Two years ago Michael Steele became the chairman of the Republican Party. Prior to that, he served as the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Maryland. In 2006 he ran for the U.S. Senate against Democrat, Ben Cardin. Steele was narrowly defeated but in 2009 became the first African- American, chairman of the GOP. The honeymoon between him and the Republican National Committee (RNC) wasn’t terribly long however. In his two year term he proved a particularly controversial and sometimes awkward leader. Months after his election, Steele frustrated and angered grassroots republicans when he relegated commentator Rush Limbaugh to the roll of an entertainer. The comment seemed to many an effort to move himself and the party away from the Conservative host. The chairman apologized to Rush days later and attempted to distance him from his own comments.
But this was not Steele’s only problem. On numerous occasions he made statements which frustrated other members, including predicting his that own party would not take the House last November. Perhaps his biggest failure however was the fact that the GOP currently owes more than twenty million dollars. Many of those in his party blame Steele for turning off major donors. Certainly the average Republican saw Steele as simply a career party man, more interested in chairmanships and brand names, and less concerned with the party’s ideological platform. This in a political era where the electorate is desperate to reboot a political system it sees as rife with corruption. Personally I suspect some of these judgments of Steele’s performance may not be entirely fair, considering the victories last fall.
Replacing Steele is Reince Preibus. Preibus was the chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party, and is a relatively young man (at thirty- eight) with a name that sounds like a Roman consul. He has promised to work to win back some of the big donors who’ve backed away from the GOP, raise a lot of necessary funds and reestablish the party’s conservative credentials. Truth be told I (and I suspect more Americans), know very little about the new Chairman. But I agree that his party does in fact need to renovate its platform, a process I think started last November. I for one didn’t dislike Steele, but I agree that it is in fact, time for the Republican Party to return to its conservative roots. At the end of the day, only time will tell whether or not Preibus is able to fulfill his promises. If he does he will prove himself a more effective leader then his predecessor.
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