Over the weekend, it was announced that the Michigan GOP had approved a plan to award what the Detroit News reported as “the majority of the state’s delegates in the race for the GOP presidential nomination based on the results of 13 district-level caucus meetings.”
This immediately ticked me off because it will dilute the votes of the Republicans voting in the primary.
A good accounting of what happened was emailed out by the group “Rescue Michigan [1]” who also makes a case that this was a brilliant move in order to keep the Democrats from messing in our primary.
Rescue Michigan was founded in 2021 to reclaim the lost liberties of the people of Michigan, rebuild our shattered communities, and restore the constitutional order of representational government in Michigan.
They explain what’s going on as the following…”In February, Democrats in the Michigan Legislature voted to move Michigan’s presidential primary from March to February 27. The bill to do so was never even referred to a committee for a hearing: it was simply brought up under suspension of the rules. It was opposed by all of the Republicans, and supported by all of the Democrats.”
They ask, “What were the Democrats up to?”
They answer the question this way, “First, it was a way to damage and demoralize Republicans by controlling our process. Under national rules, Michigan would have gotten only 12 delegates to the Republican National Convention, instead of 55, if we held our primary so early that it violated the RNC’s rules. Democrats knew this.
Second, Democrats wanted to make Michigan an early primary state, just in case something terrible happens to Joe Biden (God forbid!) and they have an open presidential contest. It was their way of pleasuring Governor Gretchen Whitmer by setting up an early boost should she (God forbid!) run for President.”
Then they get to the meaty part of the email. Rescue Michigan says, “Most importantly, it was a way to invite Democrats to meddle in the Republican primary.”
They explain how the Democrats have moved the South Carolina primary ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire to control the outcome. They want to do the same in Michigan – with Democrats voting in the Republican primary in February. This is allowed since we have an open primary.
However, Rescue Michigan says the new rules by the Michigan GOP changes everything. They said, “Under the plan the Michigan Republican Party adopted today, the early primary election will still happen, but only 13 national delegates will be bound by the results. 39 delegates will be chosen at convention, and will support the candidate chosen by delegates at congressional district caucuses, 3 from each of Michigan’s 13 congressional districts.”
Rescue Michigan says that, in this scenario, we get all of our delegates back and we get to “elect more national delegates who win the primary than we do if the state GOP would, had they not adopted this plan. And we still get to be an early primary state that will be enormously influential and shape the presidential race.”
But not only that, our precinct delegates will elect state delegates who more largely determine the outcome of the nomination from our state.
Rescue Michigan doesn’t doubt that precinct delegates’ votes will correspond with Republican public opinion on who they choose to nominate. They also think this will forever change the Republican Party and “people will discover how important it is to become precinct delegates.”
I agree with that. And as a former precinct delegate, I think this is a great way to get more delegates into the party.
Maybe the best thing that comes out of this is the fact that this actually leaves us the freedom to VOTE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY since our votes in the Republican one aren’t going to matter as much.
So it might be a good idea to vote for Kennedy instead of Biden and have more of an impact on the race. He sure seems like a much better person. As Rescue Michigan says, “He may not be a conservative, but unlike Biden, he is an honest and decent man who fights for working-class Americans against the corporate mafia government.”
Amen to that.