Indiana RNC member Jim Bopp (representing the 8th Congressional district) proposed to the RNC a litmus test of 10 issues ranging from 2nd Amendment to health care. Essentially, Republican candidates would need to agree to the issues before receiving financial assistance with their campaigns.

Here’s the original ten issues as proposed by Jim Bopp:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

The AP reports:
(More below the fold)
UPDATE: Politico has more coverage of this proposal HERE

Actually a referendum on the Obama Administration is exactly what it is. Hope and Change isn’t providing much hope and there’s nothing but change left in people’s pockets. The Obama presidency is rivaling the Carter Administration as the most inept in history, and there is still 3 years and about 3 months left to go.

When a mainstream website like Real Clear Politics, which happens to be a joint venture of Time and CNN, calls what liberal blogger Bil Browning did, a smear, a lie and despicably racist, then you know what was done to Chairman Steele crosses the line of civility.

Via Real Clear Politics:

Michael Steele has said some dumb things in his brief tenure as GOP Chairman (”one armed midgets” and “slum love” spring to mind) for which he’s rightly been criticized.

But this post by Bil Browning (self-described LGBT blogger and new media consultant) of the Huffington Post is just an out and out smear: Steele: GOP woos blacks with “fried chicken and potato salad.”

Watch the clip and listen closely. A young gay blogger (who Browning also describes as a person of color) asks Michael Steele about his future plans for the “inclusion of diverse populations in the Republican party.”

Steele responds: “My plan is to say, Y’all come. Cause a lot of you are already here.”

Steele’s response generates some laughter, but off camera you can hear someone (though almost certainly the blogger who asked the question) say, “I’ll bring the collard greens.”

This generates more laughter among the group, as well as Steele’s genial response: “There you go. I got the fried chicken and the potato salad, okay?

Put in it’s proper context, Steele’s remarks are a far cry from Browning’s headline or his assertion that “to lure African-Americans into the GOP, Steele is offering “fried chicken and potato salad.”

It’s just an out and out lie. And a despicably racist one at that.

(H/T – Fort Wayne News)

And now it’s Daisy’s turn with the RNC Chairman

Also, Brian T. Campbell, Sr. of “Hear Us Now” (a successor group to a Tea Party Movement group in Colorado) asks a question of the Chairman.

OK Mockarena it’s finally posted

Cameron Cowan of The Mile Hive asks the RNC Chairman about diversity within the GOP

Bloggers received a rare opportunity Wednesday night. After the GOP State Dinner, RNC Chairman Michael Steele met with a group of bloggers at Mo’s and allowed the bloggers to interview him.

Here’s the first of several segments featuring the Chairman with Hoosier Access’ own Josh Gillespie. Additional segments will be posted in the coming days with other bloggers.

Hoosier Access has arranged to bring you live blogging of the Indiana State GOP fundraiser dinner featuring RNC Chairman Michael Steele. The festivities kick off at 5:30 PM this evening with social hour and the speech should start around 6:30.

Hoosier Access TV has secured streaming rights to the Chairman’s speech. We are streaming this online through UStream.TV. You can interact with us via Twitter during the streamcast.

The streamcast will begin at 6:00 PM

You can follow us live also with your iPhone. With your iPhone 3G or 3GS download the application “UStreamTV” and search “Hoosier Access” within the App. You can then view live Hoosier Access UStreamTV programming on your iPhone.

UPDATE: Here’s the archived recording of the Chairman’s speech

The best (and most brief) roundup of the RNC chairman race comes from The Economist’s Democracy in America blog:

Nine years ago, Michael Steele was a Republican activist with a thankless job. He ran the Maryland wing of the GOP, suiting up every day for battle against a Democratic majority that had run the state since the 1960s. Even Michael Dukakis had carried Maryland when he ran for president. Mr Steele’s profile rose over the next few years, as he became the state’s lieutenant governor and a popular Republican spokesman, tasked with telling black voters that Democrats took their votes for granted. But he lost a Senate race in 2006, and Democrats elected the first black president. What was next for Michael Steele?

Today, Mr Steele was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee—the first African-American to hold the job. While Republicans were glowing, smiling, and occasionally brushing away tears when Mr Steele won, it took six hours and six different ballots before he finally prevailed in a 91-77 vote. (The runner-up, Katon Dawson, was a southern party leader who until recently belonged to a whites-only country club.) In interviews after the vote, Republican state party leaders expressed joy that their party now had a spokesman who could soften their image. But many argued that Mr Steele won because he was charismatic and from a deep-blue state, not because he was black. That’s an awfully hard sell. As a GOP leader from Oregon admitted, the party was hurting from its image as a “bunch of old white guys”. Mr Steele will likely break records for TV and other media appearances for a party chair. It’s the least he can do to combat the soaring popularity of President Obama.

Even FiveThirtyEight (a left-of-center blog that looks at polling and political statistics) finds Steele to be a good choice (which might cause some second thoughts among some Republicans and conservatives, though it’s not like he was praised by Kos).

Murray Clark gushed at the choice of Steele:

(Read more after the leap)