Was Steele a Victim of His Own Missteps?

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Michael Steele rode the wave of hope and change right into the position of RNC chairman back in 2009. He was the first African-American male to ever hold the seat within the Republican National Committee. The GOP was desperately seeking to change its image after a crushing defeat in the presidential election of 2008. Two years, numerous gaffes and several alleged spending sprees later, Steele has found himself ousted from the illustrious chairmanship of the "Grand Old Party".

Steele appeared on CNN's "The Situation Room", Wednesday, deliberating over exactly why he got fired from the GOP post. He asserts that establishment Republicans are "relieved" that he's been dismissed, while at the same time, admitting his tone and style of leadership was much different than what many in the party had expected. He also mentions that there were several members, within the GOP, sparring for the same funds from contributors that once offered their financial backing to the committee without batting an eye.

Could it be betrayal rather than culpability that has Steele licking his political wounds in hindsight nowadays? Or perhaps it's just that Steele needs a little perspective and a slight reminder of how his tenure has been marred with allegations of spending sprees and fiscal irresponsibility in the handling of committee funds.

Not long ago, I did a piece titled, "Steele Remains Head of the RNC".  In it, I recounted some of Steele's most notable "situations" that had many on the Right shaking their heads, sometimes in horror and at other times, in disbelief.      

Since Steele took the job in January 2009, he says he has come under a lot of pressure, most notably, within his own party, for what some say has been the mismanagement of funds raised by the committee.  Steele has been criticized for spending money on high-end hotels, limos and private jets in the past; now, he says, the RNC is taking more steps to make sure that in the future, they are more "fiscally conservative".  In addition to this, Neil Albert, hired by Michael Steele as a special finance assistant, was fined $4,000, while he was still chairman for the D.C. Baseball PAC in 2007, for improperly spending money from a political action committee.  Just recently, the RNC has come under fire for picking up a tab for a group of donators that attended a night club in West Hollywood.    

During his interview, Michael Steele also mentioned that his style of leadership is "...very different, much more engaged on the streets of America...".  Steele also says he's not a product of the "old-boy network..." and it's rubbed some...the wrong way".

Of course, the unforgettable shout-out to Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, where Steele said he wanted to offer up "some slum love" and the attention-grabbing blog title on a very Conservative GOP.com website: "What Up", are just a few instances where this "street-wise" way of relating to those inside and outside the Party have brought Steele flack as well.

Still, some in his own party paint Michael Steele as a political outsider; a position, they claim, that Steele has been branded by as a consequence of his own doing. Having run for reelection, critics anticipated that he would call upon the support of the same tea party activists that lobbied against establishment Republicans during the primary elections of 2010.  Others feared that because Steele had not been able to raise the kind of dollars that outside groups were able to garner during the last election cycle, he would not be able to compete against the 2012 reelection machine of Barack Obama. All of this is topped by the fact that as he left, the RNC was $15 million in the hole.   



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Michael Steele lamented on the conservative website FrumForum, that he could relate to the Roman leader Julius Caesar, as his successor, former advisor and friend, Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus, stepped up to the plate last week and won the coveted GOP chairmanship with a record 97 votes.  Steele claims Priebus had been secretly vying for the position for months, while advising him and serving as the RNC's top lawyer. "It is what it is," says Steele, "I trust my friends. Well, I guess the adage is right. In Washington, you should get a dog".  

Last week, Steele withdrew his reelection bid for the chairmanship after initially receiving a mere 44 out of 168 votes by committee members in the first round; his tally then dropped to 28 votes after subsequent rounds. With the number of votes against Steele, Priebus was clearly a shoe-in. 

While the strings of his term as GOP chairman have been cut short and in the wake of the all of the controversy and missteps, Michael Steele can unmistakably be linked to major, and in some cases, historic, victories the Party enjoyed under his auspices: 6 freshman Republican Senators, 21 states flipped from Blue to Red; a monumental 63 House seats acquired and $192 million that came through fundraisers. The pivotal nature of him having attained the position may indeed, in some circles, outweigh the politics involved as some look back on Steele's record one day; but the reality is that outside the beltway, a man's character is most certainly judged by his actions and, fortunately, not the other way around.