More on the evolving Michael Steele disaster
03/04/09
For the sake of the Republican Party, the Michael Steele experiment might need to end very, very soon. Politico has quite the summation of the cacophony of rather peculiar verbal offerings from Steele as of late:
Steadily becoming a dependable punch line, Steele has brushed back Rush Limbaugh, threatened moderate Republican senators, offered the “friggin’ awesome” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal some “slum love,” called civil unions “crazy” and promised more outreach to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” via an “off the hook” public relations campaign.
He even threw a shout-out to “one-armed midgets.”
You can't overlook the vital importance of the "one-armed midgets" constituency.
Steele's PR strategy seems to be trying to act as a caricature of one who's "hip" and "with it" and knows what's "straight up booty" and is "down with the peeps in the streets". When he could, you know, be clearly articulating both the opposition to the Obama plan to transform American into a unsustainable socialist welfare state and offering a clear choice and a different path to a brighter future where based in personal liberty and freedom where the government doesn't decide what kind of car you can drive because they don't care for the vehicle's emissions standards.
Intelligence is going to win the day. Not kitsch.
And apparently, while he's been flailing in public, Steele has been flailing and failing to build any Party infrastructure as well:
On the organizational side, Steele does not have a chief of staff, a political director, a finance director or a communications director. Last week, one of the two men sharing the job of interim finance director was forced to resign.
For now, “the fourth floor,” as the RNC’s executive suite is known, is being run by a pair of consultants.
If this choice right now is between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele as the leader of the Republican Party (which I would like to note that I wholly demarcate and differentiate from the conservative movement), then I'm going with El Rushbo every day of the week and twice on Sundays.