I think that the most recent example of state party shenanigans is the current mess that we have going on in CD-11.  Whether it was villainy or just plain stupidity, Thad McCotter's canvass crew committed a classic "epic fail" with regard to the congressman's nominating petition.  Given a perfect opportunity to play by the rules and show the tea party that they are in fact welcome, instead the powers that be in the 11th District republican apparatus (Tom Stroup and Brooks Patterson, among others) decided that a potential congressman who insists on actually using the Enumerated Powers as a litmus test for voting on a bill was too extreme for their taste.  Instead, they're going to burn through party resources to fund an expensive and unnecessary write-in campaign, for no apparent reason other than that the by-the-rules results didn't fit the prearranged narrative.  (We've seen that theme elsewhere this year, and I'll be getting back to it.)  And so yet another backroom cabal decided that the Mother of the MBT career politician would be a better representative of the people than a citizen-legislator who passes the constitutionalist sniff-test.

I didn't mention this in my report on the Showdown in Motown, but the MIGOP establishment made a point of making it tough for the Agema for RNC team to accomplish their job:

• Providing the Agema for RNC campaign team with their rented convention hall outpost . . . somewhere in the B------k, Egypt, wing of the Cobo.  (Jason can vouch for what I'm referring to.)

• Failing to provide the Agema for RNC campaign team with the vendor table that they paid the rental fee for.  (I hope someone had the sense to demand a refund.)

• Expediting the Credentials Committee report, which contained the slate of at-large national convention delegates (gee, thanks, Brooks).  This was supposed to accomplish the dual purposes of voting in an establishment-approved, pro-Romney delegate slate (because no one would think to challenge an administrative report), and to throw off the Agema for RNC campaign team (because the nominating speech, support speech, and floor demonstration were now going a half-hour ahead of schedule).  Patterson & Co. got away with the former, but Agema's crew was prepared for the latter.

Evidently, "... hard-working Republicans, who may not be precinct delegates ..." are now considered a threat to the smooth operation of the internal workings of the Michigan Republican Party.  I say this because no sooner had Saul Anuzis been handed his pink slip, about four weeks ago, then at the immediately subsequent State Committee meeting he introduced an amendment to Convention Rule # 9 (which is the reason that it's referred to as the "Anuzis Amendment") "to strike any language that requires a Precinct Delegate to be present in order to have preference."  The minutes as published make it seem like there wasn't much discussion on the matter, and reports vary as to whether there were 4 or 12 "nay" votes, or some number in between.

Just to make sure we have the record straight, I spoke to several State Committee members who were at the meeting, and the reference to Rule # 8 in the minutes is indeed a typo.  I agree with Richard Anderson's assessment that what this amounts to is deliberately disenfranchising grassroots activists who might be interested in going to convention, and actually participating.  County chairs now have free rein to pack their delegations with cronies who are already precinct delegates, regardless of whether or not they show up at convention or any meetings, or even express any interest in participating, and don't think that there won't be some that will do exactly that.  That same State Committee is scheduled to meet again in July of this year, and will have the opportunity to repeal the Anuzis Amendment, but I'm not going to be holding my breath; recent history is pretty clear that the MIGOP tends to stick to its guns on bad decisions, even after it becomes plainly obvious to any reasonable observer that the decision in question was a bad call.

Which brings up what seems to be, thus far, this election cycle's premier example of rewriting the rules and then stonewalling any and all requests (and, yes, even demands) to revisit the decision.  The RightMichigan write-up on the Michigan "Dele-Gate" Fiasco was, by the time it reached its logical conclusion, 40 installments long, spanning from a February 29 article that called the media meme of a "Romney win" into question all the way through (80 days later) a convention-floor blowout that held the alleged chief engineer of "Dele-Gate" accountable for his actions for probably the first time in his 31+ year political career.  The patronage system currently in use within the Republican Party halls of establishment power reared its ugly head early and often in the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary, with Mitt Romney being declared the presumptive front runner even before he filed to run, and retaining that designation even when more conservative luminaries such as Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum each in turn surpassed him in the polling.  Granted, Mitten's "stinker factor" probably doesn't exceed 17%, but he still had to outspend his opposition by at least 5-to-1 in contested states in order to pick up delegates, even in states where the fix was already in.

Just to review, what we have here is:

• The blueblood elites within the state party (and especially on the credentials committee) publicly play by the rules in the 2012 Michigan Presidential Primary . . . up until the day after the result produced by the rules doesn't fit with their predetermined narrative, at which point the credentials committee pulled off an ex post facto rewrite of the rules so as to preserve their desired narrative

• An effort until the end by the party establishment to make things as difficult as possible for the challenger to an out-of-touch incumbent to have a smoothly-run convention operation, and call said incumbent to account for every dirty deed he's been guilty of in the past three decades

• Having failed in their effort to keep Saul Anuzis in office, the MIGOP State Committee promptly amended the convention rules to disadvantage "... hard-working Republicans, who may not be precinct delegates ..." from an opportunity to have a say in the process . . . because the newcomers must be the problem, not the incumbent they removed

• An elitist cabal, that seems to be unable to tolerate the notion of a congressman more interested in answering to the voters than the party brass, running Nancy Cassis as a write-in candidate in Michigan's 11th Congressional District in a very expensive, low probability of success campaign that raises questions about what these same elitists will do in the likely event that Kerry Bentivolio actually wins the primary (because the names "Christine O'Donnell" and "Joe Miller" are still reasonably fresh in my head)

The one common thread running through all abusive relationships, that is the sole defining characteristic demarcating what does and doesn't make any relationship abusive, is the concept of power and control.  Without it, there is no abuse.  And when you think about it, the bluebloods within the Michigan Republican Party have been a little too quick to go all "teabagger" against any who dared to challenge their way of doing things and their foreordained patronage.  A party apparatus dominated by mutual respect and equality of merit may have been more willing to live with the results produced by the rules, and perhaps less willing to alienate the "fresh blood" they so regularly claim to need.

Which brings me to my closing thought, a paraphrase of John F. Kennedy's warning:  Those who insist on making a peaceful takeover impossible will ultimately make a takeover by revolt inevitable, and perhaps even necessary.  The question is how long it's going to take for the blueblood elites in the establishment to get the message.