by Clarence Page

Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee's embattled chairman, should "do a Tiger," as in Tiger Woods.

Woods faced a firing squad of curious reporters to clear the air and fix the damage that questions about his private life had done to his public image. Steele's image has taken a similar beating in recent days over an entirely different set of questions, including a controversial outing for young Republican donors at a West Hollywood nightclub that was charged to the RNC.

An air-clearing news conference might help Steele, if the gaffe-prone chairman can keep his foot out of his mouth.

He almost succeeded in his first television interview since the nightclub story broke, a five-minute chat on ABC's "Good Morning America." Co-anchor George Stephanopoulos asked if Steele had a slimmer margin for error as the RNC's first African American chairman.

"The honest answer is, 'yes,' " he said. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play and that's just the reality of it. But you take that as part of the nature of it." True or not, can you imagine how Republicans would react if President Obama said that?

Perhaps the chairman is unfamiliar with the new conservative etiquette: Thou shalt not acknowledge that racism still exists in America -- except "reverse racism" against white people.

The White House knows. "I think Michael Steele's problem isn't the race card," said Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in one of the week's most quotable quotes. "It's the credit card."

True enough. The party's been spending money at a faster rate than it has been taking it in, according to official filings with the Federal Election Commission. The spending includes tens of thousands of dollars for limousines, private planes, a Beverly Hills Hotel trip and other items that do little for the party's image as advocates for ordinary folks.

But the most attention has gone to one of the smaller expenses, nearly $2,000 spent by RNC staffers on deep-pocket donors to its Young Eagles program at Voyeur. That's a West Hollywood nightclub described in news accounts as "leather bondage-themed" and modeled after the weird orgy-like scenes in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut."

From what I hear, don't believe the hype. By Hollywood standards, Voyeur is a lavish but barely R-rated place to entertain wealthy young Angelenos. It's the sort of glorified disco where young wanna-be starlets and dot-com executives pay enormous bar tabs and stargaze on the likes of Lindsay Lohan or Lady Gaga. Instead of go-go girls in the background, think of leather-clad models behaving like dancers in a racy music video.

Nevertheless, with political operatives under pressure to avoid any venue lustier than a prayer meeting, Democrats have ample reasons to laugh at the Voyeur story. Remember how Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez of California had to move a 2000 fundraiser out of the Playboy Mansion under fire from national Democratic leaders? Remember how former Rep. Harold Ford lost his Democratic senatorial campaign in Tennessee partly because of attack ads aimed at his attending a "Playboy party" at the Super Bowl? The bondage-theme club leaves the RNC hanging on its own exaggerated calls for moral uprighteousness.

In fact, it is not Democratic chortles that are causing Steele's biggest headaches. It is prominent conservatives like Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian organization. He has urged the group's supporters to divert their donations to other committees or individual candidates that share their values. That's their right, but it certainly doesn't help Republicans or any other party to divide its owns base.

The Voyeur scandal pokes holes in the wrong-headed notion that moral rectitude and patriotism are somehow the property of one party or the other. Michael Steele seemed to be hinting at a more libertarian and youth-oriented approach when he promised to open up the GOP to the "hip-hop generation," although no one was quite sure of what he meant. His painfully awkward handling of the volatile Voyeur nightclub mini-scandal reveals that he apparently wasn't very sure of what he meant, either.

Yet conspicuously missing from the criticism have been calls by prominent Republicans for Steele to resign. Party insiders have little appetite for a replay of the internal battles that led to his election. With the GOP expected to pick up between two- and three-dozen House seats, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, party insiders apparently feel they're better off sticking with Steele -- and hope he pays off the party's credit card.

 

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

 

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Michael Steele: Steele fights GOP Culture Gap | Clarence Page - Politics Today

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