However, back in early June, two problem members of iCaucus Michigan's state leadership team were successfully pressured to resign, and the almost entirely new team (only two members from the 2010 leadership team were still in office by that time) quickly sat down to figure out what we could do with the little time we had and the bare-bones infrastructure we had to work with.  It wasn't easy, but initially three congressional races and five state house races were targeted.  One of the congressional races and three of the state house races ultimately had to be abandoned, because the necessary tea party coordination couldn't be accomplished in time, and an additional state house race had to settle for a recommendation, because the interim coordinator for the overarching congressional district dropped the ball with regard to assembling an interview panel.

The reason for getting involved in a mere township race perhaps requires some explaining.  Earlier this year, our Kent County Community Watchdog Group got wind of some backroom shenanigans going on in its own backyard.  What had happened was that, after the adjournment of a regularly-scheduled February meeting, and after the public (as well as the Township Clerk and one member of the Board of Trustees) had left, the remaining four (Supervisor George Meek and Trustees Jack Hagedorn, Vic Matthews, and Charles Weldon) discussed a strategy to bypass the Open Meetings Act, without appearing to do so, and appoint Hagedorn to the Treasurer seat recently vacated by Jim Stover (for which Hagedorn had pulled only 40% of the vote in 2004).  They also planned to alter the pay and benefits structure, as well as the workload, of Hagedorn's new position, so as to accommodate his government-sector job in another county.

However, and you'll love this wrinkle, apparently none of the four co-conspirators noticed that the microphones in the meeting room were still live and recording.  The whole 20-minute conversation was captured for posterity.  When Scott Harvey, the township clerk, pulled the recording in order to transcribe the minutes, he discovered the extra airtime, and apparently publicly objected at the March 5th board meeting.  He also seems to have turned the information over to the watchdog group, who promptly filed a lawsuit against the co-conspirators, and also recruited primary challengers against Meek and Hagedorn, as well as two challengers against the Board of Trustees (thus effectively ensuring the removal of either Matthews or Weldon).  Since there were no Democrats on the ballot in Plainfield Township, this would all be settled in the primary election . . . one way or the other. iCaucus recommended the incumbents Scott Harvey for Clerk and Jon Rathbun for Trustee (because both had publicly stood up to the other four incumbents and called them out on their misbehavior), and challengers Jay Spencer for Supervisor, Bill Brinkman for Treasurer, and David Grant and Dale Pomeroy for Trustee.

Sure enough, when the dust settled on Primary Night, all six of the iCaucus-recommended candidates in Plainfield Township won . . . and for the most part not really close.  In the 74th House District, the early returns (including Grandville) had Steve Maas up by about 130 votes; but the late returns from the City of Walker, and Algoma, Alpine, and Tyrone Townships put Rob VerHeulen on top by 1,229 votes.  (Democrat Richard Erdman was unopposed.)  As Jason reported yesterday, his primary run on a RINO, who flatly refused to vett with iCaucus, didn't turn out in our favor.  We also split in the congressional primaries, with Bentivolio winning and Hoogendyk not.  That's a 75% success rate overall, which I submit isn't bad for a group that had barely a month and a half to put together their efforts from effectively scratch.

A few notes going forward:

• iCaucus Michigan is going to reach out to all of our 2010 endorsed candidates who are standing for re-election this year.  (Justin Amash has already been re-endorsed.)  Those whose voting records support automatic re-endorsement (such as perhaps Tom McMillin) will likely be automatically re-endorsed without trouble.  Those whose voting records don't support automatic re-endorsement (such as Tim Walberg) will have to go through the entire process from scratch.

• iCaucus Michigan will not (as in: no way, no how, hell no) be endorsing Roy Schmidt, who won the 76th District primary against Bing Goei by 623 votes.  Instead, we'll be reaching out to Winnie Brinks (Democrat), Patricia Steinport (Libertarian), William Mohr (U.S. Taxpayer), and Keith Allard (Independent) to see if any of them are willing to go through the vetting process.  Normally, as a matter of policy, iCaucus doesn't endorse third-party candidates.  However, given the circumstances of Schmidt's party-switch, particularly the violations of nearly every principle of integrity, iCaucus national leadership has approved a one-time exception to the policy.  (It should be noted that a legal challenge may be forthcoming over approximately 2,000 absentee ballots cast in that Republican primary.)

• iCaucus Michigan will be endorsing in the contested MIGOP State Convention races.  At this point, most of the candidates have filled out the Candidate Qualifying Questionnaire, and the interview process has already started.

• The iCaucus Michigan endorsement of Kerry Bentivolio in the 11th Congressional District will carry over to the special primary being held on Wednesday, September 5th.