[31 January 2009]
much there and very little to disagree with. Naturally, I will focus on the little bit with which I quibble.:)
I think the position today is unique in its historical context. The chairman will become the default spokesman of the party. I suspect he is also going to be the leading policymaker-if he has the stuff for it. He must carry his policy with his rhetoric and he must contrive a policy which will justify the rhetoric. I see no one else on the horizon at this time who can step up to that role. By virtue of their offices the minority leader of the Senate and the minority leader in the House might offer themselves. Mitt Romney might evolve to a party spokesman but that will be awkward for an undeclared candidate. By default, Michael Steele will be the face of the party and probably its brain.
As you point out, his responsibilities include the nuts and bolts of running the party and that means herding cats but also a host of other duties: although he inherits $20 million, he must raise tens of millions more; the entire IT footprint of the party must be adapted to the Blitzkrieg introduced by the Democrats in the last two elections; candidates must be found who can wage credible campaigns at least in a few areas where we might regain some ground; a strategy must be developed to penetrate the red states and that implies selling something that the voters want to buy; legislative strategy must be coordinated with our minorities in the House and Senate so that the party speaks with one voice; discipline must be established and ruthlessly maintained; and finally, a sense of urgency and destiny must be imparted so that the whole country knows what is at stake and what must be done, they must believe it can be done, they must believe that it will be done. They must believe that only the Republicans can do it.
In sum, he must define conservatism and throw down the gauntlet to the creeping statism represented by Obama and his ilk. He must define the limits; this far and no further!
These responsibilities call for a Winston Churchill or a Newt Gingrich. They beg for charisma. The Republican Party might have only one more chance for survival. We need a wartime leader not a conciliator. The best analogy I can think of is that of England in 1930s reluctantly shaking off Neville Chamberlain, its exponent of appeasement, for Winston Churchill whose warnings had been so terribly vindicated that no one now could gainsay him. He told him what his policy was: to wage war. to wage war on land, sea and air. He told them what his aim was: victory. Victory at all costs, victory whenever the price, victory no matter how long or hard the road.
Since the Republican Party is that it position analogous to Great Britain after the fall of France, anything short of this level of commitment dooms the party which in turn shelters and nurtures conservatism and that ultimately dooms the Republic.
This is no time for business as usual. Can Michael Steele grasp the nettle?
[02 March, 2009]
A review of my posts going back many, many months will reveal that I have never been in favor of Michael Steele to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee.
My lack of enthusiasm for the man comes not because of personal deficiencies on his part but for the absence of charisma and drive needed for the man who will be a greatly responsible for saving the Republican Party. By default, the chairman of the Republican national committee becomes the spokesman of Republicanism when we have no other national voice. Anyone who is the spokesman sets policy. I think Rush is wrong when he says that Steele's job is not to set policy. That role under these circumstances is virtually unavoidable for anyone who holds the office and is able to sit up and take nourishment. Any man with charisma, and I say a lesser man will not do, cannot help himself, he must set policy.
Therefore it is critical that we have the right man in the post. As I said in many previous posts on Free Republic we need a man with charisma, a bomb thrower, a man of Churchillian drive. I have long advocated Newt Gingrich for the post but the party selected Michael Steele as a counterpoint to a black president. Steele ran on a platform that he could broaden the outreach to the black and Hispanic voters.
The irony is that that is exactly what he was doing when he made his gaffe. He saw his audience as the black community and was trying to shape the Republican image in a way that was more acceptable to that audience. We as mostly white Republicans and staunch conservatives predictably reacted negatively to what Steele was trying to do. We reacted negatively because he was apologizing for what we stand for. I must say that if that is Michael Steele's notion of appealing to the black community we have certainly chosen the wrong man for this job.
The problem is that Steele has no great vision for the party. He wants to be a mechanic, a ward healer in the black community. Even a conservative Barak Obama working the precincts.
Are we going to continue to sleepwalk? Michael Steele does not understand what happened at the CPAC convention. He does not get it. His firing of Sarah Palin's finance chairman raises questions which to my knowledge have not yet been answered. Does that represents a victory for the Rockefeller wing? If so, Steele must go.
Our backs are to the wall. The conservative movement has been created under heaven to fulfill this role at this time in history which is to save the Republic from a damned Manchurian Marxist. The chairman of the Republican National Committee cannot lead us in that cause if he does not see it.
[12 March 2009]
The job description Of a Republican National Committee Chairman does not include leaving conservatives confused, defensive, and bickering in the wake of every television interview. The job calls for a chairman who can render the opposition defensive and bickering.
Ask yourself how Haley Barbour or Newt Gingrich would have answered last question.
No one in America is more vulnerable on the abortion issue than President Barak Obama who condoned abandoning babies simply to die who miraculously survived botched abortions. Steel is not even smart enough to recognize a question about abortion as an invitation to tee off on Obama's murderous depravity. Once the liberal media begins to understand that such questions hurt their party because effective spokesman for the party exploit the opening, they will stop laying snares for the unwary on the abortion issue. Instead Michael Steele was so obtuse that he actually attempted to answer the question on the interrogator's terms. He is a fool.
He may be identical error with respect to the homosexuality question. Conservatives have the numbers on their side on this issue, Michael Steele managed to piss off both sides.
In answering these questions, he made the same mistake that he is made twice before, he tries to ingratiate himself with critics by conceding the premise and then weasel around his concession with mindless blather. So he accepts the premise of the Republican convention was like a Nazi gathering, for example. The man acts as though he is ashamed of conservative principles. He does not understand that it is impossible to apologize your way into becoming a majority party.
For the record, I have been opposed to this man since before his selection. I have opposed him because he does not have the candlepower or the charisma required to save a party that is on the verge of political oblivion. He does not understand the role of a national chairman and he does not have the forensic skills required to fulfill that role.
Michael Steele simply must go!