Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, originally uploaded by zotttgeek.

My apologies for the lack of activity over the past 24 hours. I’m in Detroit, Mich., right now, on my way to Mackinac Island, where the Michigan Republican Party is holding its Biennial Mackinac Island Leadership Conference this weekend. I’ll be staying at the Grand Hotel (pictured above).

I will be speaking on a panel about online activism twice on Saturday with Nick DeLeeuw, founder and contributor at RightMichigan.com, the state’s leading conservative blogging community, and Emily Zanotti, editor of American Princess, a conservative news and political gossip blog.

As Patrick Ruffini recently noted, Michigan Republicans are well stocked with modern-media communicators. The state party’s communications director, Bill Nowling, is a blogger, and Chairman Saul Anuzis was the first state-party leader to have a blog.

The real highlight of the weekend will be watching Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul and Sam Brownback. They’re all featured speakers, hoping to court the activists and attendees who are traveling to the Northern Michigan getaway for the weekend. Newt Gingrich is also making an appearance and there are plenty of other happenings on the agenda.

There could also be some drama on tap for the weekend. In recent weeks, Michigan Republican Committeeman Chuck Yob was forced to announce his retirement after facing pressure from the Rev. Keith Bulter, a solid conservative who ran and lost in the 2006 U.S. Senate primary against Republican Mike Bouchard. Since making his announcement, Yob has tried to smear Anuzis, who might be a future candidate for RNC chairman. Anyone who remembers my work at Human Events will know where I stand on this one.

This weekend’s event marks my first trip back to Michigan since I spent the summer of 2000 there as a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund intern at the Traverse City Record-Eagle. I have many fond memories of Traverse City, and wish I was able to make it back there to visit. Unfortunately, the agenda is packed too tight.