Free Republic

It's becoming a familiar scene: Republicans gather for strategy sessions against Democrats, but Michael Steele, the brash chairman of the Republican National Committee, is out dealing with some spending, verbal or managerial gaffe. Fed-up Republican leaders are now quietly working around their party chairman as they prepare for the fall midterm elections. This is considered a big year for Republicans. Steele warned at a conference Saturday that his party can't make the mistake of losing in November. And his fellow Republicans agree. Behind the scenes, they have deliberately begun to rely less on Republican headquarters with Steele at the helm....

Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, in hot water for an embarrassing spending scandal involving a Hollywood gay sex club, is responding in a tried, true and tiresome way. Asked on "Good Morning America" if he thought he was being criticized unfairly because he's African-American, Steele bit. "The honest answer is, 'Yes,' " he said, adding that "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." Bad move, Mike. Fact is, any party chairman whose national committee reimbursed a contributor...

One of Steele's rivals for the RNC chairmanship took Steele to task Monday for attributing his problems to race. Kenneth Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state who ran against Michael Steele for RNC chairman, said Steele's argument that he has a "smaller margin of error" beacuse he's black is "ridiculous." "This notion that this disturbing pattern of gaffes and missteps is now being criticized solely because he is black, and that Barack Obama is being criticized for his big-government power grab solely because he is black — that is nonsense," Blackwell told Fox News's Neil Cavuto. "And here's a...

In another serious blow to the Republican National Committee, one of its top fundraisers — and its few remaining connections to the traditional GOP donor base — has resigned a senior, unpaid position. Former Ambassador Sam Fox, a top supporter of George W. Bush who was one of the co-chairmen of the Republican Regents — the RNC's top-level fundraising board — has left the post, two Republican sources said. Fox, a Missouri businessman who was Bush's ambassador to Belgium, was one of the RNC's few remaining connections to the deep-pocketed Republican establishment and was viewed as the heaviest hitter among...