It’s bad enough that we have to deal with tyrannical Democrats and fight against their evilness. But we also have to deal with idiot Republicans as well. We have to deal with RINOS but we also have to deal with far-right nut jobs who don’t represent us either – people who turn off independents and otherwise “sane” people who don’t want to vote for Democrats but also see the Republican Party as its own kind of mess.

Is it NOT possible for some reason for the Republican Party to get their sh*t together and for the Michigan GOP to get their sh*t together so that we can have a functional party that is able to beat the Democrats?

Is it possible for us to have a “normal” conservative Michigan GOP Chairperson candidate who doesn’t have any baggage and also has the experience, marketing savvy and ability to help us win elections? Someone who has legitimate political and donor connections because we all realize it takes money to win and get our message out there. Boy, did we learn that in spades during the Tudor Dixon campaign.

We currently have about a zillion candidates running for GOP Chair in Michigan. A few of them are probably doing so because they have no other career goals in mind other than staying in the party and looking for something to do. They can’t give up the ghost and take a recent loss as a sign and move on.

So what we have is a bunch of candidates, some who have officially declared they are running to be the Michigan GOP Chair and some who haven’t (yet). Ultimately the winner of the contest will be decided in February of 2023 by Michigan Republican precinct delegates at the state party convention.

The Chairperson will serve two years and guide the platform and the message and the fundraising of the state party to win elections.

And whether the 2020 presidential election was legitimate or not, it’s time to move on. Fix the problem when possible, but we can’t live in the past – and those who do are bound to hold us back. Those who are connected to Trump’s claims of election fraud are bound to hold us back.

Officially, the list of those running for Chair includes former Michigan Republican SOS candidate Kristina Karamo who lost to Democrat Jocelyn Benson by over 600K votes, losing 41.93% to 55.86%. Her baggage includes saying that Trump won the presidential election in Michigan in 2020, not officially conceding she lost in November’s election, trying to stop absentee ballots in Detroit and the surfacing of explosive allegations about her in a family court filing that was made public.

Failed Michigan Republican AG candidate Matt DePerno has also announced that he’s running to be the Michigan GOP Chair and has chosen failed Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Garrett Soldano to be his Co-Chair. DePerno lost to Dana Nessel by over 375K votes and Soldano came in third place in the Republican gubernatorial primary. These two tout a “grassroots” following. Their baggage includes appearing as a bully in the gubernatorial primary (Soldano), being a target of an investigation concerning the tampering of voting machines (DePerno) and embracing Trump’s claim of a fraudulent election.

Unknown Republican Billy Putman who is the current Tuscola County GOP Chair is also running. His county is a rural county east of Saginaw. He has said the state party platform is “100% broken” in an interview. He has a populist plan of reform and accountability. 39-year-old Putman took his county party from eight members to more than 120 of them after editing bylaws to make the group more open to the public. He wants to make the precinct delegates more powerful than the Chair position. I can agree with that.

However, the red flag that I saw on his website is his statement saying that his vision is to organize and unite the state party so “we can return President Trump to The White House.”

Sorry, but if your goal is to return Trump to The White House, I can’t support that. I support voting for the best person to be our nominee, no matter who that is. Trump is not the driving force behind anything I do. And it doesn’t need to be the goal of a Michigan GOP Chair candidate to re-elect Trump before we even have a primary.

I did find a pro-Trump candidate who doesn’t have the baggage of the others nor does he seem to think that Trump is the only answer to the county’s woes…but he does not trash him either. In fact, this guy was part of Trump’s 2016 presidential victory as a Co-Chair of Trump’s Michigan campaign.

The person I am referring to is former US Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Holland) who was also a Trump administration ambassador to the Netherlands. He talked about running in an interview with WKAR- TV’s “Off the Record” TV show. He said, “I have a passion for this state. I see us headed down the path to where Illinois is today…” He thinks Michigan can have a platform that’s very positive and can move the state forward. When asked how he can “tame” the “snake pit” moving in different directions in the party, he said, “We need to put forward an agenda…” and explained how the “Contract with America” united Republicans and they took majority for first time in 40 years. He also talked about Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.

And although failed Michigan Republican Gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon was the first one to talk about running for the GOP Chair in November, after the election, she hasn’t officially put her hat in the ring yet. She had said on November 12th she would announce her decision in “coming days,” but there has been no announcement yet one way or the other. Dixon lost the governor’s race to Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer when she only got 43.9% of the vote to Whitmer’s 54.47%.

Meshawn Maddock, the current Co-Chair, hasn’t announced her plans yet either.

It’ll be interesting to see how the vote shakes out as more and more candidates enter the race, splitting the votes between different factions of the party.