Dear Republican Friends,
Judge Rossi in Grand Rapids has decided to listen to evidence from Kristina Karamo's lawyers today and tomorrow and the result does not look good for Pete or Melinda Pego. Based on the evidence being offered under oath by both the elected Secretary and the elected Treasurer, the judge is likely to rule that the call for the meeting made by the Pego/Hoekstra faction had an insufficient number of signatures and thus the January 6th meeting was nothing. There is a secondary problem that came up yesterday which is that the judge may be reversed on appeal of his decision to get involved at all because federal law makes clear he has no authority to enter this dispute. Maybe weirder than any of that is that the Judge seems to understand that if he rules Karamo to be legitimately removed, the majority of the party can remove Pego and Hoekstra on March 2nd.
Pego and DePerno and Hoekstra and their clique seem to have imagined everyone would just abandon their objection to the overthrow the moment President Trump was tricked into supporting Pete or maybe the moment the RNC spoke. They never imagined the 72 of 107 who were in Mount Pleasant on Saturday would stay upset about the overturning of last year's legitimate election.
It is really sad to see Republicans doing this, but maybe it will be a good exercise to see this weird two month mess end up resulting in a second chance for Karamo to get back to work building up the PArty and allowing the pissed off folks to go spend effort winning our U.S. Senate race and getting the legislature back through efforts at the County level.
The truth is that the Michigan GOP hasn't been well run for at least twenty years and we have won many elections in spite of it. We can and will win in 2024 if we have good candidates.
I never knew Karamo before the last few months and I would not have thought she was the right choice a year ago at least on the first vote, but she won fair and square and deserved better respect from her predecessors than she got. The Executive Committee mebers who have been trying to help her deserve better too.
In spite of all the talk, Kristina put $300,000 into the bank in the face of overwhelming attacks and she was well on pace to raise another $1 million this year if not for this two months of chaos.
Like ost of you, I have a day job and I will be supporting candidates for office directly and I'd like to get back to doing that and let Kristina and the MIGOP succeed or fail without this chaos.
Let's hope Judge Rossi decides this tomorrow and it doesn't go to an appeals court.
And then maybe we Republicans who ought to be fighting Democrats can stop fighting each other and can instead fight Democrats.
Sincerely,
Joe
Part-time Michigander, Full-time Republican
Joseph Arlinghaus
President
My Main Office:
713-532-2943 my cell phone