Yes, Kristina Karamo became the new Chair of the Michigan Republican Party over the weekend. It was “historic” as the Democrats like to say as she is the first Black GOP Chair in Michigan’s history.

But there were other things going on as well that you probably missed unless you were there or found someone on Twitter who was live-Tweeting about the event like Izzy Lyman of WCHY FM 97.7.

One thing that seemed to be EXACTLY the same as the last convention that I attended in August was that there was no food available. That makes for a long day when the event starts at 9 am and goes on into the evening. So your options are: bring a bag of snacks, leave the building, order pizza or use a Door Dash app. At least there were beverages available in the water/pop machines in the building.

For a party struggling with financial issues, you would think that the ability to make some money off food would be something to look into. I definitely would have bought a $10 piece of pizza had it been offered at the August convention – and I’m sure that most of the delegates who were in the Lansing Center for 11 hours on Saturday would have been fine with the price as well. Since the event was at a “Convention Center” where there are all sorts of parties, weddings, business meetings and the like going on all of the time, I’m pretty sure that food is NOT banned from the building. But what did the Republican Party do about that? Nothing. They charged a $50 fee to get into the convention this year – but still could not get organized enough to offer any food to its delegates. Nice.

Lyman also pointed out an article written by Dennis Lennox from the Detroit News who whines that there wasn’t a free-for-all booze night at the convention. I guess he wasn’t hungry at all and just wanted the free alcohol. He also, by the way, brought up Brian Calley’s re-nomination to be Lt. Gov. at the 2014 convention which he called a “grand coalition of Republicans and GOP-aligned special interests that came together.” I’ll tell you what it actually WAS because I was there. It was cheating. Brian Calley was NOT chosen by the voice votes of the precinct delegates. In fact, they rejected him two or three times and then deals were made on the floor and all of a sudden, the other nominee, a Tea Party guy, withdrew his name after being offered whatever deal he was offered by the “establishment.” So it sounds like Lennox is whining about the olden days of booze and cheating. NO THANKS, DENNIS!!!!

Also noticeably absent, besides food, was former Michigan Chair Ron Weiser, who chose not to show up at the event on Saturday. That shows you EXACTLY what kind of “leadership” we’ve been under the past two years right there.

And milling around the convention were politicians angling to be the next Senate candidate in Michigan. According to WOOD-TV’s political reporter Rick Albin, these candidates included former candidate for Governor, Kevin Rinke and State Board of Education member Nikki Snyder who was passing out advertising material.

My Pillow’s Mike Lindell was seen at the convention as well (a DePerno supporter) as were spelling errors from the Michigan GOP when they would put things up on the big screen – hint: DePerno has a capital “P” and you should really learn to spell “amendment” correctly.

Also at the convention were the other winners who won elections that day and have been ignored by the media. In case you are interested, these folks include:

Co-Chair: Malinda Pego
Administrative Vice Chair: Ali Hossein
Coalitions Vice Chair: Hassan Nehme
Ethnic Vice Chair: Bernadette Smith
Grassroots Vice Chair: Marian Sheridan
Outreach Chair: Rola Makki
Youth Vice Chair: Rylee Linting

Not at the convention, but happening all day Sunday, were the Democrats in the media ignoring Karamo being the first Black GOP Chair in Michigan and instead they went straight to defining her as an election denier…

Axios: Michigan GOP selects 2020 election denier as party leader

The Washington Post: Far-right election denier beats Trump’s pick for Michigan GOP

The Guardian: Election denier Kristina Karamo chosen to lead Michigan Republican Party

New York Magazine: Michigan GOP Picks Election-Denying Demon Hunter as New Chair

In addition to the leftist outlets going after Karamo, Rescue Michigan also slammed her as being the demise of the party even though she just started the job.

Rescue Michigan, a self-described liberty organization in Michigan with only 239 followers on Twitter, sent out an email at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday to say, “The candidate they chose to lead the effort to win Michigan to take back the White House, Congress, and State House from the Democrats is someone with no experience running a political organization (no political experience at all, except having run a losing campaign), no access to donors, no relationships with important people, and no money…what could possibly go wrong?”

The Detroit News’ Nolan Finley also wrote an opinion piece titled “With Karamo as chair, it’s R.I.P., Michigan GOP.” He says, “In electing Kristina Karamo as party chair, they’ve solidified Democratic control of this state for years to come…With Karamo as chair, the doors of the well-heeled donors will be closed, not to mention their checkbooks. She couldn’t raise money for her own disastrous Secretary of State campaign last fall, how can she expect to fundraise for the party? And how can she promote candidates when she only rarely talks to the press? Respectable businesspeople who have always bankrolled the party want nothing to do with Karamo, who embodies the paranoia and bitterness of the GOP base. They can’t afford the hit to their reputation.”

Quite honestly, could Karamo really do any worse than the last guy? There was NO SUPPORT for Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon and we lost about every Michigan election known to man (and woman)… The party were pretty much AWOL on everything which included the races at the top, the races at the bottom, the petitions and everything else. So I’ll give Karamo the benefit of the doubt until she proves otherwise.

Do I think she should let go of the past and instead move forward to the future – raising money and winning elections? Yes. But I’ll reserve judgement until I see what changes are made. If she continues to talk about stolen elections, then yes, we could be in trouble, because we need a serious leader with answers to serious problems – someone who’s going to run the party like a business and get donors comfortable with the party again. But I’m not going to trash her before she even starts her new job. Especially when she was the chosen Chair of the Republican precinct delegates from all over the state.

And if the delegates and the grassroots have to be the ones to fund future Michigan elections, then so be it. The establishment has lost all credibility to get the job done so the fact that they’ve been kicked to the curb does not scare me at all. The fact that the “donor class” that have controlled Michigan for far too long might stay away does not scare me at all. What could possibly get worse? Could we lose all the important races in Michigan? Oh, wait. THEY already did that.