By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Talk about a shoo-in.
Saul Anuzis has the support of all 15 of the Congressional District Chairs to become the Michigan Republican Party Chairman at the State Convention in Grand Rapids this weekend. "Four other people have dropped out," of the race, Anuzis added.
If elected, Anuzis will succeed outgoing Chairman, Betsy DeVos.
In Niles on Wednesday, Anuzis was shown around by Bret Witkowski, Berrien County Republican Party chairman. Jo Flock of the South County Republicans, stopped in at the Niles Daily Star to give Anuzis some gifts and said the second official meeting of the group will be on Feb. 17. They will announce the location soon.
Along with a Republican mug expounding on the excellence of elephants, Flock gave Anuzis buttons promoting $1 a day. The slogan, which they hope will catch on, would encourage supporters to donate at least $1 a day to the Republican Party.
Anuzis believes the Democrats are loosing power in Michigan and said the polls are finding Governor Jennifer Granholm falling in popularity.
The elections in 2006, Anuzis said, present the Republicans with some unique challenges. "We have to hold onto the statewide offices we hold today. Having Secretary of State Terri Land and Attorney General Mike Cox as two of our party's leading spokespeople truly puts our best face forward."
Though he now lives in Lansing, Anuzis was born and raised in Detroit. Both he and his wife Lina are the children of immigrant Lithuanians.
His final year of college as an economics major, at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, he became involved and president of the student government.
Instead of the safe future in banking his parents envisioned for him, Anuzis chose politics.
He was the youngest delegate in the county to the Republican National Convention in 1980, when he was just 21.
After working with a State House of Representative for a year, he went on to help elect a relatively unknown farmer to the State Senator - Dick Posthumus.
Anuzis spent the next 10 years in the State's Senate Office, eventually becoming the Chief of Staff.
In that final year, he saw the passage of a bill which would allow some competition in the telecommunications business, and his former major kicked in along with the start of a business. That telephone and data services in Michigan was finally sold and he and his partner started a new company, Quick Connect USA, in Lansing.
During those years, Anuzis continued to stay involved in politics. He served as a precinct delegate and volunteered on campaigns.
After 12 years in the legislature, a natural progress may have been to run for office. "I didn't want to run, with one son and another on the way," said Anuzis.
His sons, which have increased to four, ages 16, 14, 12, and nine, are important, as is his Scouting, which began when he was a boy.
Anuzis added, he has been to this area before, camping as a boy and helping with the other scouts clean-up after storms went through New Buffalo in the mid-60s.
Along with the election of a chairman this weekend, the delegates, 29 of which are from Berrien County, will elect six vice chairman.
These will be his "board of directors," Anuzis said. Their areas include: outreach, coalition, ethnic, youth, administration, and grass roots.
He promises to create a "Success 2006 Task Force" with a "grassroots representative from every congressional district" to work on plans together, and also to "host periodic grassroots roundtables to discuss strategy and the critical issues of the day."
He declares himself as "a conservative, an independent thinker and strong believer that grassroots activism matters."