In a year when the Republican grassroots is emerging as a potent political force, the party leadership under Michael Steele seems to be lost in the wilderness. As the health care takeover, giant deficits, unemployment and a general excess of government drive voters to Tea Party protests and to the voting booths, the Republican National Committee ought to be on the spot to cash in on an unprecedented opportunity. Instead it finds itself mired in controversy, wallowing ineffectively and facing challenges to its authority.
The problems started when a year of successful fundraising, in which Democrats were outstripped particularly among small donors, was more than negated by high overhead and excessive expenses, adding up to a $6 million deficit with little to show for it with the fall primary season still months away. With money frittered away on limousines, expensive hotels and travel junkets, RNC Chairman Michael Steele may be losing the confidence of major donors at the time when he needs them most.
The latest scandal is minor compared to the financial problems plaguing the party, but it has nevertheless received the most attention. The media has had a field day with the story of an RNC staffer authorizing almost $2000 in expenses for one of its fundraising contractors at Voyeur, a Hollywood topless club with a lesbian bondage theme. They may have fired the staffer, but the controversy rages on.
Then, to top things off, the RNC's fundraising efforts have been further called into question as a result of an expensive mailing in which a typo in the response phone number connected potential contributors to a $2.99-a-minute sex line instead of the RNC phone bank. A lot of blue-haired GOP stalwarts were less than amused by the experience.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - El Bicho
I am not surprised that the media loves the titillation and a chance to knock someone down, and that his political enemies, even in his own party, want to damage him, but has Steele been an effective leader?
Granted, I don't get RNC newsletters, but it seems I have only heard criticism from his side of the aisle since he got the job. I know he started on the wrong side on NY-23. Has he been instrumental in any of the party's successes?
2 - roger nowosielski
Dave,
Why this focus on Michael Steele? What has money got to do with it or Michael Steele's leadership? If its indeed true, as you say, that the country is rising, then the midterm election, and perhaps 2012, should be a cinch - if only on ideological grounds.
What I think you're really doing is grasping at straws by looking for an easy target. The teapartiers haven't delivered thus far - it's still an undifferentiated mass, tainted besides by the lunatic fringe, however miniscule. There aren't any true leaders from the Right, let alone presidential hopefuls, to speak of. And it must be frustrating to you.
Hence, Michael Steele is to blame. Come on! You can do better than that.
3 - Dave Nalle
Interesting responses. I tried to downplay the blame on Steele in this article, yet it seems to have been perceived the other way.
Ultimately Steele has to get the blame because he is in charge of the RNC. If it does its job well he gets the credit, if it does badly he gets the blame. That's what happenes when you're in an executive position.
The function of the RNC is to raise money and spend it on candidates. If, instead, it gets spent on staff, travel and entertainment then it is not doing its job properly. There is not a limitless supply of money to be raised, so using it efficiently is vitally important. That's Steele's real failing, and it is one which is mirrored in inefficient spending in many of the state executive committees as well.
Ok, on to the tea parties. They do have two significant successes. They played a role - mistakenly - in sinking Scozzafava, but more importantly they were instrumental in electing Scott Brown. He had limited support from the RNC (even if they want to take some credit) and lots from the tea parties. He got far more money from the tea partiers than from the RNC specifically because the RNC had very little cash on hand to use for his campaign.
Dave
4 - roger nowosielski
This sounds incredible - the Reps being out of money.
5 - Dr Dreadful
Trying to put myself in a Republican's point of view: the perceived lack of leadership may not be a bad thing. The GOP grassroots are certainly displaying a lot of vigour right now, and the Republicans in Congress (and leading lights elsewhere) just seem to have decided to go with the flow - and are perhaps all the more effective for it.
6 - handyguy
Michael Steele's charisma? He was managing to come across as preternaturally goofy -- long before there was a Voyeur club scandal. He has a public image roughly equivalent to Joe Biden's: repeated foot in mouth incidents succeed in hiding his talent and intelligence.
This goofball image may be a media creation, like Biden's, but Joe and Mike supply plenty of ammunition, and they are too entertaining for the media to ignore.
7 - handyguy
Tea partiers may well have helped get Scott Brown elected, but I can't help feeling they will have buyer's remorse. Some already do.
In order to get reelected in still-blue Massachusetts, Brown will have to moderate his positions repeatedly. He already aggravated some with his "RINO" vote for a jobs bill.
Brown is no right-wing ideologue. [I also don't think he's particularly well qualified to be a senator; time will tell.] And tea partiers have not shown a lot of flexibility so far in stretching their rigid principles pragmatically. Two or three more votes for an Administration bill that costs money, and the TP will disown Brown.
Which may actually help him get re-elected. Massachusetts politics is threatening to get as weird as California's.
Brown spread a false rumor that Rachel Maddow was going to be drafted to run against him. She called him "a jerk" on the air for refusing to back down from the silly story, concocted for fund-raising.
But some of us wish she would reconsider. It would certainly make for an entertaining race!
8 - roger nowosielski
#5,
A pretty good a/c of the conservatives' dilemma. The "go with the flow" strategy sounds reasonable enough. Biding time.
9 - handyguy
Unless 'going with the flow' of populist anger begins to grate on the nerves of independent voters in swing districts, a problem that could be compounded if extremist candidates get nominated in primaries.
Driving moderates out of the party directly works against making the party broad-based and nationally powerful.
Tea partiers may indeed strongly influence primaries. But Republicans might want to consider listening to voices of reason like David Frum in planning for November contests.
No reason they should listen to me, of course. If they do indeed narrow their appeal this way, I guess I should be happy. But it contributes to the ugly, nasty polarized nature of contemporary politics.
10 - roger nowosielski
Part of their problem is, Republicans are out of ideas. Wait and see strategy appears to be only one they're capable of, if only to see what obtains.
But yes, it may well backfire on them.
11 - Baronius
Dave, there's one other related story. The NRSC got in hot water for endorsing Charlie Crist very quickly in his inept run for the Senate. They blew it. Others have withdrawn their endorsements, and even Cornyn has been backpedaling. It just contributes to the sense that the establishment of the party is out of touch.
12 - roger nowosielski
Hey Dave,
Just noticed the Voyer site. At least you've to give 'em that: they've got expensive taste.
Thanks for including it. I'm gonna check it out when I'll be in those parts.
I might even switch party affiliation for a treat around town. Just kidding.
13 - John Wilson
The Reps are out of ideas. They are intellectually bankrupt.
It's the result of laziness. They found it easy to win by being anti-communist, so they quit trying to think. For a while they got by with anti-muslim stuff after 9/11, but that's drying up fast. They tried morphing anti-communism into anti-democrat sentiment, which worked for awhile, but recently trying to morph that into anti-socialism has failed because many young people don't even know what a socialist is, or why socialists should be hated.
The reps non-hate ideas have gone bust, what with the failure of the so-called "free Markets" (which just turn out to be dominated by the most powerful corporate monopolies because reps don't have the courage of their convictions to enforce competition with anti-trust action), and all the failures resulting from trying to run government operations through private companies, which has resulted in runaway costs and corruption. And then there's the effect of all the crazies who lead us into stupid wars, alienated citizens with attacks on gays (when society, especially young people, is going towards tolerance) and bombing and killing abortion providers.
So the only 'principle' the reps evidence is being against things. Thus the rep congress is 100% opposed to Obama/Romney care, and in CA all the rep members of the legislature have signed pledges to vote "NO" and thus jam the state up because their 33% minority is enough to stop everything. Now they're trying to pass a Prop in CA to require local communities to have 2/3 vote to pass Public Utilities.
Despite all of their 'anti' agitation they have proven to be terrible spenders and each one of them in the past 30 years has run up record federal deficits. Paradoxically, they surrendered the Fiscal Responsibility issue to Clinton, the man they most hated and villified.
This generation of reps is finished. You can't really blame Mike Steele for going on a fin de siecle spending binge.
14 - handyguy
I'm no fan of that frighteningly tanned, self-hating closet case Charlie Crist, but it may be worth noting that while he's now trailing badly in the GOP primary race, he polls 9 points better than Rubio does against likely Dem candidate Meek.
The GOP is likely to win in Florida, but this demonstrates my point about nominating hard-right instead of moderate candidates, and in some states and districts the effect could be strong enough to throw the race to the Democrats. [As happened, indirectly, in upstate NY.]
15 - Dave Nalle
Tea partiers may well have helped get Scott Brown elected, but I can't help feeling they will have buyer's remorse. Some already do.
They knew what he was before they elected him. If they regret it now I have very little sympathy for them. He's still better than the alternative.
Brown is no right-wing ideologue. [I also don't think he's particularly well qualified to be a senator; time will tell.]
His qualifications are virtually identical to Obama's at the same point in his career.
Dave
16 - Dave Nalle
Baronius. I have a separate article in the works about the NRSC, whose problems go far beyond just the Crist issue.
As for Republicans having no ideas, that's fundamentally untrue. Republicans have lots of good ideas. They just have trouble getting anyone to listen, and many of them are dismissed because they involved undoing harm rather than doing more harm.
Dave
17 - Baronius
Handy, I think the more likely problem for the Republicans is that they'll nominate outsiders rather than people with experience, and end up with incompetence (either during the campaigns or in office).
18 - zingzing
dave: "many [republican ideas] are dismissed because they involved undoing harm rather than doing more harm."
yeah, that's why...
you're your own worst enemy.
19 - Dave Nalle
Zing, sometimes you make very little sense.
Dave
20 - handyguy
He was responding to your own impenetrable koan: "Ideas" that "involved undoing harm rather than doing more harm."
Tell us: Who, exactly, dismissed these ideas for that reason? The electorate?
One assumes you mean by harm: taxing, spending, and adding to the federal bureaucracy -- a purely ideological definition of the word. That would probably apply to your definition of "ideas" as well.
21 - roger nowosielski
"As for Republicans having no ideas, that's fundamentally untrue. Republicans have lots of good ideas. They just have trouble getting anyone to listen."
With all due respect, I beg to differ. Good ideas will always be listened, if not heeded to. And you can count me among that number.
Or are you saying perhaps that they've got no great communicator among their ranks? In that case, I'd agree with you.
And if that's a fairly correct appraisal of the situation, then what are you waiting for? I''d be knocking on their doors if I were you.
22 - Dr Dreadful
Republicans have lots of good ideas... many of them are dismissed because they involved undoing harm rather than doing more harm.
Those are not ideas. Those are reactions.
What else you got?
23 - Boeke
Undo harm? Undo the Iraq invasion? Undo the 9/11/01 negligence? Undo the financial collapse?
24 - fatastronaut
It would be nice to restore integrity to politics. I'm sick of both parties.
25 - roger nowosielski
Too late under the present system. The country is on the verge of Civil War, not unlike the situation which prevailed prior to India's home rule.
The country had to be split between India and Pakistan to avert bloodshed.