While the Livingston County GOP leadership recently lurched hard right, it took a step back last week in endorsing Dan Wholihan for chair of the 7th District GOP.
The newly redrawn 7th District includes all of Livingston, Ingham, Clinton and Shiawassee counties, as well as a majority of Eaton County and small portions of Oakland and Genesee counties. The new district also includes the state capital of Lansing.
For a bit, it was Wholihan, a former chair of the Livingston GOP, facing off against Mike Detmer. But hours after former U.S. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio entered the race, Detmer withdrew, leaving Wholihan to run against a man who was inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was questioned after the siege by FBI agents. (Click here for more.)
The election is Friday, Feb. 17.
The endorsement — the first of its kind as far as I know — follows the takeover of the GOP executive committee by a whole new crop of party members, now led by Jennifer Smith, famous for leading the local Moms For Liberty group (which came to be during mask mandates); getting in trouble with Facebook for her administration of the Moms For Liberty page; suing and then dropping the suit against the Brighton Area Schools District over the open meetings act and mask violations; and, about a year ago, threatening the Brighton school board.
Just two members of the 20-member board — John Conely, a member of the Brighton Area Schools Board of Education, and Dan Wholihan, a former local party chair — have experience with the local party. What’s interesting is that a third of the local GOP’s new executive committee members weren’t even eligible to run; their election was made possible only by a rules change.
By all accounts, the first county convention under the new regime was a mess. Nearly all establishment Livingston County Republicans currently in office stayed away. Electing delegates to the state convention had to be shut down three times because the new executive committee members couldn’t figure out how to use the voting software. Amid the chaos, some members of the new executive committee took to the microphone to place blame for it all on the former executive committee members and former county chair Meghan Reckling.
I asked Wholihan whether this unusual endorsement was a political quid pro quo of sorts, made in exchange for his expertise and help in running things after the chaotic county convention.
“I did not ask for, but I am grateful and thankful for the endorsement from LCRP, an organization I’ve worked with in varying roles for the past 22 years,” Wholihan said. “If elected 7th District Chair, I look forward to working with our Livingston County leadership to keep Livingston County a great place to live.”
