Steele is so routinely ineffective as a fundraiser, so provocatively preening on the national stage, so clearly indifferent to his critics, including his own staff reportedly now telling him to depart at the end of his term, that the last two years have not only illustrated Steele’s inadequacy but also revealed the insipidness of the 91 votes that elected him in January 2009 on the fourth ballot.
Steele is no more and no less than what the Republican brains chose at $223,000 per annum from the Democratic stronghold of Maryland, a self-promoting pol with an unknown record of working with the national party. Indiana committeeman Jim Bopp offered an inadvertent proof of the committee’s cynicism when it elected Steele: “His principal asset was said to be his ability to command attention…” Yet even this modest goal created conflict. Steele’s biography impresses—he’s the adopted son of a widow in Washington, D.C., who twice served as lieutenant governor in Maryland. But he chose, these last two years, to use his TV appearances to promote himself so that he could gather extra cash as a motivational speaker instead of doing the party’s blocking and tackling that he is paid for…
The wrong choice for the GOP is to try another celebrity manqué who will feel at ease hanging out with the chattering Palin or the strutting Romney. The midterms were a step, like clearing the woods, and now it’s time to plow the abandoned Rust Belt and the most suspicious Farm Belt. Michael Steele was a weak hand; now he is a bad hand. Then again, no one can go far wrong by guessing that the wretchedly led GOP will once more deal from the bottom of the deck.
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