“If Mr. Steele were to prevail, it will further alienate the party’s major financial supporters and most active fundraisers,” said Wayne Berman, a top Washington lobbyist and bundler who served as the McCain presidential campaign’s finance chairman in 2008. “His arrogant style, cult of personality and embarrassing mismanagement are sources of great discontent with the major fundraisers of the party.”…

Asked about his email traffic since the announcement, the well-connected Berman cracked: “The phrase I have seen the most of is, is he aware that denial isn’t a river in Egypt?”

Al Hoffman, a longtime GOP contributor in Florida who did two separate stints as RNC finance chairman in President Bush’s first term, was just as withering: “The donor community has virtually no faith or confidence in Michael Steele’s to be the keeper of the keys.”…

“The long and short of it is I have a hard time finding any major donor who would trust him to straighten out the RNC and run a principled and ethical fundraising operation,” said the Floridian. “Whose going to give to him as long as he’s at the helm? Not me. My own slogan is now, Anybody But Steele.”