Romney's Role In The RNC Race

It now appears true that Fred Thompson really does want to be chair of the Republican National Committee; Thompson obviously doesn't expect to do any actual work, so the quickly-travelling rumor is that Thompson plans to run as a team with Chuck Yob, long-time political kingpin in Michigan, with Thompson taking a more ceremonial "general chair" title, and Yob actually running the operation.

I can only hope this rumor is true; this could turn the RNC chair battle into a very ugly -- and entertaining -- affair.

As you might imagine, 2012 GOP Presidential hopefuls have a significant interest in who gets picked to head up the party. I assume -- as do others here and there in the rumormongering biz -- that Mitt Romney is behind the candidacy of Michigan Chair Saul Anuzis. (Mike Huckabee has a horse in the race: his former campaign manager Chip Saltsman. Other potential nominees have surrogates in the mix as well.)

You can probably guess that Thompson is not a big fan of our former governor, because of the way reporters were talking about how all of the GOP candidates hated the Mittster. One particular sign was that, after it was clear that he was out of contention, Thompson remained in the Presidential race through the Florida primary in what seemed like a deliberate strategy to draw conservative votes from Romney and help his buddy McCain win that crucial state.

Oh, but that's nothing compared to the enmity between Romney and the aforementioned Yob. Yob headed up McCain's Michigan campaign in the primary against Romney. But that's just the latest. I highly recommend this account (in the second half of the article) of how Yob prevented Mitt's brother Scott from becoming the state's Attorney General in 1998. That was four years after Yob helped defeat Scott's wife Ronna Romney in the Republican primary for US Senate. Do you think Mitt remembers that kind of thing?

You'll also get a flavor from that 2006 story of how much love is not lost between Anuzis and Yob. Since then, Yob attempted to oust Anuzis as Michigan party chair -- Anuzis not only beat down the attempt, but then helped oust Yob from his post as Michigan's RNC National Committeeman, which he had held for eight years.