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GOP watch: Steele courts Tea Party Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 8:53 AM by Domenico Montanaro Politico and the Washington Post report that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele will meet with 50 Tea Party activists today on Capitol Hill. Politico's Vogel writes that "Tuesday will mark the first large-scale get-together between the national party and grass-roots activists from a wide array of regional tea party groups." But some "tea partiers have pushed back against Republican groups wrapping themselves in the movement’s flag. Jenny Beth Martin, a founder of the umbrella group Tea Party Patriots, remembers asking the Republican Governors Association...

Michael S. Steele has maneuvered through a minefield of internal discontent, emerging from a critical party gathering with his authority intact.... High-profile Republican gubernatorial wins in Virginia and New Jersey and a victory in the recent special Senate election in Massachusetts have helped quiet grumbling within the RNC over Mr. Steele, whose position and authority seemed shaky just a few months ago. A feared open revolt against the former Maryland lieutenant governor fizzled at the 168-member RNC's winter gathering in Honolulu over the weekend, despite lingering questions... In the view of RNC General Counsel Reince Priebus, who is also Wisconsin...