Posted on 02/04/2009 2:01:43 AM PST by markomalley
The mainstream media will never give him a break, but conservatives should probably be comfortable with new RNC Chairman Michael Steele. On CNN, Don Lemon asked the CNN political reporter, “Is the RNC pandering, is Michael Steele legitimate?”
In an appearance on my radio program on Monday, Steele said “the Republican party is called racist when they don’t reach out and pandering when they do.” He went as far as to tell a reporter that asked him if he was legitimate to come back when he had a real question. If only the questions about his credentials were coming from the left. So the question is, will Steele pass muster with conservatives?
Three months ago, I wrote about Steele after we participated in a panel on the 2008 Elections. I believed then he would be the next chairman of the party, and it had nothing to do with race.
It was not an easy path to the chairman’s office for Steele. Groups opposing his involvement with the Republican Leadership Council say he’s too liberal. When Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday tried to box him in on the RLC’s mission to recruit pro-choice and pro-gay rights Republicans, he said he was not going to focus in on two issues and then invoked Ronald Reagan. However, these two issues are at the core of the social conservative agenda.
Michael Steele is a social conservative. He’s encouraged by the success groups in California cobbling together social conservatives, religious Latinos and Blacks on Proposition 8 in November. In 2008, the value of preaching a socially conservative agenda in minority communities increased dramatically. Prop 8 represents the future of the morality movement in America, and Steele sees it as both a winning movement and a way to mend fences with social conservatives who think he’s not one of them.
The new chairman understands the GOP message on immigration, and he knows how to communicate it. It’s not just conservatives that want border security. Steele said on Sunday, “The GOP's position on immigration is very much the position of many, many Hispanics who are in this country.” Steele went on to make the case when he said, “The GOP's position is secure our borders first. Let us know and let us make sure the American people know that we've taken care of the important business of dealing with illegal immigration into this country. You cannot begin to address the concerns of the people who are already here unless and until you have made certain that no more are coming in behind them…. How we messaged that is where we messed up the last time. We were pegged as being insensitive, anti-immigrant, and nothing could be further from the truth, because you talk to those leaders in the Hispanic community, they will tell you the same thing. They understand the importance of making sure the United States' borders are secure.”
That is the grassroots position held by a majority of Americans, not just conservatives.
The elephant in the room for Steele is not whether he’s a conservative -- he is -- but rather will he be conservative enough for the grassroots of the Republican Party. The code language for this is Christian conservatives. CCs are the most hated, loved or feared group of people in the Republican Party, depending on your point of view. The RINOs think these Bible-thumping hayseeds are ruining the party, but Christian conservatives represent the Party’s core values; RINOs don’t. And you can’t win without Christian conservatives. Steele is one of those Christian conservatives and has talked openly about his Roman Catholic faith.
Conservatives are responding positively to Steele but are wary. They’ve heard the talk before. Action is the only thing that will calm their fears and lead to wins for Republicans by getting the grassroots engaged again. Chairman Steele is hitting the ground running with updates to the website and how they will collect and disseminate information. He’s beginning to target upcoming elections in New York, New Jersey and in the off year. He knows he needs some wins under his belt, and when he gets those, conservatives will begin coming back to the fold and be happy about it. This Republican Chairman will have to be about message and a call to action. He’s got one election cycle to prove himself, and I think he’s up to it.
So will Michael Steele pass muster with conservatives -- fiscal conservatives and social conservatives? Yes, he will, and I think the hard-fought battle to become RNC Chair has honed his skills. He’s political, he wants to win and is conservative at his core. If he implements as well as he’s adapted in his campaign to be RNC Chair, then he’ll move conservative values forward through Republican wins.
But one warning from a Christian Conservative who believes he’s conservative enough to move the party forward: Don’t recruit wishy-washy conservatives. A party is only as good as the candidates and the actions they take once elected, and the electorate is impatient. You have a 4-year term, but like President Obama, your midterm exam is in 2010 and will determine what the future holds for you and the Republican Party. But for now, Mike, keep leaning right.
Sorry if my post came across as ‘picayune’, I certainly didn’t intend it that way. My point was aimed at addressing your cogent remark that we have to stop allowing the left to frame the argument/discussion. Just yesterday, on a stem cell debate thread, a liberal trolling FR tried to frame the discussion of embryonic aged humans as merely an extension of life like, that embryos are merely an extension of life already in existence and no more special than sperm or ova. When I pointed out the glaring leftist conflation of subunit of an organ (the sex organ from which the sex cells originate) and the reality of an ORGANISM, the poster answered with LOL and nothing more. Leftists will try anything to avoid discussion focusing upon the reality that abortion is meant to kill a completely innocent, alive, other human being.
“It’s never going to be dumped. It’s ‘settled law’ and is such an emotional trigger no one is going to touch it.
“What he DID say is that the issue should be sent back to the states, which is precisely what would happen if RvW went down.”
These two paragraphs are mutually contradictory.
To “send Roe back to the states” is to overturn it.
Roe holds that there is a federal constitutional right to procure the killing of one’s unborn baby. To say that it is an issue to be decided at the state level is to say that Roe is wrong. To actually “send Roe back to the states” is to overturn, vitiate, vacate Roe.
I understand what you're saying about asking folks, “Should Roe go?” vs. “Should abortion be sent back to the states?”
The problem is that your solution is factually... challenged. Not your fault - I get what you're trying to say.
But it isn't consistent with reality.
I agree about not letting the Left frame the question, but by letting all the lies about Roe go by, that's effectively what we're doing. The solution to the Left’s lies about Roe is not to accept their lies, but rather to tell the truth about Roe and legal status of abortion in the United States.
If you tell me that this isn't working, I'll respond that accepting the Left’s lies about abortion isn't going to work, either.
If I'm doomed to failure (and sometimes, those who do what is right are thus doomed, at least in the short run), I'd rather fail faithful to the truth, rather than fail compromising with lies.
sitetest
LLS
LOL. Reminds me of the reporter who once asked Donovan McNabb if he had been a black quarterback his whole career.
LLS
LLS
LLS
Then the pro-life movement is dead.
I want abortions to end.
BS. Just explain how that can be done without overturning Roe v. Wade.....
Crickets
You mean like John McCain always says he is? Steele was the best candidate I saw for this post. He is conservative enough on the three legs (fiscal, social, defense) and is a better public speaker than Blackwell, who was the next best candidate but doesn’t have all the PR skills Steele does. Walter Williams wasn’t running. Ann Coulter wasn’t running. Ronald Reagan wasn’t running. Anyone else I saw was just robot chicken.
I love how rude people like you are over the Internet, in a way you would never be to someone's face, to pump up yout self-esteem or something.
If you have no clue that the key to this is sending the decision about abortion back to the states, you're just another dilettante who shouts "Pro-Life!" but has never volunteered, never given money, never read the history of the movement in this country.
Pro-Life activists--REAL ones, not keyboard conservatives--are doing just what I described at the state level, something so basic you'd know it if you followed the individual initiatives.
Here's something nice and simple even you might be able to handle:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-16-abortion-states_x.htm
You go play with the crickets, and while you're there, educate your smug self.
Please note that the party’s heyday was 1861-1912.
Great article.
You do realize, of course, that the article is mostly discussing what would happen to abortion law in the several states if Roe were overturned.
Overturning Roe is only the beginning.
But without it, we are reduced to limiting abortion around the edges, at the fringes. We're talking about being able to act in a way that reduces abortions nationally by perhaps 20% - 25%.
And that's good stuff.
But without overturning Roe, the number of abortions in the United States will continue at the 1+ million per year, and unborn children will not be protected in law.
I'll reiterate - to “send abortion back to the states (at least in a substantive way}” is to “overturn Roe.”
P-Marlowe is right - if we abandon the fight to ultimately overturn Roe, by whatever legal means, the pro-life movement is dead.
sitetest
You're wrong.
Please see the article I linked to in the previous post.
The states are where the battle is being fought. The states will continue to come up with laws which will be challenged, and which will be modified, and put up for vote again.
These laws will end up in SCOTUS.
THAT is what will end Roe because it will be a reversion to pre-Roe intentions, where the abortion challenges at the state level will make Roe beside the point.
Roe is never going to be taken down from any president or senator deciding this. It's going to come down when a state law is challenged.
At this point Roe will be beside the point. The pro-life movement won't be finished, as you point out.
But Roe isn't going away because Michael Steele isn't pro-life enough.
“You're wrong.
“Please see the article I linked to in the previous post.”
I actually did read the article.
Did you?
It talks about restrictions at the fringes, but it also talks about states passing laws that dramatically restrict abortion - if and when Roe is overturned.
“These laws will end up in SCOTUS.”
Duh.
Pro-lifers have been doing this since, oh, about,... 1974.
You do realize, of course, that the Supreme Court can only overturn Roe through another case that comes before it. You do realize that the Supremes can't wake up one day, say that they've changed their minds, and vote to reverse Roe.
It requires that a new court case come before it that permits them to revisit Roe.
Thus, the efforts in the states are DIRECTLY PART OF THE OVERALL EFFORT TO OVERTURN ROE.
The funny things about your post is that you tell me that I'm wrong that we must continue to work to get Roe overturned, but then your post explicates the way that Supreme Court decisions get, and the way that Roe in particular gets, overturned.
And certainly presidents and US Senators have something to say about Roe, in that they have something to say about who will sit on the Court. It isn't enough that states pass anti-abortion laws to present test cases to the Supreme Court if we keep electing US Senators who are soft on Roe, who will vote to confirm explicitly pro-Roe justices, or who can get away with preventing anti-Roe justices.
The problem with Mr. Steele's new position, in particular, is that it gives cover for all the anti-life politicians out there who would like to straddle the fence and be pro-Roe but still grab pro-life votes. Mr. Casey, Jr of Pennsylvania comes to mind. He was able to knock of Sen. Santorum in part because he ran as a pro-lifer. But he can vote for pro-abortion justices and justify voting against anti-Roe nominees, because, heck, EVEN THE CHAIRMAN OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ACCEPTS ROE! Yikes!
I've given up trying to compartmentalize the issue of abortion, depending on the office a politician seeks. I will no longer support anyone who does not, at the very minimum, call for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade. A political party chaired by someone who accepts Roe is functionally a pro-abort party.
I will not belong to a pro-abort party.
sitetest
LLS
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Dear sitetest,
Well said.
trisham
Thanks.
That is not the Conservative position, nor is it the Constitutional one. The states do not have the right to take life without just cause and due process.
Michael Steele is a breath of fresh air. He’s got guts. He says it like it is. A major slap upside the head to the Republican Party is way, way overdue.
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