In minutes, Macomb GOP reverts back to civil war mode

Within minutes of the official start to Campaign 2014 – Tuesday’s
filing deadline – the two fighting factions within the Macomb County
Republican Party cranked up their war machines, with claims of dirty
politics, character assassination and a possible lawsuit.

With 20 minutes to go before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline, the Shelby
Township deputy clerk walked into the county Elections Department armed
with signed documents declaring several new candidacies for the 2014
campaign.

Those were Republican candidacies, an effort to stir up the GOP
primaries in several key races. The deputy clerk is Brian Fairbrother, a
fellow Republican. His boss, Grot, insists he played no role in filing
the internecine challengers, all of whom are Grot allies.

The township clerk said his deputy was acting alone, and Grot also
insists Fairbrother was not engaging in party politics on township time.
Grot said Fairbrother had taken time off on Tuesday because he
“decided to go have some fun that day.”

The phony candidates – Macomb County politics’ infamous “ringers” –
were designed to wreak havoc with Grot’s enemies, not to actually win a
race. For example, veteran county Commissioner Don Brown, a trusted
congressional aide to Miller, suddenly found himself at the 11th hour
facing a primary challenge from a Doug Brown.

Voter confusion is the name of this game.

It’s important to note that Doug Brown is the husband of Ann Brown,
one of Grot’s staunchest political allies. But the devious ways of
Macomb politics can take some strange twists and turns. Ann Brown filed
to run for the coveted open seat in north Macomb’s 36th House District,
the same office that Grot is pursuing.

What was the strategy there? Why would Brown, who was chosen by Grot
in 2011 to serve as GOP treasurer, run against her friend and
confidante? Why would his deputy clerk deliver the paperwork for
candidates running against his boss? “No comment,” was the response Grot
gave me when I asked.

It appears that Grot, a practitioner of old-school politics, went on
the offensive in some races to stir the pot and give his enemies fits.
But he took a preemptive defensive posture heading into Tuesday’s filing
deadline regarding his own race. It seems that he assumed the party
establishment would also play games by putting ringers in his contest.

Perhaps they would put a woman in the race to shake things up. So,
Grot would dilute that move in advance by putting his fake female
contender into the mix.

In addition, Grot’s main competition in the House election comes from
prominent attorney Pete Lucido, the son of Italian immigrants. In
response, another Italian candidate suddenly emerged, Vince Bernardi, a
Grot associate on the 10th Congressional District GOP committee.

One thing the wily Grot, a former county commissioner and Sterling
Heights city councilman, didn’t count on was the backlash that ensued
from party leaders at the local and state level. I’m told that GOP
big-wigs were not pleased that Grot had selectively wreaked havoc in
campaigns for key state and county seats targeted by the party
establishment.

As a result, the seven candidates associated with Grot’s minions
began withdrawing their candidacies until all of them had dropped out by
Friday.

In turn, Grot’s enemies, who have been warring with tea party
insurgents for the past four years, are wondering: What did Stan get in
return?

As for Lucido, a first-time candidate, he said, “This is the most ludicrous thing I have ever seen.”

Of course, Lucido has become a target as the campaigns start to gear
up. One of his most loyal campaign volunteers, Jeff Berz, has raised
Grot’s ire with caustic Facebook posts that are criticized as an attempt
to smear the township clerk’s reputation.

In one post, Berz displayed a receipt that purportedly shows that
Grot ordered 4,000 personalized pens with township passport funds. In another
post, Berz jokes that maybe Grot gave some of the pens to members of the
Cub Scout pack that he led, and he pokes fun at Grot’s Polish accent:
“Ya, I dun reelide dis to be a problem wid da yutes.”

At another point, Berz posted a 2005 photo of Grot and his Cub Scout
pack, including the clerk’s son, accompanied by a crude meme that said:
“If the Boy Scouts have to allow gay male leaders, then farmers must
allow the fox into the hen house.”

That bit of snark has brought the threat of a defamation lawsuit from
Grot, who calls Berz a Lucido “stooge” who has already pushed the House
campaign “into the gutter.”

And Lucido’s response to Berz’s actions? He doesn’t approve of the tone displayed on Facebook but “to each his own.”

Lucido is getting a taste of the vitriol that permeated the Macomb
GOP wars of 2011 and 2013. He wasn’t around for Grot’s Alexander Haig
moment when, after he orchestrated a tea party-led coup within the
party, he told his foes: “These guys have to realize that I’m in charge
now.”

Since then, both sides have engaged in some Machiavellian moves as
the party went through four party chairmen in a period of about two
years. A win-at-all-costs mentality was aimed at each other, rather than
the Democrats.

It’s worth noting that all of the candidate affidavits delivered in
the final moments were notarized by Fairbrother (a pro-Grot party
apparatchik) except for one. Ann Brown signed one of the documents
rather than Fairbrother, apparently because it was for the county
executive candidacy of Debbie Fairbrother. That’s Fairbrother’s mother.

In the end, all of the disputed candidates withdrew, except for one
— Grot’s sister, Maria. She is still a contender in the targeted 5th
District county commissioner contest in Sterling Heights, where she
hopes to knock off the county party establishment’s prize recruit, Casey
Petz, in the GOP primary.

If she succeeds, I’m sure her brother will be so proud.