Michael Steele is proved powerless by GOP

Did you guys really think he had any power? Well it seems this house negro was given a talking to by the real people in power and they said effectively ‘we run this, not you’. More below:

Picture 3via Newser

Congressional GOP leaders met with RNC chairman Michael Steele late last month to assert their authority when it comes to policymaking, and while those involved said the get-together in House Minority Leader John Boehner’s office was routine, Politico’s sources described it as heated. Of particular concern was Steele’s “health care bill of rights,” an attack on Democratic health care reform apparently issued without consultation.

Steele backers, of course, say Republican legislators were in on the RNC offensive, and that it was a good idea: “I would defy anyone that it wasn’t politically smart,” one says. But others say the acrimonious meeting was evidence of the GOP’s continued uneasiness with Steele and his flamboyant ways. They’d like him to stick to fundraising and helping Republicans get elected. “He’s on a short leash here,” an aide says.

Harry Kimball

Source: Politico

Steele: God Help White Men Appearing Before A Sotomayor Court

via HuffPost

RNC Chairman Michael Steele isn’t shying away from highlighting race as a signifying issue of the Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court nomination hearings.michael_steele

In an interview with CNN’s Campbell Brown on Tuesday, the Republican Party leader insisted that white males would not be granted even-handed jurisprudence under a Court with Obama’s nominee.

“God help you if you’re a white male,” said Steele. “If you’re seeking justice, this may not be the bench you want to go before.”

The remarks come at a time when Republican officials have attempted to remove any semblance of racial politics from their opposition to Sotomayor’s nomination. Earlier on Tuesday, Sen. Mel Martinez, a Hispanic Republican from Florida, defended Sotomayor’s now-infamous “wise Latina” remarks as sensible. Continue reading

[video] Michael Steele Responds to Obama Ribbing: ‘Good Love Between Two Brothers’

Let me draw a correlation, being on the opposing team in Washington against Pres. Obama is probably how the players on the Atlanta Hawks feel about Lebron James. It’s hard not to admire the competition. Michael Steele is obviously enamored with the competition and finds privilege that he is even mentioned in the same sentence with the President, but let’s be for real he isn’t really bringing his A-Game to the court with him he’s just glad to be in the same stadium. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled an Arlen Specter once the conservatives are through beating him into submission. 

Joe The Plumber Blasts Michael Steele’s “Hip Hop” Ambitions

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via TPMDC

Michael Steele now has another high-profile Republican publicly bashing him: Samuel “Joe The Plumber” Wurzelbacher.

At a meeting of conservative activists in Milwaukee, Mr. The Plumber had some tough words for the RNC chairman: “Unfortunately we have a chairman up there who wants to redefine conservatism; he wants to make it hip hop, put it in a new package and sell it.”

“You can’t sell principles; either you have them or you don’t,” he added, to applause from the audience of 800 people.

Joe The Plumber has really embraced his self-proclaimed role as the voice of the right-wing working-class voter — quite a different audience from Steele’s desire to expand the GOP into minority communities. And Joe’s pronouncement that conservative principles can’t be repackaged and sold — you either have them or you don’t — is strikingly similar to Rush Limbaugh’s line from CPAC that conservatism is unchanging and permanent, solidifying a definite line of anti-Steele thought.

[video] Michael Steele Gets Sonned By Limbaugh, Issues Apology

Vodpod videos no longer available.

via Politico

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary.”

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.”

The dust-up comes at a time when top Democrats are trying to make Limbaugh the face of the Republican Party, in part by using ads funded by labor. Americans United for Change sent a fund-raising e-mail Monday that begins: “The Republican Party has turned into the Rush Limbaugh Party.”

Steele told CNN host D.L. Hughley in an interview aired Saturday night: “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh — his whole thing is entertainment. He has this incendiary — yes, it’s ugly.” Continue reading

GOP head Michael Steele promises PR blitz in ‘hip-hop settings’ and for ‘one-armed midgets’

michael_steele1

via Daily News

WASHINGTON — New GOP party chief Michael Steele is promising an “off the hook” public relations blitz into “urban-suburban hip-hop settings” in hopes of wooing Latinos and African-Americans.

Steele, the first African-American Republican boss, is searching for Americans of all stripes to join his Grand Old Party. “We need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets,” he joked.

Steele told the Washington Times that he aimed to revive the party by breaking out of the South and Southwest and to “reach beyond our comfort” zone to expand in Democratic strongholds like the Northeast and Midwest.

“We missed the mark in the past, which is why we are in the crapper now,” he said. “We had the White House, the Senate and the House and were not building a farm team over the last years.

He said he’s planning a massive advertising outreach online, on TV and on the radio that will “surprise everyone.”

“We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ,” he explained. “We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

Last week at a GOP meeting in Virginia, Steele said “As a black, Roman Catholic conservative from Washington D.C. and Maryland, I know how to lose elections.” But now, Steele said, “I’m in the business of winning elections.”

Former La. Klansman David Duke Says New RNC Chairman ‘Black Racist’

david_duke

via WDSU

NEW ORLEANS — Former Klansman David Duke, who ran for governor of Louisiana, is blasting the newly appointed chairman of the Republican Party as a “black racist.”

In a lengthy process on Friday, GOP leaders voted former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele into the party’s leadership post.

Steele is the first African-American to hold that position.

Duke described those who supported the move as “traitorous,” and cited Steele’s positions on gun control, affirmative action and the death penalty in a sometimes rambling condemnation posted on his personal Web site.

“I think the insanity of nominating ‘Mr. Amnesty’ John McCain and now this black racist will lead to insurgency in the Republican ranks,” Duke said.

He further referred to Steele as “Obama Jr.” and a “servile dog of Israel.”

While he has been largely off the mainstream political radar for years and no longer lives in Louisiana, Duke is still politically active, speaking largely to a fractional segment of the spectrum.

He said he was interviewed this weekend by the Washington Post, though he was not mentioned in any published items through the weekend.

Micheal Steele Blogs to Hip Hop on Global Grind

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via Global Grind

Washington is currently locked in a debate over a federal government “stimulus” package but millions of Americans in poverty remain locked out of that debate. If we are to stimulate our economy for real growth, we must empower more Americans to move up the economic ladder. We won’t be healthy as a nation until we do. Republicans have in the past been accused of caring more about the statistics that define the poor than the reforms necessary to lift the poor out of poverty. However, if we are to be true to the foundational principles of the Party of Lincoln–free enterprise, individual liberties and access to equal opportunities–then we know that any efforts to improve our economy must include a pathway of empowerment and opportunity for the poor.

Some have faith in government in order to create such a pathway; Republicans have faith in people. Thus, a truly effective stimulus package would rely less on government solutions and more on individual solutions that encourage enterprise, job training and educational opportunities for those seeking to free themselves from the shackles of poverty. HUD Secretary Jack Kemp once noted, “the purpose of a great party is not to defeat the other party but to provide superior ideas, principled leadership and a compelling cause.” The Republican Party now has an obligation to provide solutions and ideas that demonstrate our capacity to lead on behalf of the poor of America and to provide them a pathway to legacy wealth creation. No cause can be more compelling than that!

-Michael Steele

BREAKING: Michael Steele picked to lead RNC

This face of this country seems to changing at break neck speed. Anyway shout out to Blacren.com for the scoop.

via CNN

ALT TEXT

Michael Steele was picked Friday to be the RNC’s first African-American chairman. (Photo Credit: Getty Images/File)

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Members of the Republican National Committee elected their first-ever African-American party chief on Friday, choosing former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele to chair the organization after six rounds of tumultuous balloting.

After five rounds of voting, the race for the chairmanship came down to a choice between Steele and Katon Dawson, the South Carolina GOP chairman who secured strong support from party insiders after former chairman Mike Duncan dropped out of the race earlier in the day.

Steele emerged as the winner on the sixth ballot, winning with 91 votes. A candidate needed a simple majority of 85 votes from the 168-member committee to secure victory.

For the duration of his campaign, Steele fought perceptions that he was too moderate to lead the party because of his blue state roots and his former membership in the Republican Leadership Council, a group that sought to curb the influence of social conservatives in the party.

“I’m proud to say I’m a conservative, have been, always will be,” Steele told CNN earlier this month. “So this notion that I’m a moderate is slightly overblown, and quite frankly a lie.”

Steele brings a national profile to the committee, having shot to fame in the political world during an underdog Senate bid in 2006 distinguished by a series of clever TV commercials. He has since become a fixture on cable talk shows, experience that boosted up his reputation as the best communicator among the field of RNC candidates.