New chairman Steele shakes up the GOP faithful

By JAMES OLIPHANT
Chicago Tribune


WASHINGTON | This hasn’t been the smoothest rollout for Michael Steele, the new chairman of the beleaguered Republican Party. As debuts go, it may rank right up there with New Coke and the movie “Waterworld.”

A man of constantly colliding analogies, he compares Republicans to drunks in need of a 12-step program and to the mentally ill. He has insulted Rush Limbaugh and moderate Republican senators alike, and he has promised a “hip-hop makeover” that would attract even “one-armed midgets” to his party.

Steele is the party’s first African-American chairman, his election a response to a history-making Democratic president. But for a party that is looking for fresh guidance, Steele’s first weeks have left more than a few GOP faithful wondering if their promised new direction might head them straight off a cliff.

Supporters say Steele has undertaken a monumental challenge and needs to be given sufficient time to accomplish his work.

Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland and an unsuccessful Senate candidate, has the task of rebuilding the Republican brand from the ground up.

Polls show there is ample work to do. A New York Times/CBS News survey released last week showed that Americans identifying themselves as Democrats outnumber those who said they were Republicans by 10 percentage points, the largest gap in 24 years.

more . . . http://www.kansascity.com/136/story/1073146.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=7660345#Comments_Container

you can forget about the Repukes ever getting anymore than 3% African-American votes. Of course with Steele they might get 4%.

I would guess at least 5% :)

Steele was nothing more than a cynical attempt to play the corporate media of a more "diverse" party. He was a media darling and the GOOP has always been keen on having either a blonde female or black to spew the white man party's talking points that somehow meant that these opinions were more widespread than they really were.

There was a great take down on Steele...saying that he wouldn't have made dog catcher had he remained a Democrat and saw the GOOP as a place where he could move up fast. His problem is he believed that he earned this job on his merits...he didn't.

Steele was a 'media darling' who used misleading campaign material in his last run for senate.



http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2236123&page=1

PS: He lost.

:shrug:

I mean this is the guy who campaigned for the senate seat without mentioning his party, and possibly flat out lying about his affiliation. Didn't fool many in Md.

I think there's some lurking issue with a Baltimore investigator who was killed in Pa., but I can't remember what case to search for to confirm.

-Hoot

This case? http://www.bookrags.com/highbeam/us-attorney-found-dead-in-pa-20031205-hb/

Baltimore City Paper article about some drug cases he had been working on previously with at least a peripheral link to then governor Erlich (R).

-Hoot