No, if Bush's guy Mike Duncan had been RE-elected as chairman, that would have been a move to kick conservatives overboard.
Steele is a conservative and I've never heard him referred to as a "moderate" until he was selected as chairman. Kind of how Mike Huckabee was always seen as a great conservative until the moment he got in the way of Fred Thompson's bid for President, then suddenly he was a "socialist"
Lots of history revisionists here on FR it seems.
Huckabee was never a conservative in the first place. He and his ideas should be flushed.