GOP family feud: Candidates vie to lead sagging party

Michigan Republican Party

In the wake of wide-ranging defeats on Election Day, four Republican Party leaders are seeking to chair the state party. Current chair Saul Anuzis has announced he is running for the chair of the national party, so he will not remain at the helm; the new party leader will be picked at the state party convention in February.

The contenders, three of whom lost bids for elected office earlier this month, are vying to lead a party that has lost ground to Democrats at every level in the past two elections. While all assert loyalty to the Republican Party, each candidate has his own diagnosis on what has gone wrong and how the party can recover.

The Michigan Republican Party Watch blog reports that “political insiders are unhappy with the declared candidates,” but until new candidates throw their hats in the ring, the party’s next leader will be one of the following.

Jack Hoogendyk: ‘Reducing the size of government’

Term-limited Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, R-Kalamazoo, came out of an electoral defeat in a race against Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and didn’t wait for Anuzis to announce his plans for the future before announcing. Hoogendyk, a social and fiscal conservative, announced his candidacy a week ago in an e-mail to supporters.

In his letter, Hoogendyk wrote,

The Republican Party in Michigan is hurting. Since I took office in January of 2003, we have lost 20 House seats, three Senate seats, two Congressmen, a Supreme Court Chief Justice, and countless township and county officials. We failed to regain the governor’s mansion in 2006 and we missed on US Senate seats in 2006 and 2008. We have consistently lost the debate in the battle of ideas.

It is time to make an evaluation of the situation and resolve to make some significant changes. There is no point in dwelling on personalities or looking back, what is important is that we right the ship before it sinks.

And what, according to Hoogendyk, does righting the ship look like?

I would like to share with you some of the things I believe we need to do:

* We need to unify the party around the core principles that define who we are as Republicans. The Number One priority is reducing the size of government.
* We need to identify the key issues that identify Republicans and which will win at the ballot box.
* We need to begin working with local county leaders to identify strong candidates for House and Senate who will grasp the issues and commit to supporting them.
* We must organize our ground game to build strength in the high schools, universities, and grass roots organizations.
* We must improve communication between state leadership, the districts, the counties and the membership.

Norm Shinkle: Embracing the grassroots

Norm Shinkle is the current chair of the Ingham County Republican Party and a former state senator from the Monroe area. In his Wednesday e-mail announcement, Shinkle wrote:

We face many challenges. We undoubtedly have many obstacles to overcome. But we’ve come back before, and with your help, I am certain we can do it again. I will begin working on day one to build a strong, focused and unified Party.

Together, we must make certain we have the candidates who can articulate our message and champion our ideals. We must make certain we have the resources necessary to support them. And we must make certain we have the grassroots, local Party networks in place to propel them to victory.

I have been active in the Republican Party since 1972. I’m a proud product of the grassroots, and I’ll never forget that. I’ve been fighting in the trenches alongside you — making the phone calls, knocking on the doors and organizing the efforts to get Republicans elected. As your Chairman, you have my word that I will never forget our shared values and vision.

Paul Welday: Seeking ‘a broad cross-section’

Welday just came off an unsuccessful bid to serve the 37th House District and is a former chair of the Oakland County Republican Party. In an e-mail to state committee members of the MI-GOP, Welday had this to say:

“The selection of our Party’s next chairman is a watershed event for Michigan Republicans,” said Welday. “Charting a course for the future of our Party should be done collectively by as broad a cross-section of Republicans as possible. I want activists to hear our ideas for the future and participate whether they can attend a meeting personally or not. That’s why we will feature new and innovative ways to reach out and bring people together.”

Dan Tollis: Stop ‘corruption and infighting’

First to announce was Tollis, a Clinton Township resident. Tollis ran for HD-31 but did not win. In his announcement, sent out Nov. 7, he wrote:

As a businessman-turned-political-candidate, my past business experience has taught me that leadership always starts at the top. I believe the Michigan Republican Party is desperate for solid leadership. Our current Michigan Republican Party heads have continuously exploited their positions of power to bolster their own business interests; and that is no longer tolerable. It is important to emphasize that Saul’s executive director, Jeff Timmer, served as a VP for the Sterling Corporation. In the 2006 and 2008 elections, Anuzis and Timmer funneled millions of dollars to the Sterling Corporation. With Anuzis, Timmer, and Sterling at the helm, we’ve been creamed at the top of the ticket, as well as losing the majority in the Michigan House of Representatives, two Congressmen, The Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Republican majorities on several County Board of Commissioners, and several seats on the statewide education boards.

Corruption and infighting has withered the Michigan Republican Party into an ineffective organization, and because of this, I am announcing my candidacy for Michigan Republican Party Chairman. I believe that we need transparency in our State Party, along with our government. I am sick and tired of closed-door finance meetings and dictatorial decisions about what candidates are privy to our money. It is time to restore the Michigan Republican Party back to the political powerhouse it once was. We can’t afford any more losses! We must start winning again!

Tollis is apparently in the midst of a battle with Sterling Corporation, a consulting firm. The group announced last week that it was suing Tollis over his comments about infighting in the GOP. MIRS, a capitol news outlet, quotes the press release from Sterling Corporation from Steve Linder, a partner in the business:

“The professionals at The Sterling Corporation are proud of the work we do on behalf of all our clients, both inside and out of the political arena. We stand 100 percent behind our performance and fully expect to be judged on that performance. It’s for that reason that we are not sitting by while false and defamatory statements are made about our company, our work or the people who work at Sterling. Dan Tollis, and anyone else who decides to follow his lead, need to understand that party politics and defamation are not and should not be the same thing.”

The might-runs

The list of might-runs is also quite sizable and includes John Truscott, former spokesperson for Gov. John Engler; former State Sen. Laura Toy; and one-time Republican Senate nominee Jerry Zandstra.

Todd A. Heywood was endorsed by the Ingham County Republican Party Executive Committee in 2003 in his bid for re-election to the Lansing Community College Board of Trustees. He no longer serves on the board.