And in doing so, I've clearly struck a nerve.

On Palm Sunday, Saul Anuzis, in his April Fools Day Weekly Musing, after discussing his decision to stand for reelection as Michigan's Republican National Committeeman (in which he pulls off a marvelous smoke-and-mirrors job of attempting to claim the moral high ground), decided to use his self constructed perch as a platform to attack those whose motivation must be less than honorable . . . because he says so.  Quoting in entirety:

Paid political operatives with their own agenda are organizing a campaign of distortion and lies to defeat my re-election for National Committeeman.  I just want to make sure everyone is clear who is doing what.  Kevin Rex Heine is cleverly misleading folks by posting on Right Michigan and Tea Party News as some independent "conservative" activist.  Heine is a paid employee of John Yob's Strategic National who has openly said their goal is to defeat me.  Not for any philosophical reason, rather for pure power politics -- their own power.

Sure, they will bring up any and every issue they can find that someone might be concerns of yours ... but the bottom line is they are paid operatives who have an agenda of their own ... profit and power.  They are hired guns who support anyone or any issue as long as they're paid.  In this election alone, John Yob & Co. has worked for four different presidential campaigns -- Jon Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Herman Cain.  This is all about money and power.  John Yob's gang is in this for different reasons than you and me.

This is the same M.O. this particular group has used for years to manipulate the process for financial gain.

Please feel free to call me and I'm more than willing to address and respond to any of their "claims" that so far are little more than cheap political shots and lies.

My, oh my, where do I begin here?

Let's start with a brutal and ugly truth, and that is that politics is always about power.  Slice it any way you want to, look at it from any angle you wish, active political involvement is about power, profit, and access . . . period.  No one, not one single human being, is immune to this allure.  As Lincoln said, "Nearly all men can stand the test of adversity, but if you really want to test a man's character, give him power."  Always, the question is going to be one of who does or doesn't wield their power with integrity, or about whom can pull up a seat at the table of access and profit and the degree to which he becomes contaminated by that very chair.

I'm quite sure that Saul Anuzis probably just forgot to mention this, but he is the Managing Partner of Coast to Coast Strategies, LLC, which provides strategic planning, consulting and business development services.  According to verifiable information available elsewhere, Saul has profited nicely from consulting gigs in Michigan, all of which appear to be legal, even if there may be some ethical questions involved.  In other words, he has actively chosen political consultancy as his method of earning a living, which is fine, really.  But to publicly attack me as a "hired gun" while trying to position himself as pure as the wind-driven snow is disingenuously hypocritical at best.

By no stretch of the imagination is Saul anything resembling squeaky clean.  Not setting aside his central role in the Michigan Dele-Gate Fiasco nor his work as a paid consultant for the National Popular Vote effort (because both of those are relevant), we should also note that Mr. Anuzis has a long and documented track record of tax liens, forfeitures, and license revocations, wasteful spending and mismanagement, and election year failures.  (There's a reason that his record as state party chair is best characterized as "o-fer.")  And I absolutely stand by what I've written in my previous post with regard to state party finances, the McCain-Palin literature fiasco, and the GOTV weekend headquarters lockdown, given that I have witnesses aplenty to back up each account.  Keep in mind that everything that I've mentioned in these two paragraphs is likely only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to dirt on Anuzis, and I have no intention of stopping my digging now.

Just in case no one's noticed, I'm not the one who's espoused a negative tone in these matters.  Granted, both Jason and I have been not-gentle in our addressing of the ever-more-evident corruption within the inner circle of the Rockefeller-wing blueblood party elites, but the last I checked, frankly and plainly speaking the truth to power invariably requires a tough love approach.

On the other hand, Saul Anuzis has made a point of going almost exclusively negative and personal in his support of his preferred primary candidates this year (in direct violation of Reagan's Eleventh Commandment).  As a result, I'm pretty sure that the other candidates don't appreciate it, and I suspect that may ultimately cost the party big come November.  What disturbs me is that Anuzis' behavior seems to seek a return to the Anuzis v Yob internal squabbles that characterized his 2005 - 2009 tenure as state party chairman, when the only thing he seemed to be accomplishing was to turn Michigan democrat-blue.  Maybe that's why certain critical elements of state party strategic infrastructure (such as the Fix Michigan network) still aren't in place and operational.

Before I close this out, let me clear up a little detail of Strategic National's progression through the presidential candidates, specifically including information that Anuzis didn't see fit to include in his little April Fools Day hit piece:

• The work done by Strategic National for the Jon Huntsman campaign was actually work done for his PAC prior to the official announcement of his candidacy.  Once the campaign was official, the in-house staff took over and StratNat's services were no longer necessary.

• If I remember the details correctly, StratNat was picked up by the Herman Cain campaign right around the time of the 2011 Mackinac Island Republican Leadership Conference.  If I have to explain why StratNat's no longer working for Cain for President, then someone hasn't been paying attention.

• Almost all of the high-level Cain staff (the StratNat team included) was picked up by the Newt Gingrich campaign.  However, about four days before the Florida primary, a new campaign manager came on and made a point of pushing out everyone who had migrated over from the Cain campaign.  I don't know for sure if that's the reason for the Newt nosedive, but the correlation is pretty strong.

• And so now StratNat is working for Santorum for President, as are many former Cain-to-Gingrich consultants and staffers.  But forget all about those details, John Yob and I must be mere hired guns who have no interest other than profit and power.

I can live with that.

Look, if a laundry list of Michigan Republicans want to go on the record as supporting and/or endorsing Saul Anuzis' campaign for election to a full term as Michigan's Republican National Committeeman, that's their business.  If they honestly believe that he'll do a better job than any of his six potential challengers, if they're supportive of his divisive internal strategy, if they're content with the results of his chairman tenure, and if they believe that he actually deserves a full term as Michigan's Republican National Committeeman, then that's entirely their call.

I happen to think that those supporters ought to harbor no illusions about the nature and character of whom they're supporting.  And I think that they ought to be aware that any credible challenger who actually decides to "enter the arena" by challenging Anuzis' reelection bid is going to get far more support than the blueblood party elites want us to believe.