What Worries Me About Michael Steele

Yesterday, Joel Harris linked to a post by Erick Erickson of Red State in our comment section talking about the race for the RNC Chairmanship.  Admittedly, I’ve been enthused about a potential Michael Steele RNC Chairmanship.  I was excited about all the changes going on in party leadership on the House side, what with Eric Cantor and Mike Pence rising to more prominent roles and Pete Sessions willing to take on Tom Cole as Chairman of the NRCC.  I was excited about the new fresh faces that were willing to take on party establishment to bring about real change and a sense of renewed fiscal discipline and social understanding.  This made me excited about Michael Steele because he would be the ultimate face for change for our party.

I decided to push back some of the initial hindrances I had of him, chiefly his position on certain social issues such as abortion.  I remember, back when I was working in Washington, D.C. when Congressman Bob Ehrlich and Michael Steele were running for Governor and LG of Maryland.  To win over the difficult parts of the state, they had to move to the middle and sometimes to the left of the middle.

I’m not politically naive enough to not understand his move to the middle in such a left leaning state such as Maryland.  Sure it’s disappointing, but a necessary evil in the political process if a Republican is going to win that state.

But it’s what he’s done since that concerns me most.

(Read more after the leap)

Erick Erickson notes in his post:

1. Listening to the call conducted today with bloggers, I get the strong sense Lt. Gov. Steele really has no earthly idea what the RNC Chairman does, but seems to think it is about being the face/voice of the GOP while out of the White House. As an elected Republican, let me assure all of you there is a great deal more to the job of Chairman of the party under whose name I qualify to run for office. If Lt. Gov. Steele is only the face/voice of the party, who will be responsible for running it? I fear that it will be the same DC consultants that are running his campaign and demand party contracts for their friends. One of the great problems at the RNC and the other party committees has been the self-dealing consultants who put their contracts above recruiting and electing conservatives.
2. There is, as there always has been, a movement afoot to marginalize pro-life voters who are, in fact, a very significant part of the GOP base. Lt. Gov. Steele, Christie Todd Whitman, and John Danforth started the Republican Leadership Council. The group’s purpose was to move the GOP leftward in the same way the Democratic Leadership Council’s purpose was to move the Democrats to the right.

The Republican Leadership Council lists among its “Strategic Partners”:

• GreenGOP.org
• Log Cabin Republicans
• Main Street Coalition
• Planned Parenthood Republicans for Choice
• Republicans for Choice
• Republicans for Environmental Protection
• Republican Majority for Choice
• The Whitman Series
• The WISH List, which describes itself as “the nation’s largest fundraising network for pro-choice Republican women candidates at all levels of government.”

The RLC alone makes me deeply leery of Michael Steele as RNC Chairman. These groups want to purge the GOP of social conservatives, but for whom there would have never been any winning Republican coalitions in the last thirty years. Then there is his position that Roe v. Wade should remain in place, a position that is outside the platform of the very party he wants to lead.

Steele’s position on Roe v. Wade conflicts directly with the National Party Platform. How can the committeemen and women vote for someone who conflicts directly with the party platform?

Now, all of this said, I am willing to hear Michael Steele out, but my concerns have opened the door for other candidates to prove their worth. Candidates such as Saul Anuzis, Chip Saltsman (if he enters) and even Fred Thompson, though his work ethic seems lacking (for that, he’s falling big time on my list).  I want to hear all of the candidates (though if I’m correct, the race so far is Steele, Anuzis, and current Chairman, Mike Duncan.  And the one thing I am sure of is, we can’t stick with Mike Duncan).

We need a change in party leadership, but we need someone who can stick to the platform as voted on at this year’s convention.  Can that be Michael Steele?  Maybe, but his past sure isn’t reflective of it.