’t heard until talking to people at the convention.

I voted for Dave and Terri. Dave, because I would have voted for anyone against Saul, and intend to vote out Dave if he does anything like what Saul did. But I voted for Terri because of the speech she gave the night before at Landmark Community Church in Hazel Park. She said she was sick of losing delegates because the State continues to move up the primary, and in turn gets penalized by the RNC, and to me, that practice has to stop.

In fact, as a result of that stupid practice, we now have the narrative in Michigan that Ron Paul followers have a scary amount of delegates going to Tampa for the National Convention. Since ideology is only known when people are honest with you, it’s nearly impossible to detect, unless you personally know who’s who, and which delegates are Paul followers who intend to skip the first round of votes at Tampa, and then vote Paul.

If we had our full slate of delegates, they’d maybe pick up a few more, but not twice as many.

At any rate, egos being what they are, certain people involved with ousting Anuzis are beating their chest, saying it was all because of what they did to mobilize people. The fact is, the Republican grassroots in Michigan is heavily tea party, mostly new, and very motivated to change the Republican Party. We are fed up. I’d say that this weekend’s display proved that Republicans in Michigan are not happy with party leadership, and are paying very close attention.

But, there is one more thing that this weekend proved.

Beginning in 2009, those new people positioned themselves as precinct delegates, welcomed by regular party people who were grateful for the help and new blood. Then, in 2010, those new people worked tirelessly to install Republicans who reflected their views, the same views that the party establishment calls extreme and crazy, but are simply common sense and courageous. In 2011, we were told that the tea party had really little to do with the Republican wins in 2010, and that it was due to the money-raising efforts of the campaigns and party people that pushed the Republicans forward. In 2011, we were shouted down by the party people, told to moderate our tone, and that it was because of our efforts that we only held the House, and our fault for losing the Senate because of “extreme” people like Sharron Angle. And they also never missed an opportunity to put down Sarah Palin.

This weekend proved that the party can no longer delude itself into believing they can provide an alternate reality to which the party faithful simply accepts. The party faithful, that puts party over principle, has no power.