The Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference often lures a who’s who of GOP power players to Michigan. Wealthy donors shake hands with presidential candidates, who give rousing speeches to packed audiences in hopes of winning the conference’s straw poll.
The event is typically a money-maker for its sponsor – the Michigan Republican Party – helping to fund get-out-the-vote efforts and support campaigns to get Republicans elected throughout the state.
But this year’s conference was decidedly different.
The only presidential candidate to show up was Vivek Ramaswamy, who was mostly polling in the single digits. The line-up of speakers included failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake; Zuby, a British rapper who occasionally appears on Fox News; and, conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza, who ultimately did not show up.
The biggest draw was actor Jim Caviezel, a promoter of QAnon conspiracy theories, who had a hit movie this summer but is perhaps best known for playing Jesus in “The Passion of the Christ” movie 20 years ago. He was paid a $110,000 fee to attend and give a 25-minute speech.
The event, simply put, was “a disaster,” said Warren Carpenter, an active party member and former district chair.
I recall early on reports that said domestic theaters were sold out online but empty in person in the opening weeks. I don’t think I heard too much more than that on what was going on beyond baiting the early numbers to convince many this was a big hit.
Still 250M worldwide seems pretty impressive for a Qanon hyped up piece with the inspiration of the project being accused of sexual misconduct by 5 women and accusations of sexual groping of child trafficking victims in the process. But it turns out he had a Mexican judge state one of the victims was over 18 so the groping was a non issue? He was also resigned from the foundation he setup due to other issues.
Then one of the backers of the movie being accused of felony child kidnapping which was recently dropped I see due to a misunderstanding of the victim’s families?
Amazing this movie got out of the gate with these issues. I do recall the theme being early on being if you didn’t support this project you were a child abuser so it turns out that had a pretty big impact?