He’s been in charge for only a month, but the flashy new chief
executive is performing so poorly that some who voted for him are
already having buyer’s remorse. Republican National Committee
Chairman Michael Steele ought to be rejoicing. Except, he’s the
one we’re talking about.
Steele was supposed to be President Obama’s nemesis. He had
extensive experience as a cable TV commentator. He spoke well. He
was reputed to be someone who could articulately rebut the
eloquent President. (And being the same race as the president
didn’t hurt.)
Alas, Steele is challenging Obama for most bumbling start in
office this year. Actually, Steele is leading in that contest.
President Obama’s stumbles are more consequential, but he at
least has scored some victories. What win has the RNC chairman
achieved since taking office?
Steele had to do three things upon taking office: 1) effectively
present the opposition’s case against a president and majority
party that currently enjoy widespread goodwill and public
support; 2) get the RNC’s fund-raising and communications
operations running at full force; 3) map a long-term strategy for
rebuilding a party that has lost a great deal of its appeal to
voters. He has done none of these things.
President Obama has given the Republicans more opportunities than
even Rush Limbaugh could have hoped for on inauguration day.
Every time the president or his treasury secretary speaks about
the economy, the markets plunge. Having complained for years
about the size of the federal deficit, the president has proposed
a budget with a deficit more than twice as large (as a percentage
of GDP) as even FDR dared create during the New Deal. For a
politician who talked incessantly about bipartisanship, the
president has at times gone out of his way to offend people who
disagree with him (undoing President Bush’s compromise on stem
cell research is the latest example).
And yet the RNC chairman has let President Obama’s amazingly
inept first month in office go by with hardly a criticism. Sure,
there was a radio address and the op-ed complaining about the
spending in the stimulus bill. (How much did you hear about that
in the press?) But amid all of Obama’s blind-man-like stumbling,
Steele has thought it a much better use of his time to criticize
Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party. Maybe he thinks Obama
will implode on his own, so why not get on with sewing an even
bigger tent to put the ever shrinking GOP into?
The New York Times headline on its Sunday
profile of Steele: “New Chairman Boos GOP When He’s Not
Cheerleading.” Steele thought it constructive to tell the
Times, “I’m trying to move an elephant that’s become
mired in its own muck.”
It’s one thing to admit that your party faces some self-inflicted
challenges. It’s quite another to insult it and the people who
belong to it. When Steele criticizes Republicans for being
country clubbers who aren’t interested in minority outreach
(which is painting with far too broad a brush), he helps the
other side.
He famously called Rush Limbaugh’s show “incendiary” and “ugly.”
The foolishness of that comment is self-evident. However, what
was Steele doing on CNN’s “D.L. Hughley Breaks the News” — on
the same show with gangster-rapper Chuck D — in the first place?
Let’s get this straight. Steele calls Limbaugh ugly and
incendiary on the show of the comedian who called the Rutgers
women’s basketball team “some of the ugliest women I’ve seen in
my whole life” and whose stand-up act is so filled with profanity
the bleeps would drown out the rest of the monologue if it were
aired on broadcast TV. It was such a great show, CNN pulled the
plug on it a few days after Steele’s appearance.
Steele doesn’t seem to know what his job is. Here he is trying to
explain it:
“That’s my job, is to put good candidates in a position to win.”
Fox News Sunday, Feb. 1.
“Look, I’m not in the business of hurting people’s feelings
here.… My job is to try to bring us all together.”
Politico.com, March 2.
“I’m in the business of ticking people off. That’s why I’m
chairman.” Washington Post, March. 5.
I don’t think Steele really has a grasp of what his job actually
is. He has yet to appoint a communications director, for example.
The “press”
section of the RNC website contains not a single press release.
It directs reporters and anyone else interested in getting the
latest statements from the GOP to call or e-mail the party.
The RNC issued 11 press releases in the entire month of February
and three so far this month. The party did not even send a press
release congratulating Steele on his election as chairman,
although the Democratic National Committee did.
The first thing Steele did upon taking the RNC job was clean
house. He still has yet to fill 70 positions, the New York
Times reported on Sunday. But he’s been on TV a lot. He has
even said he would do a hip-hop duel with Comedy Central host
Stephen Colbert. That he will find time for. Hiring a finance
director for the RNC? Eh, maybe one day.
The tail end of the New York Times story says much about
Steele’s priorities:
“I’m very spontaneous,” he said, comparing working with him to
riding a roller coaster without knowing when the next dip or
curve might come.
“Be prepared; you have no idea,” he said. “Just buckle up and
get ready to go.”
You, dear Republican, have no idea where Michael Steele is going.
And neither, apparently, does he. But, hey, you’d better buckle
up because it’s going to be a lot of fun. Isn’t that what roller
coasters are for?
