Steele And GOP Priorities

First, it was over whether the three GOP senators who voted for the stimulus package might be denied campaign funds by the national party. On February 3, Michael Steele stated "Oh, yes, I'm always open to everything, baby, absolutely." The next day, he backtracked, saying "it's totally up to the state parties."

Then it was Rush Limbaugh. On March 1, Steele pointed out on the since-cancelled D.L. Hughley show on CNN, "Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. His whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it's incendiary. Yes, it's ugly" (video below). After Limbaugh blasted him on his program two days later, Steele waited almost an hour to grovel (in a statement) "I respect Rush Limbaugh, he is a national conservative leader, and in no way do I want to diminish his voice....To the extent that my remarks helped the Democrats in Washington to take the focus, even for one minute, off of their irresponsible expansion of government, I truly apologize."

Then we learned that a few days earlier (March 24) in an interview with Lisa DePaulo of GQ Magazine, the head of the Republican National Committee argued of homosexuality that one cannot "turn it off and on like a water tap" and that he approved of such relationships up to marriage:

I have been, um, supportive of a lot of my friends who are gay in some of the core things that they believe are important to them. You know, the ability to be able to share in the information of your partner, to have the ability to—particularly in times of crisis—to manage their affairs and to help them through that as others—you know, as family members or others—would be able to do. I just draw the line at the gay marriage. And that’s not antigay, no. Heck no! It’s just that, you know, from my faith tradition and upbringing, I believe that marriage—that institution, the sanctity of it—is reserved for a man and a woman.

That same day, however, Steele assured syndicated conservative radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher that he finds civil unions as distasteful as gay marriage:

GALLAGHER: Is this a time when Republicans ought to consider some sort of alternative to redefining marriage and maybe in the road, down the road to civil unions. Do you favor civil unions?

STEELE: No, no no. What would we do that for? What are you, crazy? No. Why would we backslide on a core, founding value of this country? I mean this isn't something that you just kind of like, "Oh well, today I feel, you know, loosey-goosey on marriage." [...]

GALLAGHER: So no room even for a conversation about civil unions in your mind?

STEELE: What's the difference?

In the same interview with GQ, Mr. Steele, asked whether he believes "women have the right to choose an abortion," responded "Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice." Promptly recognizing a tactical error, Steele issued a statment which included "I am pro-life, always have been, always will be.... In my view Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided and should be repealed."

If the chairman of the Republican National Committee seems a little confused, it's with good reason. On Hardball on March 13, the usually insightful Eugene Robinson remarked "I think fundamentally he‘s a moderate Republican. And those are the views that he is expressing. But he doesn‘t have a moderate party that he‘s supposed to lead. It‘s a very conservative party."

But here Robinson, and others who also suspect that Steele made his initial, later retracted or "clarified," remarked because he is a "moderate Republican," are wrong. When a Repub suggests a liberal or moderate position on abortion or gay rights (apparently, gun control and some other cultural issues are completely off limits), he or she is exalted in the mainstream media as a "moderate."

Whether Steele actually is a "moderate" is difficult to detemine. What is clear, however, is that he is a man without firm attachment to any view on policy- someone far more opportunistic than principled. Michael Steele has veered from GOP orthodoxy on support for experienced incumbents, gay rights and abortion, and attacked powerful Republican Rush Limbaugh. But as of this writing, he is still chairman of the party. Suppose, instead, Steele had made comments similar to these rather obvious and moderate comments:

- Congress should give due consideration to passing the Employee Free Choice Act because it would lead to higher wages, which have been stagnating in our country;
- The rush to deregulate the financial market helped spur the economic crisis we have today;
- Greed in the private sector has contributed significantly to our economic collapse;
- The Social Security system is relatively stable and the party should attempt to strengthen it rather than weaken it with a privatization scheme, reducing benefits, or increasing the retirement age;
- Given the increasing debt caused by the stimulus package, increasing taxes modestly on the wealthy is reasonable.

If he had made any of these statements- with or without retraction or apology- instead of those he did make,M Michael Steele would be out of his position as chairman of the Republican National Committee. Not today. Yesterday.