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RNC Candidates Ready to Rumble

By Philip Klein on 1.5.09 @ 11:07AM

I'll be heading over to the National Press Club soon to see six candidates for the RNC chairmanship debate (Mike Duncan, Saul Anuzis, Ken Blackwell, Katon Dawson, Chip Saltsman, and Michael Steele). The event is being organized by Americans for Tax Reform and they've set up a website where you can submit questions and watch live starting at 1 pm. I have to say that in all honesty, I'm not really sure what makes a good RNC chair in the first place, let alone how I could gauge something like that from a debate. Much of what an RNC chair does is behind the scenes, making phone calls, attending meetings, and raising money. There's an argument to be made that the RNC chairman needs to be a dynamic spokesperson for the party, but also an argument that a relatively boring leader who is a great fundraiser is a better choice. How relevant are the chair's individual policy positions to whether that person can competently run the RNC? Does having a more conservative RNC chair mean the party is going to become more conservative? I'm not sure I really know, so it's hard for me to get as passionate about this race as a lot of other people here in DC. But I'm curious to learn more about the candidates today and hear what they have to say. I'll report back in the afternoon with some impressions.