by Jules Witcover

Republican leaders convinced they can ride to victory in the fall elections on public disapproval of the Obama health-care reforms can't afford any internal distractions. For that reason, they need to deal with the political headache that is Republican National Chairman Michael Steele.

The party's first African American chairman, chosen in part as a symbol of its effort to shed a reputation of indifference to the needs and aspirations of blacks, has done little to achieve that end. Instead, he has been a high-profile magnet for controversy on several fronts.

Steele, in a job that traditionally has been subordinate to congressional leaders and state governors in creation of policy, has used the post to insinuate himself as Mr. Republican. It has not been a very good fit, considering he is more a personal showman than a nuts-and-bolts organization man.

As chairman Steele has been under fire for taking speaking fees for public appearances and for peddling a book on his own ideas of where the party should go. He has been criticized for a lifestyle of expensive plane travel and upscale hotel accommodations, and of burning down the party's treasury even as he has raised serious money for it.

The latest controversy over a party function for young donors at a glorified strip joint in West Hollywood has been laid at his feet although he was not present, is said not to have been involved or even aware of it at the time, and to have expressed his disapproval.

In an effort to quell the uproar, the Republican National Committee staff aide who authorized the spending was fired, and more recently Steele's chief of staff, Ken McKay, resigned under pressure. Also, a political consulting firm called On Message that had been a longtime Steele adviser has decided "to step away from our advisory role at the RNC."

The obvious answer to this distraction would be for Steele himself to step away, tendering his resignation. But the party chairmanship has given him such a spotlight and forum for self-aggrandizement that he seems unlikely to walk the plank of his own volition.

His previous publicly elected office was a single term as lieutenant governor of Maryland under former Gov. Robert Ehrlich, now seeking a comeback. Steele lost a bid for the U.S. Senate in 2006 but his flashy style helped him get elected by the RNC. Its 168 members would have to mount a two-thirds majority to remove him, with no concerted effort of that sort yet in sight before his two-year term expires in January.

Without a Republican in the Oval Office, there is no quickly identifiable party leader to organize and lead such an ouster. Presidents customarily put a chairman of their preference in the job with unchallenged committee membership acquiescence.

Both national party committees after a losing presidential election usually have fared best with a low-profile chairman who focuses on party rebuilding. The classic example was after the 1964 landslide defeat of Republican nominee Barry Goldwater.

The RNC chairman during that campaign was a Goldwater lieutenant from Arizona named Dean Burch. The scope of his candidate's loss was so overwhelming that last rites were being widely recited over the Grand Old Party.

But another Republican loser at the time, former Vice President Richard Nixon, had an unspoken personal interest in having the GOP continue to draw breath. He helped convince Goldwater to agree to replacing Burch with Ohio state party chairman Ray Bliss, celebrated as a bland, religiously nonideological figure.

Bliss, known as a nuts-and-bolts political technician, was elected chairman at the RNC's next meeting in Chicago dominated by a mood of self-preservation. The attitude was best summed up by Rep. Bob Wilson of California, chairman of the GOP Congressional Campaign Committee: "If I was in hell, with one leg gone, and one arm gone, I'd still be thinking: How can I get out of here?"

Under the colorless but efficient Bliss, the GOP bounced back and elected Nixon president only four years later. Today's Republican Party may not be in quite those dire straits, but it sure could use a Ray Bliss sitting where showboat Mike Steele now so conspicuously reigns.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court

The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House

 

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Michael Steele: GOP Leadership Dilemma | Jules Witcover - Politics Today

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