Posted on 01/19/2007 10:06:09 AM PST by NormsRevenge
For all the media discussion, blogging boom, and enthusiasm for Michael Steele as Republican National Chairman among RNC members, no one in the Bush White House ever offered or even suggested the party post to the former Maryland lieutenant governor and 2006 U.S. Senate nominee.
That’s what Steele himself told me this morning, as he arrived at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, D.C.
“No, we never had any offer,” said Steele, who was the nation’s highest-elected black Republican while serving in Maryland’s second-highest office from 2002-06. “The [talk of me as a possible national chairman] was purely a grassroots movement. Right after the election [in which Steele lost a Senate race to Democrat Ben Cardin], several members of the RNC approached me and thought it would be a good idea if I became chairman. And then the bloggers got into it. It was a grassroots movement, and it even caught me by surprise.”
But, no, he emphasized, “we never had an offer” from anyone in the Bush White House.
Recalling his days as state GOP chairman of the Free State and a member of the RNC, Steele said his presence at the latest meeting of the party’s ruling body was “coming back home for me. These folks are like family.” He also expressed gratitude to his many friends on the RNC who backed his race to become the fourth black senator since Reconstruction.
Steele said that he and the President talked after his defeat in November, that Mr. Bush “expressed his confidence in me.” But Steele also made it clear that for all the rumors that he may wind up in a Bush Cabinet or some other high-level administration post, “I have not talked to anyone about a position.”
Although he lost the Senate race and holds no office, attorney-businessman Steele is being courted by several leading Republican presidential hopefuls in ’08. “I have talked to Rudy Giuliani,” he said, “and I’m going to talk to John McCain’s people this afternoon, and later to [former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt] Romney’s people. I like them all, actually, because they helped me in my campaign last year.” Like many conservatives, Steele voiced severe doubts about McCain’s campaign-finance legislation that limited the amount and shape of money in national campaigns and in the national Republican Party.
“I’m not a big fan of that,” Steele told me, “Money is property, and I think I should do with it as I wish. Look, in Virginia, for example, you can give any amount of money to a candidate for [state] office just so long as you report it. And with the Internet, you can have it online the next day. That should be the model for the nation.”
But in stating his views on campaign finance, Steele made it clear he was not ruling out backing McCain on that issue alone and felt that, when the Supreme Court revisits the constitutionality of the campaign finance legislation, the issue “may be worked out favorably. That’s why we have the system we do.”
Although it is now confirmed that Steele was never actually considered by the White House for RNC chairman, that hasn’t stopped members of the national committee from talking him up favorably as their heartthrob for party chieftain. Over dinner last night at Washington’s Equinox Restaurant, one RNC Member told me privately: “Look, I’m not going to go up against the White House on their choice for national chairman. But I could have been really enthusiastic about Michael Steele.”
Bush made a mistake by not tapping Steele. It would have appeased alot of pissed off Republicans. Instead he went and pissed us off more by naming Mel.
time will tell on that....
Stupidity makes me angry - and not helping the career of someone with talent reeks of complete idiocy.
Regards, Ivan
I am angry about Steele and Ehrlich losing in Maryland. Maryland made a big mistake!
Steele would have been an excellent choice. Martinez is my Senator and boy am I already disappointed in his sorry amnesty butt.
Steele needs to be elected to SOMETHING. Senate, President, Congress, whatever!
O'Malley's getting ready to throw some more money at "education". Brace yourself!
I agree with you. If not RNC chair, surely he can be in another position. I expect good things will come to (and of) this man.
Mel Martinez is a jerk. But he managed to get himself elected, and for whatever reason Steele did not.
It was very disappointing. But if blacks cannot be persuaded to help elect one of their own, It's hard to know what to do about it.
That's nice, but it's just talk. There aren't too many things out there with a shorter shelf-life than a defeated candidate. It's clear this WH doesn't have any interest in Mr. Steele. He'd be better off fending for himself, whether that's in private business or seeking backing elsewhere for elective office.
BTW, it's probably a plus that he's not tapped (trapped?) for serving in the Cabinet. That's likely a dead-end job at this point, treading water for another 18 months in an outgoing Administration that is facing a hostile Congress. Not enough time to get much of anything positive done for a new Cabinet officer who has ambitions for elective office.
The problem is, blacks do nothing but help their own, as long as that person is a democrat.
Steele will do just fine and I hope he does run again for something, and I agree , taking a short term administration appointment to anything less than a position as a replacement for Cheney, were such a condition to arise, would be a dead end proposition.
The simple fact is Steele is a conservative, and Bush isn't. I think Steel would have been an excellent choice, a natural. Still, he and Bush aren't on the same page.
There could be a certain amount of payback involved in this as well.
Steele worked to distance himself from the prez and some of his policies during the campaign.
I like M Steele very much as a candidate in 08 for US Prez
He certainly should be asked to speak at the convention, at minimum.
Pissing off (on?) Republicans is what the Party does best these days.
All last year I would recieve mailings from the RNC asking for money. They had a whole list of things the Republicans were going to do, NOWHERE DID THEY HAVE ANYTING MENTIONING ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, I used to send them back with a message written in a black sharpie asking, WHAT IS THE PLAN FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION?
I know O'Malley's brother, Pat, who lives in NYC. Pat is solidly pro life but Martin is a big pro abort. This election was a disaster. I feel bad for Ehrlich and Steele. I hope they can run again and win.
In prime time.
Maybe we can get Pat to run!!
He ran in Queens for State Assembly against Cathy Nolan but lost in the primary to her. I don't think he will run again, but he gave her a scare - she is truly, truly awful. Pat is solidly pro life unlike Martin.
The group I identify is what I would call "Country Club Republicans" (which includes the White House) who seem to want to cut ties to the conservatives and embrace moderates and RINOS.
This week James Lileks described the RNC as "bunkered, hunkered, and clueless." With our current party leadership they will remain that way. A party that cannot make good use of someone with Steele's talent is, well, stupid.
Steele is likely the candidate to face O'Malley for Governor in 2010. If O'Malley does as good a job as he did as Mayor of Bawlamer, Steele has an excellent shot at getting the office back for us.
I hope you're right, but I have a feeling that, being that it is MD, voters instinctively tend to vote 'Rat. I know they broke the pattern with Erlich, but he didn't last long. I think that was a bit of a fluke, going against a Kennedy (Townsend) who was obviously so brainless that even the media couldn't cover for her. MD is probably in the hunt, along with MA and lately NJ and IL, for the laurel wreath of "the most Democratic State in the Union". Steele likely faces a long, brutal, uphill slog. He can still do it, especially if, as you say, O'Malley blows it big time.
I think the single reason why Ehrlich lost this year (our only Gubernatorial incumbent loss) was because of the nationwide 'Rat wave (which nearly claimed Pawlenty in MN). One trend I'm noticing (which seemed to have started in the '90s) is that some states that lean heavily one way and elect 2 Senators of that party will pull the lever for someone of the opposite party for Governor (or vice-versa with those offices). My own state of TN, for example, 2 GOP Senators and a 'Rat Governor.
It's interesting that Ehrlich apparently gave Steele the OK to run for the job, as it would be Ehrlich's honor to face O'Malley in a rematch (and ostensibly would be the strongest candidate). Perhaps he has already had his fill of politics.
Hopefully, Erlich will run when Barbara Mikulski retires.
It's beyond idiocy.
We're about to watch both parties battle for the Hispanic vote.
Well, we could simply concede their vote to the 'Rats and allow them to be enslaved as have 90% of Blacks, but we'd never win a Presidential contest again, or many states.
I know in politics you have to try, because that's all you can do, but sometimes a particular candidate just has to make an honest assessment, and perhaps call it quits. Look at Doug Forrester in NJ. Not a bad guy at all, but what is he, like a three-time loser in statewide races? You just have to conclude at some point that the voters just don't want you in that kind of office, or maybe it's just that they don't want anyone in your party to be in office.
There are insiders and outsiders. Steele would never have been seriously considered.
I think that old bag is going to die in office. There has been talk of her retiring in 2010 but she just loves abortion too much, IMO, to not want to stay in there and vote for the "right" to kill unborn children. And she might live a very long time, too, who knows? Like my Dad used to say about someone truly evil, she can't buy her way into Heaven, and she's so bad the Devil himself doesn't want her, so where is she to go other than hang around and become a living fossil?
Milkuski is a nasty old dyke, who like Kennedy, is too mean to die
Good post and points. Regarding Sauerbrey, I'm one of those that consider PG County & Bawlamer City voter fraud stole the election for Glendening (he "won" by less than 6k votes out of 1.4 million). There was a reason why he earned the sobriquet "His Fraudulency" throughout his term.
Unfortunately for Sauerbrey, she didn't build up enough momentum to take the office (along the lines of what Dino Rossi is doing out in WA state, where a majority not only believe he won the election for Governor, but where he enjoys enough support to take his office next year), and she also had the problem of running in a bad GOP year in '98.
Steele was already elected to statewide office -- he was the state's Lt. Governor and a heartbeat away from the Governorship. He was the first Republican Lt. Governor in about 40 years and the first black person to hold statewide office in Maryland. He stepped aside to agree to an uphill campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Steele has more leadership skills than Amnesty Mel will ever had. If Mel had to run in Democrat Maryland intead of Republican Florida, his campaign would have been DOA from the start.
Rossi has a shot at Fraudoire but I think it's a long one. He'll be going up against an incumbent 'Rat, unlike '04 when it was an open seat. And '08 is shaping up to be another tough year for 'Pubs (unless something dramatic happens with Iraq, which I'm not counting on). So the Rossi-Fraudoire rematch, if it happens at all (Rossi might take a look at the board and decide to opt out, just as he did, wisely, in a contest last year against NeerDoWell for the Senate) could be a replay of the Glendening-Sauerbrey rematch. Yes, Rossi has bided his time better than Sauerbrey did, and he seems to have some sympathy factor among the WA state electorate that still might be intact come '08, but if there is another blue tsunami like '06, it might not be enough.
Rossi passed on the Senate race because he's committed to taking the job to which the electorate voted him to. I can't imagine him taking a pass by any stretch. As to '08 being another Red 'Rat (I refuse to use the bullcrap media color scheme switcheroos) year, I think that would only happen if the GOP FUBAR. The rodents have only held power for several weeks, and I fully expect their disastrous tenure to scare the public back to the Blue GOP. ;-)
That and the fact that Rossi didn't want to move a young family across the country to the cesspool that DC has become. I know he wants to help his state, and the best way to do that is to stay home and compete for important state offices. Being a back bencher in DC from a state with little political clout is a kind of dead-end job. I always thought people were talking Rossi up for that Senate race like it was some kind of consolation prize for being gyped out of the Governor's Mansion. Well, like Steele, Rossi is no loser, and consolation prizes are for losers. He deserves better.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.