He needs to lose the “baby.”
I'd find it rather off-putting if he started making an effort to sound like a WASP. That lingering stereotype of the Republican party is one of the reasons some people still vote Democrat.
Don’t underestimate the media here. Steele might not have even said it. The way they are going..they could have made it up out of whole cloth.
If not, I kinda agree with you, although Steele could have been just jovial and light-hearted and not meant anything by it. The reporter put it in there because she/he knew it would be off-putting to some.