If Iowa’s representatives on the Republican National Committee had had their way, Michael Steele would not be the party’s new chairman.
Iowa RNC Committeeman Steve Scheffler and Committeewoman Kim Lehman both supported South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson, who turned out to be Steele’s toughest rival in yesterday’s voting. Don’t ask me why Republicans who presumably want to start winning elections again would want the party’s leader to be a southerner who was in an all-white country club when the GOP is looking more like a regional party than ever before and the Democratic president (who happens to be black) is wildly popular.
Seriously, to hear Dawson explain the roots of his political views, it all started when he got mad that the government desegregated his school when he was 15. Just the guy to give the GOP a more tolerant, inclusive image!
But I digress.
Scheffler and Lehman didn’t quietly prefer a different candidate for RNC chair, they went on record criticizing Steele earlier this month:
Though the pro-life and pro-gun Steele built a conservative record in his home state, the former Maryland lieutenant governor’s one-time affiliation with the Republican Leadership Council, which religious conservatives view as hostile to their agenda, remains a deal breaker in some sectors of the committee.
“That is an organization that created itself for the purpose of eliminating a very important part of the Republican Party and its family values,” said Iowa Committeewoman Kim Lehman, who supports South Carolina Republican Party Chair Katon Dawson’s campaign. “Michael Steele crossed over a serious line.”
“In that field, the only one that would be my number six out of six choice would be Michael Steele,” said Iowa Committeeman Steve Scheffler, citing Steele’s “past deep involvement with the Republican Leadership Council.”
“They partnered with groups like Planned Parenthood,” said Scheffler, who joined Lehman in endorsing Dawson. “In my view, you don’t lend your name to a group if you don’t agree with them.”
Incidentally, Lehman has a history of intolerance toward Republicans who believe abortion should be legal even in limited circumstances such as rape or incest. The State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Iowa censured her in December for failing to support Republican Congressional candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks (IA-02).
Iowa’s third RNC member, newly elected state GOP chairman Matt Strawn, endorsed the incumbent RNC chair Mike Duncan earlier this week but apparently backed Dawson over Steele in the later ballots yesterday.
Steele’s election immediately sparked concern among some Iowa politicos that we may lose our first-in-the-nation status when the GOP selects its next presidential nominee. However, Strawn, Scheffler and Lehman had only praise for Steele in their official statements. Strawn said,
“I am excited to work with Chairman Steele to advance our principled agenda, rebuild our party from the grassroots up, and elect Republicans all across Iowa. I am also encouraged by my conversations with Chairman Steele regarding Iowa’s First in the Nation presidential status. I will work closely with him to ensure Iowa retains its leading role for the 2012 caucus and beyond.”
Side note regarding the RNC leadership contest: I was surprised that former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell turned out not to be a serious contender, despite lining up a long list of endorsements from conservative intellectuals.
With Steele and Blackwell back in the news this month, I’ve really missed Steve Gilliard. He used to write hilarious posts about them in 2006, culminating in the classic rant You Have Shamed Us.
This might be an interesting little question following such a historic loss by the GOP and by the ascension of the first black leader of the party. Let’s face it, without a natural leader in the White House and Congress, Steele is the face of the Republican Party for the next 4 years whether the GOP likes it or not. He’s the face that will be representing the talk shows and national media a good chunk of the time.
I ask my question up top because from Canada, we’ve had a divided right during the 1990s, and now we have a divided progressive left this decade and onward. During the 80s, the Conservatives in power failed to appease the Westerners (i.e. Alberta, BC, Manitoba…), and so by the early 90s, the more conservative side split off and formed the Reform Party, while the moderate Conservatives stayed as the initial party. This allowed Liberals to win successive elections until the right got their act together and became Conservatives again.
So basically what happened was there was a split between two factions of the party, the moderates and the neo-cons. Now for the Republicans, they have the same problem. They’re struggling at an ideological level between the Christian Right and the Moderate/Business faction. My question is do you think the Christian Right would ever break off and form a party distinctly more rigid in its orthodoxy, especially now with a liberal/progressive President in the WH?
Iowa has generally had far less influence on the Republican nomination than on the Democratic nomination. Iowa, lest we forget chose George H.W. Bush over Ronald Reagan in 1980 and Bob Dole and Pat Robertson beat George H.W. Bush in 1988. The growing importance of the religious right in Iowa Republican circles is an obvious thread in your story. Iowa, after all, went for Huckabee in 2008. After the narrow W win in Iowa in 2004, the Des Moines Register ran a big story featuring the trancelike picture of a young religious right woman ecstatically for W. It was frightful in almost a sci-fi way (“invasion of the Party Snatchers” anyone?)
New Hampshire has done a better job historically in chosing Republican nominees. That’s even true in a year like 2000 when Iowa gave Republicans George W. Bush (NH was clearly for McCain). If the one “gift” of Iowa to national Republicans was President George W. Bush , no wonder they might want to change the order.
posed by DesMoinesDem… lets see first though, if Mr. Steele ends up serving out the term of RNC Chair, and just how powerful he ends up being.
On another note… Congrats to Mike Kiernan as the new IDP Chairman… itll be interesting to see how the IA redistricting apportions parts of IA3, IA4, IA5 into a central Iowa district that Mikey will run for.