Posted on 04/05/2010 5:22:40 AM PDT by iowamark
Embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he won't resign despite calls for him to step down amid reports of the group's excessive spending, adding that he and other African-American leaders such as President Obama have a slimmer margin of error because of their race.
"The honest answer is, 'yes,'" he said on "Good Morning America" today. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play and that's just the reality of it. But you just take that as a part of the nature of it."
"My view on politics is much more grassroots oriented ... so I tend to, you know, come at it a little bit stronger, a little bit more street-wise. That's rubbed some feathers the wrong way," Steele told "GMA's" George Stephanopoulos.
Steele is under fire by his own party members for what some people consider lavish spending -- $17,000 for private jet travel, $13,000 for limousines and car services and $9,000 for a trip to the Beverly Hills hotel. But the most controversial revelation was that RNC staffers spent nearly $2,000 at Voyeur West Hollywood, a sex-themed nightclub in Los Angeles. The employee who authorized the expense was fired, but then the RNC shot itself in the foot again later, sending a fundraising letter that mistakenly directed donors to call a phone-sex number...
It's clear that questions about Steele's leadership have become an uncomfortable issue for Republicans.
While most GOP lawmakers are sidestepping the question of whether it's time for Steele to step down, they are crying foul over freewheeling spending at the RNC and demanding a shakeup...
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
You have a black or Hispanic candidate you can replace him with?
I honestly think replacing him with Blackwell is a mistake. Blackwell is more than confident but he has to blame Steele for ruining that idea. Picking Blackwell after Steele will make it look like playing politics more than nothing else and Blackwell will simply not have credibility.
Pick a non-Hispanic white chair and that creates bad publicity too. The way to go is probably with a Hispanic-American chairman. There are plenty of Hispanic Republicans in Texas and Florida. If you picked a Hispanic chair you would actually be going after a voter demographic we could get and it won’t be as transparent as picking Blackwell.
“Michael Steele Says He and Obama Have Slimmer Margins of Error Because They Are African-American”
NOT!!!! Same that s^%$ for the street!
This is the last straw. I believe, if anything, Steele has been given breaks after his numerouus gaffes and questionable expenditures, becasue the GOP doesn’t want the bad publicity from firing the first black party chairman.
Uh, no, Mikey, you and Bammi have been given way more leeway because you’re African-American. Any white man with your level of incompetence would have been gone a long time ago.
Steele travels around in the style of Imelda Marcos and that is bad, BUT playing the race card is far worse. I suppose the GOP thought they had to get a Black guy to counter balance Obama, but it is more important to have an effective leader.
Slimmer margins of error than who, Bush? Karl Rove? Everyone was nice to them because they were white. /s
How about we just dump the frickin' racial politics and put the best person for the job into the position. What a concept: Imagine, hiring someone because they are competent not because they are of a particular race or ethnicity!
Has anyone cross-referenced the dates that these expenses were incurred with Steele's book-signing itinerary?
Well the time to do that was when Steele was up for Chairman but no one wanted to have that. Everyone wanted to talk about Abraham Lincoln and about how having a black guy to rebut Obama would be such a good thing.
Well, now you’ve gone down the road of racial politics. You have to follow up on that road and that road says this. We’re never going to get the black vote. The election of Obama ensures that.
We might be able to get the Hispanic vote and Hispanics have shown in various opinion surveys that they think like white voters and will probably be considered white in their own right in a few generations.
Consider that after the Dems nominated Al Smith that there was a mass defection of Catholic Republicans to the Democrats and that Catholics stayed predominantly Democratic until the age of Reagan. You may say ethnic politics has no place but you’re a fool if you think it isn’t present in our own party.
All Cubans in South Florida are Republican. It’s for two reasons. The first was that the Southern Democrats that ran Florida at the time had no desire to accomodate a Spanish speaking population. The other was that Kennedy muffed the Bay of Pigs. Republicans reached out to them on racial appeals they bit. Without them, Florida would have never had Republican control. Marco Rubio is a product of that system.
I don’t base judgement on the religion, sex, or race of a person... I base judgement on their accomplishments and how they conduct themselves.
Mr. Steele is a failure. Enough said.
I don’t think it’s raising the bar so much as simply beginning to recognize that some will conclude that it may not be worth hasseling with normal and legitimate concerns about leadership, conduct, judgment and so on if we’re all on notice that, at the first hint of consternation, out comes the race — or some other irrelevant personal trait — card.
It was Rush or David Horowitz, IIRC, who said as to Obambi, for example, “America will not stand for a president they are not ‘allowed’ to criticize.”
At some point, that becomes the bottom line. If it becomes impossible, impracticable, or overly complicated with PC-ness to simply judge someone’s conduct or performance in a position, then people likely to cause that over-complication become less favored as candidates for the job.
No one wants to hire someone who won’t take personal responsibility for his conduct or job performance, much less someone who will turn around and blame someone or something else for the fact that those who hired him are dissatisfied with his conduct or job performance.
I thought Michael Steele was smarter and more trustworthy than this. He knows very well that using the race card to deflect personal responsibility or avoid a discussion of the merits of the criticism is not appropriate.
Good point. Never looked at racism from that angle. Obummer has ruined any black’s potential for achieving really high office for a long time in the future. Maybe Obummer will go down not so much as “the first black President”, but as the last black President for a really long, long time. As for Michael Steele, he turned out to be really disappointing, we needed a lion and we got a pussy, and now he’s using the race card...sigh.
The pre-paid RNC money grubbing solicitation envelopes make lovely payment envelopes for contribtions to JD Hayworth.
Playing race cards to survive.. How special.
Playing the victim will get you nowhere within the GOP. Time to go, Michael.
Unbelivable! Just kick him out!
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