RNC asks Steele to replace Mehlman

The Washington Times ^ | November 10, 2006 | Ralph Z. Hallow

[icwhatudo]

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, whose party just lost both chambers of Congress, will leave his position in January, and the post as party chief has been offered to Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele. "It is true," Mr. Mehlman told The Washington Times when asked about reports last night that he would resign. "It's something I decided over the summer. No one told me I needed to. In fact, folks wanted me to stay."

Mr. Mehlman said he "told the White House over the summer it was my decision" to leave the RNC post, "win, lose or draw."

Also last night, Republican officials told The Times that Mr. Steele, who lost his bid for the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, has been sought out to succeed Mr. Mehlman as national party chairman. Those Republican officials said Mr. Steele had not made a decision whether to take the post, as of last night.

[Mamzelle]

I don't see why not.

[MadIvan]

Wrong move. Steele is a future Presidential candidate and needs to be treated as such. Give him an important ambassadorial post - I suggest South Africa or Australia - and get him out of the country while the bloodbath occurs. It will also give him time to burnish his foreign policy credentials.

In 2008, he will be well placed as the Vice Presidential candidate.

Then in 2016, he can run for President.

Regards, Ivan

[Uriah_lost]

hmmm, Ambassador.....I like the way you think MI! But then again, you knew that already....

[moose2004]

I like Steele, but I'd rather see a woman run the RNC, how about Karen Hughes?

[beckysueb]

That would be so great if he ran and got his old position back.

[MadIvan]

I've discovered a good post for him; C. Boyden Gray, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, was a recess appointment in January. Position Steele as the permanent representative.

Regards, Ivan

[fkabuckeyesrule]

****Look i'd rather have Rick or Delay but I respect there choice*****

I love Santorum too but I doubt that he'd be interested in that.

[MadIvan]

Imagine the following scenario. Let's suppose that the Democrat ticket in 2008 is Hillary / Obama - Obama coming 2nd in a bruising primary.

The Republican counterpunch to that is Rudy / Steele. Steele will beat the stuffing out of Obama in the debates. It would stick in the throats of the left to have to refer to Steele as "Ambassador Steele".

Regards, Ivan

[madconserv]

Rudy is way to liberal, McCain/Steele would be better but I would love Newt/Steele but Newt will never fly. He is too strong a conservative for America to win the primary, sad to say.

[MadIvan]

I am not fond of all of Rudy's positions, but it's necessary to have a tough as nails candidate who can win in blue states. Rudy fits the bill. Furthermore, he is strong enough to rip Hillary's heart out in the debates.

Regards, Ivan

[Vision]

Odds are this is a mistake. We're like the Democrats now. We promote people who lose.

[Vision]

This is no good.

At a time when everyone agrees we need to get back to core conservatism, the RNC wants a guy who is a mild conservative and talks to interviewers with terms like "man" and "my boy". You know, cause he's gettin' down with you. \rolling eyes

[lentulusgracchus]

[Article] Mr. Mehlman also told The Times he will not step down as Republican national chairman until the RNC's annual winter meeting in Washington. He said he also "will do an intensive after-action review" of the campaign.

Translation:

"Karl wants to spin this. (He has his future to think about, you know.)"

My first reaction was, "oh, no -- another Bush Family inner-circle favorite!" But the move to look to the state parties and the congressional branch of the party is a good move.

If someone had asked me to throw out a name, I'd have mentioned Rick Santorum.

The suggestion of Newt sounds pretty good thematically, but he had some pronounced ethical problems of his own that he was disciplined for in his last two years as Speaker of the House, so he wouldn't be my first or second choice right now.

Some of the other beaten Congressional Republicans were good people who would also be good choices here, but Steele sounds like a solid suggestion.

I'd prefer a Republican from the Congress to one from the executive branch of government (state's better than federal, but still....), because the executive-branch people are much less attuned to issues and values and far more inclined to talk about expedients and exigencies. People who favor big-government, statist answers (programs, and more programs) tend to talk about how pragmatic and results-oriented people are, who come from the executive branches of the state and federal governments.

So they'd be my second choice, if the problem is to clarify the Party's values and message for 2008, before we have to go up against Beastwoman.

[RKBA Democrat]

"Cabinet for HUD??? Does not sound like leadership position to me and it's a demotion on the part of Rove to want to stick him there. If Steele goes there we will never hear about him again."

I think you've hit the nail on the head. There is something of a skirmish about to erupt within the GOP between those who run the party; the socialism-lite Rockefeller Republicans, and the people who've carried the water for them for the last 26 years, i.e. the actual conservatives.

What happens with Michael Steele might be a good litmus test as to where it's all heading.

As for me, I'm a Democrat so I'll cook up the popcorn. Y'all want salt? Butter?

[LibLieSlayer]

I lke Steele but want COULTER!

LLS

[GAB-1955]

Fox was wrong. If the blacks of Prince George's County were willing to vote for a Republican, he would have won. They aren't.

[Don'tMessWithTexas]

Every administration always puts a black guy at HUD. It's a dead end position with no visibility. The RNC needs a good spokesman. Newt is going to be in Iowa and NH next year running for Pres. Santorum is probably gonna make some Benjamins after years of public service. Steele would be a good pick for Chair.

[sphinx]

It's not Mehlman's fault at all, he's been good, but it's SOP to replace somebody after a disaster like this just to restore confidence in the underlings.

Agreed. I like Mehlman and think he's been a good chairman, but a change would be appropriate. Another factor is that Mehlman is a Bush guy and it's not President Bush's party anymore. I don't mean that as a knock of Bush or a snarky dig about the election results. It's simpler than than. We are now officially in the midst of the 2008 elections and George Bush isn't going to be on the ticket. Mehlman is perceived as a White House/Rove functionary. The RNC probably needs someone a little more independent to play honest broker through the primaries.

[libstripper]

I think Steele has his eye on higher elected office and RNC chief is not a step in that direction so I expect him to turn it down. Rove wants him in the Cabinet and that may be a better route for a man with ambitions.

Not as HUD Secretary. That's the job minorities are always given and the people who get it usually aren't heard from much afterwards. As RNC Chairman, he'd be our leading spokesman going into 2008 and he's already run an excellent campaign in a difficult state.

[lentulusgracchus]

Rove needs to go back to Texas

Oh, no! Don't do that to us! He's from Oklahoma, actually......

Seriously, we've got RiNO and lobbyist and closeted-gay-cabal problems of our own in Texas, a bunch of Linc Chafee lookalikes, smalltime Abramoffs, and countryman Foleys and Mehlmans running around that we need to excuse from the Party apparatus and get the whole thing back on track.

And we have a "pigs-at-the-trough" syndrome going, too, with the deeply-backgrounded (until last year or so) NASCO project ("NAFTA Highway"), which Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas wouldn't even admit he knew about to one of his constituents in a town-hall meeting last summer (he called it an "Internet rumor"!)* and Gov. Rick Perry's toll-road taxation project. (We don't have a state income tax, so this is his bid to grub up vast new state revenues.) He wants to take thousands of miles of long-established, fully-amortized commuter routes and turn them into toll roads, in association with shadowy, politically-connected, heavy political donor "investor groups". Toll Road Rick's main man at the state DoT has a motto for our future:

"Toll roads or slow roads or no roads!"

We also have a bunch called the "Promise Keepers" high in the Texas Republican structure who go around "reconciling" with black AME ministers (who are cynically fleecing them) and "apologizing" for antebellum slavery. Their praying over "slave kettles" in African-style prayer rings (bet they don't know this stuff is all voudoun/palo mayombe-related paganism) is one thing, but they're awfully close, it sounds like to me, to endorsing reparations. So we have those folks to deal with as well, and they include a recent past chairwoman of the state party and some of her associates.

And Karl Rove helped create all this, when he was here in Texas working for Governor Bush.

* BTW.....It's hard to resist the inference that Senator Roberts said this as an outright, witting, political lie. As he spoke, planning and construction was already going forward for a vast "inland port" operation in the Kansas City, Kansas, area, which is going to cost billions. (I've seen another one a-building north of Fort Worth; it's enormous.) It may even have a Mexican diplomatic and revenue facility attached, which may involve alienating some U.S. soil to the Mexican government. Two or three standing committees of the Congress are overseeing this NASCO project, and Senator Roberts called it a "rumor," which is an outright lie. And to top it all off.....this is all genetically and structurally tied to the vast offshoring of millions of white-collar jobs which we are just now finding out about in the business press, which will take place in the next 10 years or so.

Yeah, we have to get our priorities straight. That won't happen, I think, with Karl Rove down here helping the Bush machine run Texas like an Arlington ballpark.

Let's send Rove to Russia to help someone. Or France.