District of Corruption
The Michael Steele era as RNC Chairman will soon come to an end. Steele is expected to announce today he is dropping out of the race for a second term. His departure is the latest success story in the conservative grassroots lighting a fire underneath the GOP establishment.
Steele had laughably tried to take credit for the success of Republicans in the midterm elections. Non-Whites voted overwhelmingly for Democrats as usual. His minority outreach strategy (with that absurd “What Up” blog and the redesign of GOP.com) was a dismal failure. It was the dramatic swing in the White vote in the Heartland (something Steele had nothing to do with) that made all the difference.
RNC Chairman has been nothing more than a figurehead affirmative action post for years now. Before Steele, Mel Martinez was RNC Chairman, which was supposed to demonstrate that the Republican Party was pro-Hispanic. Before Martinez, the Jewish homosexual Ken Mehlman was RNC Chairman under the Bush administration.
As the RNC become a joke, the power of the GOP establishment began to wane, along with its legitimacy in the conservative movement. The major complaint against Steele was that the RNC had weakened under his tenure and its fundraising capabilities were in decline.
The causes of this are hardly mysterious.
Conservatives have been sending the RNC a message for years now. They would send out fundraising appeals only to get an envelope full of pesos or monopoly money in return. They would call registered Republicans at home only to find them rudely hanging up the phone. Republican voters were changing their affiliation to Independent and sitting out elections.
The threat to the GOP establishment became life threatening when the Tea Party came along and successfully created its own independent fundraising apparatus. Instead of donating to the RNC, disgruntled conservatives donated to Tea Party organizations or directly to their favorite candidates, which is why so much money from the small donors was redirected to the likes of Rand Paul and Sharron Angle in 2010.
It doesn’t really matter who replaces Michael Steele as RNC Chairman. The perception that the GOP establishment is hostile to the conservative base and an obstacle to their agenda is unlikely to change. Now that the impotence of the RNC has been demonstrated, the conservative grassroots will continue to run around the leadership of their own party, and will likely redouble their efforts heading into the 2012 presidential elections.
I’ve been impressed with their response.
Instead of rejecting the system, getting alienated, and hiding out in a bunker in Idaho, the conservative base responded to an identifiable problem (i.e., RNC corruption and RINOs in power) in a practical, constructive way.
They created their own independent institutions like the Tea Party and took advantage of social media like Twitter and Facebook to directly connect with each other and redirect their votes and money behind candidates they could support.
Some of their candidates like Mike Lee and Ron Paul are going to Washington in January. The GOP establishment picks like Mike Castle in Delaware (who voted for the DREAM Act in the House), Robert Bennett in Utah (who will vote for the DREAM Act in the Senate), and Trey Grayson in Kentucky won’t be returning or going to the Senate.
Conservatives got sick and tired of putting up with Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist, and Michael Steele. Now they don’t have to.
Why can’t White Advocates act like that?
Do you think we should get rid of Collins, Snowe and Brown?
I think they are the best we can do in that region right now so we might as well stick with them as long as they vote against the DREAM act.
Lugar, however, needs to go. Even if it costs us a seat.
No, I don’t.
I think Collins and Snowe are about the best we can hope for in Maine. That is unless they can elect a Tea Party candidate like the new Governor up there. I don’t see that happening because Snowe or Collins would just run as an Independent and the Lieberman and Murkowski fiascos would be repeated all over again.
Brown, Collins, and Snowe are better off where they are now voting for a Republican majority in the Senate. That would empower Jeff Sessions in the Immigration Subcommittee which would effectively kill the DREAM Act and comprehensive amnesty in that chamber of Congress.
As for Lugar, there is no reason why he can’t be dumped in a solid Red State like Indiana. I think a Kirk is about the best we can hope for out of Illinois. We need to get rid of Dick Durbin and replace him with a Kirk.
It is important to have Collins, Snowe, and Brown there because they block a much worse Democrat like Ted Kennedy from capturing a New England Senate seat.
I saw the headline and was hoping it meant Edgar Steele.
Here is Steele explaining his positions on The Daily Show with Jew John Stewart: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-7-2010/michael-steele-plays-the-race-card .
Eric Holder and Michael Steele went head-to-head in Affirmative Action Jeopardy and both lost. Why do RNC Chairman and AG seem to attract the very worst that America has to offer – all diversity and dilution. In a respectable country, these jobs would go to the cleverest and smartest, respectively.
FWM – you answered your own question.
The question is can better people be put in charge of running the GOP? There is a huge network of professional conservatives in Washington who are generally ultra-pc on racial issues. They are largely capitalist types who think anything even vaguely hinting at WN is “bad for business.”
Steele is now running again.
The real question is can the GOP establishment do anything to stop outside groups from hijacking the party. They had their little powwow in Washington and selected Michael Steele as leader. The RSCC endorsed all sorts of candidates.
The people out in flyover country ignored them.
You’re right.
Per usual no tought questions were asked of Steele and the powers that placed this hack in place. I guess they can thank their lucky stars for PC.
Check out this Washington Times story on teele – Steele hired some Black woman Angela Sailor for a $180,000 a year job to do “outreach” to minority groups, get Blacks to supposedly vote Republican – turns out she’s just a standard Liberal Democrat that votes in Democrat primaries.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/13/top-rnc-official-hasnt-voted-gop-primary-in-years/
Top RNC official hasn’t voted in GOP primary for years
The Republican National Committee’s top outreach official, hired to make help make the party younger and more diverse, hasn’t voted in a Republican primary election of any kind since before 2000, The Washington Times has learned.
But longtime Washington lobbyist Angela Sailor, 42, and her political consultant husband, Elroy, 41, did vote in the 2008 Virginia Democratic presidential primary, according to Prince William County election records.
Mr. Steele, who was expected to talk about his own future at the RNC later Monday, raised eyebrows after his election in January 2009 when he announced the creation of an RNC Department of Coalitions and named Mrs. Sailor, a longtime friend, as its director.
The move generated more questions when it was learned that Mr. Steele had the RNC set her salary at $180,000 a year, making her the highest-paid staff person. Her annual salary, not including benefits, is $40,000 more than the elected co-chairman of the RNC receives.
“Angela will be crucial to our efforts to grow our party and spread our message,” Mr. Steele said in announcing her appointment and the creation of a new department for her to head.
Reaction was heated in recent days among some RNC members when told about her voting in the 2008 Democratic primary but not voting in any Republican primary in the previous seven years, at the least, according to county voting records.
“It is very disappointing to hear that Ms. Sailor was not voting as a Republican prior to her employment at the RNC coalitions director,” said Oklahoma RNC member Carolyn McLarty. “It would be difficult to reason why she would be qualified to take on the high-level, highly paid position of coalitions director, recruiting minorities to the Republican Party, when she had not made that switch herself.”
Tennessee RNC member Peggy Lambert expressed “outrage” over Mrs. Sailor’s voting record, which she said shows that Mrs. Sailor “is devoid of any sense of honor, loyalty or honesty and should be fired posthaste.”
Mrs. Sailor said in an e-mail exchange that information from the the Prince William County elections office was not accurate but did not address the records showing her voting in the Democratic primary. She said she had contacted Prince William County officials, but only seemed to address the matter of when she purchased the house.
She wrote: “Thanks for bringing this to my attention so that we are able to get this information corrected. The contract on my home and deed show that our home and land were built and purchased in 2005 (public record) when we first moved to Prince William County.”
Mrs. Sailor and her husband are well-connected political consultants in Washington — a fact that raised more red flags with some grassroots conservatives around the country.
Mrs. McLarty argued that the RNC’s process should include a history of the voting records of the applicant along with the background check.
“I would hope that everyone working at the RNC would be a long-time consistently active Republican voter,” she said.
“Sailor’s participation in the 2008 Democrat primary in Virginia is offensive to me as an RNC member,” said Solomon Yue, an Oregon RNC member and co-founder of the Republican National Conservative Caucus the RNC Conservative Steering Committee.
During the 2000 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, Mrs. Sailor won appointment as director of African-American Affairs for the RNC and the “Victory 2000” progra
Speaking of Republican negrophilia, real or for propaganda purposes, Herman Cain won Redstate’s most recent poll for Republican presidential nominee in 2012:
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/12/15/herman-cain-2012/