After RNC, Where Does Steele Go from Here?

It’s an interesting sight to watch, with hints of a political implosion taking place depending on the angle political observers are watching it from: after pulling off some of the biggest electoral gains in its 157 year history – including an aggressive takeover of the House that resulted in the largest margin of victory since President Harry Truman – the Republican National Committee decided to oust its Chairman Michael Steele.  And with the party experiencing a level of volcanic-like internal turmoil during its modern existence, from facing $20 million of debt to public squabbling over its future with an insurgent tea party movement, a litany of questions arise in the wake of a crowded Chair’s race that left the incumbent unemployed.

Among the many questions over the central committee’s fate is:  what happens to Steele?  Where does he go from here?  Clearly, Steele’s ties with the RNC are deeply fractured and, according to sources familiar with the beleaguered, gaffe-prone former Maryland Lieutenant Governor, possibly beyond repair.  It was obvious for quite some time that the 168-member committee was itching for a coup of the GOP’s first African American party chair.  Prominent Republicans from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to the popular former RNC Chair and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R-MS) could hardly contain disdain for Steele’s tenure when probed by reporters.

While the newly-elected Chair Reince Preibus and Steele were once considered close friends and tight political allies, Preibus’ abrupt and very public open-letter defection from the committee as lead counsel under Steele left bad blood.  For Preibus to then run against Steele was viewed as a betrayal, leaving an open question as to whether Steele can exercise any influence over his former workplace.  “It won’t be like others before him:  Barbour, Gilmore, Gillespie,” says one anonymous Republican operative with a close ear to the committee and the RNC Winter meeting last week.  “These guys all enjoyed status, a clean reputation and were able to wield influence or draw on funding from the committee after they left.”

“But, not Steele,” says the source.  “There are folks who don’t want him anywhere near the committee.  I’m not sure he understands the magnitude of it.”

Getting Steele away from the committee meant brokering six to seven figure deals, sources say.  Whatever deal transpired, the conversations were sensitive and low-key enough to keep a multitude of persons familiar with the discussions from talking on record.  As of this filing, party insiders are still trying to assess what Steele got out of his bizarre public endorsement of chair candidate and former Bush Administration official Maria Cino.  What is described is Steele threatening to break the typical solid-as-a-rock Republican code of loyalty, hinting at a damaging public tell-all of party business, from the consultants who were robbing the committee blind to the skeletons in the party closet.  He waited till the last minute to force a leveraging hand, with promises of a lucrative media contract and a law firm looking for another partner.

So long as he stayed away from the committee.

That was not the sentiment over two years ago when Steele was viewed by committee chairs as the perfect anti-Obama, a tall, talented Black talking head with the gift of political gab and a moderately decent electoral resume.  He didn’t win his Senate bid in the heavily Democratic stronghold of Maryland, but it was a long-shot anyway during a cycle running a Republican President who was despised by the entire Democratic electorate.  Steele seemed perfect to counteract the new cat on the block as strategists on both sides of the aisle sat in awe of President Barack Obama.

But, $20 million in debt and a Democratic Party treasure chest of verbal slips later, the excitement wore off.

As obvious as the reasoning behind Steele’s humiliating defeat might seem, it’s not all that clear.  One real answer on everyone’s mind is race:  why would a party frequently maligned by people of color and miserably failing with minority voters get rid of its first Black chair?  The answer is much more problematic considering what happened under Steele’s tenure.  But, therein lies the problem, say many observers – it’s not what Steele did, but rather what happened during his time in charge.  Some argue the party would have made big gains regardless of who was in the captain’s seat.

“This was all about money,” says another red-faced GOP insider requesting off-the-record and annoyed by the inference that race had anything to do with it.  “Not race. We had a choice – being broke or looking good with a Black guy as chair.”

It wouldn’t have looked good for House Republicans in particular, now in the majority and pressing for draconian debt reduction measures but heading into the new Congress with a central party committee deeply in red.

And it’s not like the party won over any more Black voters than it already had, the source contends. “Seriously, some of us read the same headlines and follow some of the same blogs.  His own community didn’t even warm up to him.  So what are we supposed to do?  Keep him as chair and let the committee default on its debt?”

Charles D. Ellison, Managing Editor for Politic365.com, Washington Correspondent for The Philadelphia Tribune and a weekly political analyst providing insight on WDAS-FM (Philadelphia), WVON-AM (Chicago) and KSRO-AM (Sonoma County, CA). He is author of the critically-acclaimed urban political thriller TANTRUM. More information can be found at http://www.cdellison.com

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