Poor Michael Steele....they wanna kick him to the curb....LOL

from Black Politics on the Web

Steele on thin ice at helm of Republican Party
By The Admin on November 26, 2010

A significant bloc of Republican National Committee members wants embattled chairman Michael Steele to step aside, but the rank and file have failed to settle on a clear alternative, according to Associated Press interviews with committee members.

More than four dozen interviews with members of the 168-member central committee found fear that a badly damaged Steele could emerge from the wreckage of a knockdown, drag-out fight to head the party as it challenges President Barack Obama in 2012. While most agree that Steele’s time has been rough — and costly — the members also recognize that a leadership fight could overshadow gains that Republicans made in the midterm elections.

With balloting set to take place in just two months, many just want Steele to go.

“You can’t keep spending the kind of money they’re spending every month just to operate the RNC,” said committee member Ada Fisher of North Carolina. “I would hope he would step aside.”

“The question is who should be hired for the next two years, It’s not a matter of firing anybody,” said James Bopp, a committee member from Indiana who holds great sway among social conservatives on the panel. “I just don’t think Steele has performed at the level we need for the presidential cycle.”

In interviews with 51 committee members, 39 said they preferred Steele not be on the ballot when they meet near Washington in mid-January to pick their leader.

For his part, Steele hasn’t said whether he will pursue the 85-vote majority needed for a second term. Already, members have been hearing from others interested in that quest.

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Steele started the job with a $23 million surplus; the RNC raised more than $79 million this year and has spent all of it. Some went to places that previously saw little RNC cash or interest, including five U.S. territories that each has three votes on the central committee.

Oh MC Steele.....

You can't be surprised by this, can you?



Sitting out here, just as a casual observer, it was obvious from the moment of your election that you served one purpose and one purpose only: to give the GOP COVER as they attacked the first Black President.

Which, you were only so willing to do.

There was no racist remark that you weren't willing to shin and grin and try and explain away over the past 2 years.

They'd do something obviously racist, and there you were, sitting there on national tv, with a calm expression on your face, pointing out how it wasn't racist, no matter how strong the dogwhistle has been.

Nothing was too outrageous for you; nothing was said or published that made you go ' WTF, I'm not defending this crap on national tv'.

NOTHING.

You shucked and jived your way through these two years, showing no resemblance of dignity or self-respect. It was all good, because you were getting paid. You had to grovel after you were actually honest about Rush Limbaugh...it really was cringeworthy, watching, time after time, that you tried to explain away the OBVIOUS - not the subtle, but dogwhistles so loud, they could be heard in another continent.

Well, now, they feel they've gotten their legs back, along with Citizens United, and, you've got to go, Michael. You've served your purpose.

But, why do I get the feeling that it's going to go down like this?

Michael Steele Caught Lying About Afghanistan - Faces Calls to Resign

This is why I love the idea of Progressives taking their video cameras to Right wing events. I'm not sure if this was the case in this situation, but it shows that such a strategy could yield political treasure. Catching these hucksters in their macaca moments, or when they are telling lies should be an important part of Progressive efforts to get off of defense and take back the PR initiative.

Propaganda and lies are a huge part of the GOP strategy. That goes for the Tea Party as well. They have to lie. So it should be the duty of Progressives to catch them when they do.

Steele made a huge gaffe at a recent Republican event.... his biggest gaffe of all, according to Chris Good of the Atlantic. And the calls for Steele to resign have started to pour in. Steele stuck his foot....and leg in his mouth by making the claim that the war in Afghanistan was a war of Obama's choosing. Of course it was a war perpetrated by George W. Bush in 2002 and heavily supported by Republicans ever since. Steele's attempt to make the invasion Obama's idea now that it's becoming unpopular is amazing.

He went on to slam the war effort. Ironically, in his attempt to lie and mislead, Steele ended up accidentally telling a few truths about how daunting a task Afghanistan is and how the effort to nation build may be unrealistic. OOppps!
But once he was caught...he turned around and released a phony statement that basically said he didn't mean it, and he gave assurances that he supports the troops and the war effort. Hilarious.



Qoute From the Atlantic:

Keep in mind, again, our federal candidates, this was a war of Obama's choosing. This is not, this is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in. It was one of those, one of those areas of the total [horde?] of foreign policy...that we would be a background sort of shaping the changes that were necessary in afghanistan as opposed to directly engaging troops. But it was the president who tried to be cute by...flipping the script deomonizing iraq while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan. Well if he's such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that's the one thing you don't do is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right? Because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways that we can engage in Afghanistan without committing more troops...
And so now for our candidates, whether they're running, you know for, Congress or the United States Senate, there is a whole text of resources available to them through our office, through the RNC, through the congressional committees, the senatorial congressional committees, and even some of the think tanks that help frame those arguments so that you know you don't get stopped on, 'Well, George Bush--' you know, fill in the blank. I think that that's going to be very helpful...

He also describes the McChyrstal fiasco as "comical".

Read more from CBS.

Michael Steele Talking Too Much About Race

After recent revelations about his big spending, Michael Steele has started to come clean about the role race plays in the GOP. It's funny how he seems to have discovered that he is Black over the last few weeks. He recently admitted that the GOP had in fact used the Southern Strategy, as pointed out by Rachel Maddow.

Steele also stated, during a speech this week at DePaul University:

“Why should an African-American vote Republican?

“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night….

Steele seemed to hold the diverse student audience’s attention most when he talked about his own experience suffering racial discrimination — in his first law firm interview for example — and when he confessed his party’s failure to reach out to African-Americans:

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties, Their parties walk away from them.

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

It appears that the Republican Party may be losing control of its racial stooge. The Republican leadership put Steele in the Chairman's seat to be a prop to counter claims that the Party wasn't a reflection of America's diversity. He was put there to look pretty. I don't think his GOP handlers are too happy about him making comments that basically confirm what critics have been saying for some time about the Republican Party. First he made the comment that Black leaders may not have as much room for error....in response to criticism from within his own Party. Now he is talking about how his Party has used the Southern Strategy.

I think he'll be gone if the Republicans don't win big in November. They will have to win big by gaining enough seats to take over the House of Representatives.

Michael Steele can't and shouldn't win

Ever since assuming his position as head of the RNC, Michael Steele has been in a can't-win situation. The Republican party was in such a mess after the 2008 election, that they had nowhere to go but up. Even then, Steele has done everything but turn his party around.

Read the rest at The Loop.

Secret RNC Files Reveal Republican Strategy

Republicans were seriously busted this week. An RNC fundraising presentation reveals the core of their overall strategy. The files reveal what many of us have been saying for years regarding how the Republicans manipulate the public. It confirms how the Republicans use fear (this is why their propaganda is so ridiculously over the top)...and it is also why they target the ill informed. But the papers reveal something worse...that the leadership of the Republican Party has a certain contempt for their own base voters. Stunning (not in the sense that this is what really goes on...many of us already knew that. But stunning in the sense that it is now out there for all to see). Sadly though... stupid American voters will still support these people.

Hear Howard Deans take on this.

From TPM

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele appeared on Fox News this afternoon, and had to answer some tough questions about the recent internal fundraising presentation that included negative depictions of President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- and the RNC's own donors.

The fundraising presentation, which was originally reported by the Politico, included the infamous illustration of Obama as the Joker, and also compared Pelosi to Cruella de Vil. It also directed how to appeal to "ego-driven" large donors, and to appeal to small donors through "fear" and "extreme negative feelings" and "reactionary" attitudes against the Obama administration.

Watch as Steele fumbles in his attempts to explain... lol

GOP's Man is Steele

In the 2nd most important political moment of the month, the Republican National Committee yesterday elected former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele as our party Chairman. The 50-year old Steele, elected on the 6th ballot after a spirited 3-man battle, thus becomes the first-ever black American to hold the top position within the Republican Party national governing body. Steele, who has been charged within the party by some of his rivals as being a closet social liberal immediately set the tone by stating unequivocally that "Conservative principles have made us the strong and proud party we are." Only the most ideologically far-right wing members of the party would try to make a case for him being anything other than conservative, as Steele has always espoused solid conservative principles even as he has occasionally taken more moderate positions on particular issues. His election shows that the majority of the party wishes to retain those conservative values while also being unafraid to show moderation when situations warrant, not for political expediency, but out of common sense. "It's time for something completely different and we're going to bring it to them," Steele said in referring to the Republican Party and its relationship to all Americans. "We're going to bring this party to every corner, every boardroom, every neighborhood, every community." Michael Steele is a family man, he and wife Andrea have two sons, Michael and Drew. Steele was born in 1958 at Andrews Air Force base and grew up near Washington, D.C., and interestingly enough has a sister who was once married to former boxing champ Mike Tyson. Always studious and a leader from an early age, Steele was named to the National Honor Society in high school and elected his class president. He won a scholarship to the prestigious Johns Hopkins University and was elected as the freshman class president there. He received his degree in International Relations in 1981, and then his life took a very interesting turn. He entered the seminary and for three years studied for a life in the Catholic priesthood at Villanova University, serving for a short time as a teacher at Malvern Prep. Ultimately this was not his calling. Steele entered the Georgetown University Law Center and obtained his law degree there, and as he entered into private practice he also began to become involved in Republican political activities. In 1995, he was selected as the Maryland Republican Man of the Year, and he went on to serve in delegate positions with the RNC at both the 1996 and 2000 national conventions. In 2000, he was elected as Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, and in 2002 as the Maryland Lieutenant Governor under Governor Robert Ehrlich, becoming the first African-American to hold these positions. Steele then ran for a Maryland U.S. Senate seat in 2006, only to be wiped out in a 55-44 margin by Democrat Ben Cardin as opposition built against the policies of President George W. Bush. He recovered in February of 2007 when he was elected to be the chairman of GOPAC, the Republican Party's largest political action committee. Steele is considered to be a likely candidate for either the Maryland Governor position, or a Senate seat in the 2010 elections. As the head of the RNC, Steele will have tremendous influence in the direction that the Party takes in moving forward. On the Iraq War his position has been that we need to withdraw and allow the Iraqis to control their own destiny, but that we should set no firm timetable for this withdrawal, and instead allow circumstances and conditions on the battle fields determine how and when this should happen. On energy policy he has called for rescinding the gas tax, and for greatly increasing research into alternative fuels. On taxation he has called for further tax cuts, making those now in place permanent, repealing of the death tax, and adherence to "sane spending guidelines." He has not been in favor of socializing health care, but instead has favored increased access to quality health care through Health Savings Accounts and other methods. Not unlike the original 'Man of Steel' (Superman), the GOP's new leader faces a daunting assignment against a difficult foe as he tries to lead our Republican Party back to power at both the state and federal levels. Steele has shown himself to be a strong, intelligent, articulate, principled leader during his lifetime. Michael Steele has all of the tools and talent to lead the Party back to prominence, but it will take the combined efforts and cooperation of all Republicans and conservative thinkers to make it happen.