From Answers.com: In a surprising electoral upset in 2002, Michael Steele became the first African-American candidate to win the Maryland Lieutenant Governor's office as the Republican candidate. Not only did he and gubernatorial candidate Bob Ehrlich triumph over heavily funded incumbent Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend--who also had a formidable national profile as a member of the Kennedy family--the Republicans also managed to win in a state that had traditionally elected Democratic candidates. Ehrlich and Steele were the first Republicans to win the state's top offices since 1968, a feat that Steele predicted would lead to future inroads in Maryland for the Grand Old Party. Shortly after his electoral triumph, Steele told Stephen Goode of Insight on the News that Maryland's Republicans "just inaugurated a ten-year strategic plan in which we plan to 'grow' our numbers, 'grow' our bank account and reach out to voters in a very forward-looking way, talking to them with common sense about kitchen-table issues."
"Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right." - Henry Ford
No, I am afraid I can’t give Michael Steele any credit: what you’re citing as political accomplishments (doing good things for Republicans in heavily Democratic Maryland, for instance) may be a big deal for someone who’s in the local Party, or who has someone in line to get some blandishments from this new political order, or what-have-you. There is NOTHING I have heard from or about Michael Steele since he became RNC chair that shows he’s anywhere near to understanding what’s going on with the new constituency that’s forming and that is barely less suspicious and contemptuous of the Republican Party than it is the Democratic Party. Every statement from Steele is more disappointing than the last, and shows me he’d probably love to find a way to exploit the new constituency for RINO ends, but secretly knows we aren’t going to let him do it. He is a FOOL, waaaaaaay behind the learning curve in 2008-2009, and someone is going to tell him to get out of the way, or risk becoming the pinup boy for the Democrats and their agenda. SO far he is fulfilling that-—people like him and John McCain, allowed to continue dominating the Party through an ongoing Media-induced barrage of propaganda, have become the Left’s useful idiots: their tattered identity is composed entirely of what’s left of their pride and integrity as they willingly play the role of being “the hated objects” of the Left: in fact they function as the Left’s enablers.