This is the kind of stuff they never teach you in high school government class, because you have to bury yourself in the culture to discover it.

Here it is: There are two levels of activity in the political arena.

First, there is the outside game. The politicians are more than eager to tell you what is going on, because it usually makes them look good. Rarely does the outside game rhetoric have anything to do with the inside game, where the public is left out on purpose. The fear is, if you found out what was really going on, the glowing halo of the outside game message might be tarnished just a tad.

It’s the inside game where the proverbial smoke-filled back room is used to make secret deals, to engage in skullduggery to beat the other guy, and to generally do what needs to be done to get where you want to go.

Enter the smoke-filled room of former President Donald Trump and longtime Michigan political backroom wizard John Yob for a rare glimpse into the inside game now unfolding before your very eyes.

Yob has two major clients this year: Perry Johnson, who is running for governor, and Matthew DePerno, running for state attorney general.

Trump is up to his eyeballs in trying to push DePerno past incumbent Democratic AG Dana Nessel, but first, he needs to get his candidate the nomination at a Republican party conclave slated for Saturday.

While the Trump campaign was asked to comment on what you are about to read, that request went out over a week ago and the sound of the crickets from down in Florida is deafening.

However, two Michigan sources claim this is what’s coming down, as we clear away the smoke so you can have a peak:

If Yob can line up enough votes to secure the AG nomination for Trump’s guy, DePerno, then Trump will endorse Yob’s guy for the GOP nomination for governor, Johnson.

It’s the classic case of “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.”

So what? you rightfully ask.

Michigan pollster Steve Mitchell lays it out.

“The nomination for governor will be decided by whomever Donald Trump endorses, and, if he endorsed Perry Johnson, then that is going to be a very significant event in this campaign … it is a very big story. It is a huge story,”

And pundit Bill Ballenger says, “Amen.

“This deal makes total sense … I think it will have a big impact, and I think it would be a game-changer,” he asserts.

A game-changer because the polling data suggests that 80% of Republicans would be more likely to support a candidate endorsed by Trump than anyone else and in a crowded GOP primary for governor this August. That doesn’t guarantee Johnson wins the nomination, but you wouldn’t want to be caught dead betting against that, either.

Part of the reason Yob does not want this story to get out, according to Mitchell, is that, if, at the upcoming convention, delegates supporting someone else for governor discover that, by supporting DePerno for AG, they are indirectly helping Perry Johnson for governor, they may not vote for DePerno.

So don’t look for any public announcement of that strategy in the outside arena, because letting the inside-game cat out of the bag could put the whole Trump/Yob reported deal in jeopardy.