The national scenario for the GOP is pretty bad, so they’re putting their resources in the races that really need it - meaning the ones they can win. Michael Steele’s race is a longshot at best for a Republican, and now Steele has gone public panhandling the national GOP so it doesn’t abandon him.
Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele has been reaching out to key Republican leaders in recent days, urging them to continue directing resources to his U.S. Senate bid.
In an interview yesterday, Steele confirmed what some people close to his campaign have said privately — that tightening races in other key states have taken priority in the year since high-ranking Republicans persuaded Steele to run, in part by promising the party’s lasting financial support.
Essentially the National RNC is telling Steele he’s on his own, which is bad news because the amount of GOP donors he’ll be able to whip up in MD isn’t exactly on par with what the national party could do - no wonder he’s been using the GOP prostitute’s old boss to scrape up cash…
Two sources close to Steele said that the campaign team began to sense
that the party’s financial commitments had essentially dried up as the
senatorial committee has seen more pressing needs arise in states where
sitting senators are under fire from Democratic challengers. Both
sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, because they
were discussing the internal workings of the campaign. The party has
paid for ads in three states: Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.
It’s getting so bad for Steele that Ken Mehlman isn’t returning his phone calls!
One of the sources said concern heightened when Steele tried to reach
RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman this week and was unable to get a response. A
spokesman for Mehlman said the chairman received a call from Steele
yesterday and returned it.
And of course, one of the most popular pols in America, Barack Obama just came in to town to rally for Rep. Cardin while his primary opponent, Kweisi Mfume, gave Cardin a strong endorsement ("You gotta put this guy in the Senate")…
But hey, he does love puppies.
“Essentially the National RNC is telling Steele he’s on his own.”
I wish I could believe it’s because they lost faith in this demonstrable liar, but we all know that’s not the case.
Where’s he been? Didn’t he see it coming when Ehrlich gave him a lukewarm endorsement? That’s where the money first started drying up.
Did he think he could get away with those “anonymous” comments and not pay dearly for them?
His own side wants him to lose and he doesn’t see it.
Mr. Steele, meet Katherine Harris. Have a seat.
It’s part of the 50-state strategy: Republicans are having to spend money in formerly “safe” seats, so they have no money for candidates who have a marginal chance at best like Steele.
The Steele candidacy is ruining GOP chances all over the state. MD Republicans can’t appeal to their base loud enough over the roar of Steele’s “Democrat-lite” strategy. This is why Ehrlich has NO chance at all despite his “lukewarm” endorsement of Steele. GOP voters in MD are seeing a diluted message from their party, and this will drive GOP turnout way down and bring some of the Democrats who crossed party lines for Ehrlich back into the fold.
The “Democrats For Steele” Agenda
The political firestorm that erupted after the formation of the “Democrats For Steele” initiative demonstrated how far the Maryland Democratic Party has NOT come in applying The Politics of Who Gets What. The disgraceful imbalances between what African Americans contribute to the Party and what the receive back from it has existed forever and was made painfully clear in the elections of 2002.
The swiftness with which the powers of the Party lined up behind candidate Cardin after ignoring the earlier announcement of candidate Mfume this year showed that they still harbored symptoms of Kathaleenitis and were planning to pursue business as usual. That however, came to a halt when a handful of African Americans from Baltimore City and Prince Georges County came together in their own smoke filled room and realized that when one door closes another door flies open, providing an even greater opportunity to achieve their objective.
Their original objective was to correct an imbalance in the Senate representation for Maryland, but when that door closed their attention was drawn to the Senate representation for the whole country: one African American in a chamber of a hundred. (“Does that like America?”) They therefore re-focused their efforts from equity a state constituency to equity for a constituency throughout the Nation. The means to that end stared them in the face and dared them to rise above party poppycock and strike a blow for freedom on a higher level—and they did.
The Chairperson of the Democrats For Steele expressed the case for their position in this Statement of Conscience:
“I will vote for Michael Steele because doing so is the most effective contribution I can make toward reducing the extreme underrepresentation of African Americans in the U.S. Senate. This opportunity to strike a blow for equity available to me today may not come around again for a decade. I can not pass up the opportunity to make this governing body look a little bit more like America.”
This is the way it did not happen. This is Art, not Life. We know that Life always imitates Art because, according to Aristotle, “the business of art is to bring something into existence.”
–30 –
Eugene Walton is the author of The Biography of Philip Reid: Historical Fiction” about the slave who supervised the bronze casting of the Statue of Freedom atop the U.S. Capitol dome. For more information click on the line below:
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