Tributes Pour in for Michigan GOP Activist Paul Welday

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FARMINGTON HILLS, MI – Tributes are pouring in for Paul Welday, a prominent Republican strategist and activist from Farmington Hills, who died Monday.

The death of Welday, 57, who had attended a political fundraiser in Bloomfield Hills Monday night, came as a shock to many.

The former chairman of the Oakland County Republican Party and former congressional candidate had just filed nomination papers to run for Oakland County water resources commissioner. Welday, longtime chief of staff for former U.S. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, also had served in a variety of leadership positions for the Michigan Republican Party.

“The Republican Party and the state of Michigan as a whole suffered a great loss today in the untimely passing of Paul Welday,” party Chairman Ronna Romney McDaniel said in a statement.

“I have been blessed to know Paul for 20 years. He was not just my friend, he was part of my family and I will miss him beyond words,” McDaniel said. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family in this difficult time. Our Party and our state will not be the same without him.”

Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson tweeted that Welday “was a good friend, a good man, and would have made a great public official.”

Welday was known as a policy wonk who could articulate both sides of an issue, The Detroit News said.

Whether Republican or Democrat, “if you were involved in politics in southeast Michigan, you had to know Paul Welday,” Rep. Kurt Heise told the newspaper.

Welday’s wife, Valerie Knol, is a legislative aide for Heise, who described him to the Detroit Free Press as a “wonderful father, husband and friend.”

"We are devastated by the news,” Heise said.

Republican strategist Stu Sandler told the Free Press that Welday was “one of the good guys who always fought for what he believed in” and had a “passion for wanting to make Michigan a better place.”

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, said she was “shocked and saddened” by Welday’s death.

“Paul was a passionate advocate for the issues he cared about, and while we could both strongly disagree, we both loved the state of Michigan and our country, and Paul always worked to protect both of them,” Dingell said in a statement. “I will deeply miss our sparring and intellectual disagreements.”

U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R- St. Joseph, said in a statement that he was “heartsick” about Welday’s sudden death.

“They just don’t make them like Paul anymore, no one had a bigger heart or sharper intellect,” Upton said in a statement.

State Sen. Marty Knollenberg, R-Troy, the son of Welday’s former boss, said Welday encouraged him to get into politics.

“A lot of people wouldn’t be in politics today had it not been for Paul Welday,” Knollenberg, an insurance sales agent, told The Detroit News. “He’s actually the longest client that I have had, but that is really because of the friendship he had for me and my parents and my wife and my brother.”