Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in.

You may recall that there was a third installment of a Godfather movie series that was lampooned in the HBO TV series The Sopranos. They had a lot of fun with the scene above. Michael Corleone is looking to retire as the leader of his family, and just when he thinks he's out, he gets pulled back in.

That is precisely how I felt after last Thursday's GOP county meetings across the state, where I attended my county gathering for the first time in probably 20 years. I left the party over two decades ago because of the nonsense that was going on at that time, and upon my return, as I have commented here at RedState and other places, there's even more nonsense going on, but oddly enough, I did have fun. 

I was there as a guest with no official function to participate in and had a blast watching the festivities. As I have spent the last couple of days catching up on what happened around the state, others had a similar experience, as recounted here.

 The Michigan Republican Party is poised, in the coming weeks, to play a larger-than-normal role in picking the GOP nominee for president at a time when members are clashing with one another over who's in control.

The divide could further complicate the party's new process for picking which presidential contender wins Michigan's delegates, and it was on full display Thursday night as Republicans gathered for county conventions across the state.

Some of the meetings were marked by feuding, shouting and the presence of police. At the convention in Genesee County, a group whose members dubbed themselves the “MAGA Midnight Riders" attempted to take over. In Oakland County, Kristina Karamo....At one point, Karamo could be heard telling one critic to "quit the alcohol."

I didn't detect anyone laden with booze at the Macomb County meeting I attended, but I did hear some arguments that sounded like a drunk person came up with them.

Now, the meeting I attended was filled with high-spirited individuals who needed to be schooled about how the bylaws of these meetings operate with a clearer understanding of Robert's Rules. If you've never watched a meeting that Robert's Rules govern, you can point out the people who are on shaky ground quite easily because they get part of their reasoning correct but can't complete it, and when the flaw is pointed out, they get frustrated quickly.

That was just the first 90 minutes of the meeting, and it did smooth out a bit, but the meeting went until 1:00 AM in our neck of the woods, and that is a long time to be chatting about nuance.

The whole point of the county meetings was about who to send as delegates from all the counties to the statewide meeting on March 2nd.  My understanding is that the statewide meeting will select who would represent Michigan at the Republican National Convention, which will choose the Republican candidate for President in Milwaukee this summer. 

So, as you can imagine, it is very critical to ensure that the state sends competent Republicans to the national convention to represent Michigan's interests. Yet it seems there are Democrats who have infiltrated the Republican Party and are trying to destroy how the party operates from within.

One of the ways that this is possibly being done in Michigan is preventing the GOP from raising money in a presidential election year. I covered this in one of my previous articles: Movement Underway to Remove Michigan GOP Chair With Party in Serious Debt.

However, at least in Macomb County, I was optimistic at the end of my six-hour stint of observing the current Michigan GOP.

I talked to a number of people who freely admitted that they had been hoodwinked by some smooth-talking operators and had promised things they had no plan to achieve. I know that has happened to me on occasion, and the first step to correcting a problem is admitting that there was one and that you're willing to change course.

So while it'll probably be a bit before the Michigan Republican Party becomes a fully functional state party again, at least the steps are being taken in the right direction so far. 

In today's crazy age, I'll take that rather than the alternative, which has been tried here and failed.