Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips sent a letter to the former Alaska governor on Monday, pleading with her to run for chairwoman. By Monday afternoon, Phillips had his answer: no.

“I was surprised at how quickly that ‘no’ came,” Phillips wrote on the group’s website Tuesday.

After expressing his disappointment, Phillips quickly turned to his next choice. “Fortunately for us, there is a conservative alternative,” he wrote. “Saul Anuzis.”

Phillips touted Anuzis as a “supporter of the tea party in Michigan” in the post but conceded that outside the committee he is not well-known.

“Saul who? That is the reaction from someone I was talking to yesterday about Saul,” Phillips wrote. “He is a solid conservative, just not very well-known outside of GOP circles or outside of Michigan.”

Despite conceding Anuzis’s low profile, Phillips contended that the Michigan committeeman is the best choice for conservatives.

“We need a conservative in as chair of the RNC. If not, we will end up with the same class of GOP knuckleheads that blew it so badly in 2006 and 2008,” the tea party leader wrote. “If we do not win this battle for the heart and soul of the GOP, we will end up with either a second Obama term or perhaps as bad, a [Mitt] Romney presidency.”