First, I would like to thank all of the delegates and alternates who attended the convention, and all the volunteers who gave Campaign For Liberty and the Tea Party groups such a strong voice at the state convention. After a harrowing process of becoming precinct delegates in an exceptionally competitive year, and running to become state delegates, activists were treated to a grueling 10-hour convention with a 1-hour line to get in. The world is run by those who show up, and now you see why so few people run the world.
We did a tremendous job last weekend. We had more success at a convention than any time before, and although Campaign For Liberty is a non-partisan organization and does not endorse candidates, we can look at this convention through Campaign For Liberty's objective lens--focused sharply on the issues--and see what we accompished. We can also learn a lot in hindsight. I hope the following analysis helps.
The Tea Party Candidate v. the Governor's Pick
The most exciting moment of the convention, without a doubt, was the uproar at the announcement of Brian Calley to be Rick Snyder's running mate for Lieutenant Governor. The decision was only reported days before the convention, and Tea Party groups quickly researched Calley's legislative record and decided that they despised him, and decided to challenge him with a candidate of their own--Bill Cooper, a businessman with, by their determination, a better record. The reaction to the announcement of Calley for LG was not mixed: it was an ocean of boos.
That alone is extraordinary. State delegates, who serve as party leaders, are not supposed to oppose the running mate. It's heresy. Imagine if the Democrats had vetoed Joe Biden for Vice President. The results would have been devastating.
It was a major power play by the Tea Party groups, to be sure.
What ensued was no less fascinating. The chairman, Brooks Patterson, moved for a vote by show of hands.
Well, get this: a rumor had been going around that the Rules Committee was contemplating using a "show of hands" system--equivalent to the voice vote in the legislature, where instead of a counted ballot, delegates would raise their hands and the chairman would declare which side had more votes--for all votes at the convention, including contested races. Obviously such a system would be 1) open to corruption, since alternates and guests would be able to raise their hand and vote illegally, and 2) vulnerable to the bias of the chairman, who would be free to declare any remotely close vote for either side.
The Tea Partiers discussed this at their event the night before--a major event, with hundreds in attendance all Attorney General and Secretary of State candidates facing off. They vowed to stop the "show of hands" decision from passing, and with National Committeewoman Holly Hughes in attendance, word got to the state party. The motion was decisively defeated at the Rules Committee that morning.
But beyond that, the Tea Party was inoculated against the "show of hands" vote.
Cut to the convention, with the chairman calling for a "show of hands" vote whether Calley or his Tea Party-backed challenger would be the nominee for LG. Chaos erupted. Tea Party organizers immediately demanded and moved for a roll call vote. The crowd chanted, "Roll call! Roll call!"
The speaker attempted to explain that they weren't prepared to take a roll call vote from thousands of people and Aw shucks, we have no choice but the show of hands. The crowd was infuriated.
He explained that both candidates had agreed to a "show of hands" vote. The crowd wasn't satisfied.
After some discussion with the other bigwigs on the stage, the chairman completely ignored the rules, and the request for vote by written ballot was simply ignored. He called for a show of hands vote. Many Tea Partiers raised their hands for their candidate. Many refused and simply shouted and booed. The vote was clearly divisive and controversial. It was not at all clear which candidate won, but very clear that the vote would have been different had a written vote been taken.
Yet the chairman declared Calley the winner of the hand vote--precisely what the Tea Partiers feared would happen if a vote was taken informally. Thus the party crushed the rebellion. Whether the Tea Party had the majority to overturn the Snyder campaign's pick for Lieutenant Governor, we'll never know. Whether the Tea Party groups will continue to haunt Calley for his record and Snyder for his pick, or let it go, remains to be seen. But we do know that the Tea Party made their power play and the party establishment slapped them back, hard.
The fight might not have ended there, but Bill Cooper conceded and that was the end of it. This was the Tea Party's mistake: they needed a candidate who would have fought it out. Of course, finding a candidate willing to alienate the entire party establishment (not to mention the Snyder campaign) would not have been easy. And Cooper, unfortunately, wasn't the man for the job.
I hope it wasn't lost on the Tea Party that the convention chair lied about not having the means for a vote: on the second ballot for Secretary of State (which everybody knew would be needed) there were choices for three races, two which were not used. They could have settled the Lietenant Governor nomination there.
The Tea Party demanded a strong candidate for Lieutenant Governor, and the party fought them off. The next state convention will determine who the party's leaders are. Uh oh!
How Ruth Johnson won the SOS nomination
At the Tea Party event the previous evening, each of the five candidates (state senators Cameron Brown and Michelle McManus, Oakland county clerk Ruth Johnson, Calhoun county clerk Anne Norlander, and state rep Paul Scott) participated in a debate, followed by a straw poll. Ruth Johnson won by a very wide margin, with 90 votes to 10-40 for each of the others.
At the convention, she took some 600 votes in the first ballot, to some 400 for Norlander and Brown, and 200 for McManus and Scott. In a run-off against Cameron Brown, however, Johnson won by a narrower margin.
Spectators to the convention might wonder how Johnson became the Tea Party's favorite, when the message each of the candidates had was so similar.
Without a doubt, one reason was Johnson's recent exposure of the link between the fake Tea Party and the Democrats, which led to the resignation of two top Democrat officials last week. It was fortunate for her that she was in a position to do that, but also due to her vigilance that she saw the opportunity.
However, it wasn't just because of this that Johnson became so preferred among the Tea Party.
The media reports that Johnson "courted" the Tea Party but the reality is that all of the SOS candidates did.
Campaign For Liberty and the Tea Party groups had interviewed and researched all of the candidates extensively throughout their campaigns. We had two key issues where Johnson was far better than the others: she was well-informed and seriously concerned about the national ID, and she understood election fraud much better than the others.
All of the candidates understood vote fraud as it related to ACORN. But when we aired concerns about the integrity of the count, all but Johnson seemed unconcerned.
In fact, Campaign For Liberty state coordinator Tony DeMott has been involved in ballot fraud issues for years, and his colleagues (including some liberal ones) had known and admired Johnson's work as Oakland County Clerk, where she did an exemplary job protecting the integrity of elections.
By the convention, several candidates had gotten better at talking the talk. But by then it was too late. It's telling that so many Tea Party groups around the state, with no common leadership, all reached the same conclusion going into the convention.
It's also telling that Johnson won more narrowly against Brown in the run-off than on the first ballot. Among those who voted for the bottom three, most went to Brown. Why would that be?
I see two factors: one, I think some of the non-Tea Partiers saw Johnson's win on the first ballot, and resenting the Tea Party's intrusion, were voting for Brown to vote against the Tea Party. And two, I think some people believed the attack ads that several candidates (and unidentified surrogates) were sending out shortly before the convention. Johnson was the only candidate in the race that others were running against. In a way, all of the others were running against her.
But Cameron Brown was endorsed by Teri Lynn Land, who represented everything the Tea Party despised. Land actively worked to implement the national ID, and sneered at anybody who criticized her for it. Brown clearly represented a continuation of that agenda, and the Tea Party wouldn't have him.
The SOS race was a hard-fought race that began over a year ago. Tea Partiers worked hard to carry Johnson to victory, and their efforts paid off. If Johnson wins in November, it will be a great victory for Liberty to have a Secretary of State who will stand up to the statists' national ID program, and defend the integrity of our elections.
Why Today is a Good Day to Call Mike Bishop and Thank Him
Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop had his faults, to be sure. But as a rule, legislative leadership tend to be the worst--after all, the road to leadership in the legislature is paved with compromises. Mike Bishop was an exception; he voted on the conservative side of his Republican colleagues more often than not.
Unlike nearly 2/3 of the Senate, he was, until last Saturday, campaigning for his next office. Now, along with SOS candidates McManus and Brown, he joins the 2/3 as a lame duck.
Lame ducks are dangerous. They can vote any which way, and the voters can do nothing about it.
This is why term limits are dangerous. Politicians might do anything in their last term.
Earlier this year, Campaign For Liberty mobilized voters to stop a bill, HB4961, which would have put taxpayers on the hook for a new bridge to Canada, and given a bureaucracy, the Department of Transportation, a major new power to tax. Not only that, Canadian bureaucrats would be working with the DOT to formulate the budgets, in effect giving Canada a say on Michigan taxes.
This bill sailed through the house with support from a majority of Democrats AND Republicans. Fortunately, our efforts paid off, and the bill was stalled in the Senate indefinitely.
But now the Majority Leader is licking his wounds from a big loss. After 18 months of campaigning, his party rejected him. His hard work in the Senate wasn't enough.
I've seen candidates the night they lose their election. They are truly devastated.
It is well worth a moment of your time to call Bishop's office and offer words of consolation. We need him in good spirits to fight through the end of the legislative season (December).
Why did Schuette win, and what was the Tea Party's position?
The Tea Party was roughly split at their event the night before the convention. Bishop won, but it was close. At the convention, it was also close, but the other way around. Campaign For Liberty and Tea Party groups held various events to meet the candidates, and I think most attendees saw pros and cons in both candidates.
Approaching the convention, however, the Schuette campaign pulled out all the stops and ran a very dirty negative campaign against Bishop, and tarred him over the Michigan Business Tax. I didn't see much from the Bishop campaign, save one email, sliming Shuette. The experts are right: negative campaigns work. Bishop's fatal mistake was not going negative enough. One website, set up by one phantom "Trucker" Randy Butler, and promoted by someone with access to the delegate e-mail list, was an obvious attempt to confuse people with "Trucker" Randy Bishop, who would nominate Mike Bishop at the convention. His website ran negative comments on Ruth Johnson and Mike Bishop.
For my part, I only began researching the candidates a week before the convention, and it wasn't until very close to the convention when I really began to see the difference between the candidates. Bishop had flaws but was pretty good; Schuette cast many serious votes with a Big Brother mentality that was clearly visible in his campaign literature. He voted to allow police to search without a warrant as long as they believed they were right to. He voted to fund rebel armies with our tax dollars in Angola, Mozambique, and elsewhere. He voted for the death penalty. He ran a campaign of fear, with a murder victim's widow nominating him at the convention. The message was, "we need Bill Schuette to keep our families safe."
Bill Schuette had nothing whatsoever to offer the Liberty movement, and he won enough of the Tea Party over with tried-and-true rhetoric. It was a little sad to see.
But nevertheless, it was still an election based on the issues. It's a silver lining that Bishop's loss will be seen as the result of one too many compromises. That will serve to keep all other ambitious Republican legislators aware that their every vote counts.
And it's really great to have seen just how hard all of the candidates had to work for the Tea Parties' support. The Tea Parties, and the Campaign For Liberty, are a grassroots revolution that are putting the politicians against an electorate informed like never before.
The Tea Party event the night before the convention was unprecedented. The resistance was prepared, they were well informed, and they proved to the party establishment that they are a force to be reckoned with.
I declare the convention to have been a resounding success. Thanks to all the organizers, all the delegates, and all of the volunteers, we got what we fought for. Campaign For Liberty had the best vendor booth at the show, we got to meet hundreds of grassroots leaders across the state, and we had a great time.
Let's build on this success through Election Day. A lot of politicians need our vote, and we need to tell them what they must do to earn it.
Categories: Campaign For Liberty, Election News, Republican Party, Grassroots News, Revolution, State Legislation
Tags: State Convention, Bill Schuette, Ruth Johnson, Mike Bishop
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