Uncle to Mike Tyson's kids continues to do crazy things

Michael Steele, Chairman of the RNC, just keeps getting wackier. A few weeks ago he declared that Congress was "thumbing their nose and flipping the bird to the American people".  While promoting his new book, "Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda", Steele busted out with:


"Our platform is one of the best political documents that's been written in the last 25 years. Honest injun on that. It speaks to some core conservative principles on the value of family, faith, life, economics. Those principles don't change."


Honest Injun? In the year 2010? Who says that? Where do you even learn to say something like that?


In the book itself, Steele accuses GOP leaders of having abandoned conservative principles. When those same leaders began to criticize him for blind siding them with the release of the book, Steele responded:


I'm telling them and I’m looking them in the eye and say I’ve had enough of it. If you don’t want me in the job, fire me. But until then, shut up. Get with the program or get out of the way.”


More details and video here.


Part of the GOP criticism of the book was that Steele wrote while he was supposed to be concentrating on his job as RNC Chair. Steele stated that most of the work was done on the book in 2008 and all he did was a bit of polishing last year. Makes sense to me.....But the inconvenient part is that TPM points out many of the events covered in the book didn't take place until 2009: The stimulus bill, the health care debate, foreign policy, ACORN, the party switch of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Tea Parties and the 9/12 March on Washington, etc.


Let's hope the RNC comes to their senses and makes Steele Chairman for life. 

More geniuses at the RNC

A few of the things that haven't stuck:

1. Obama is an iron-fisted dictator
2. Obama is a wimp
3. Obama will cause the stock market to collapse.
4. Obama will surrender to the Iraqis
5. Obama's Supreme Court pick is a man-hating racist
6. Obama has the audacity to go to New York on a Saturday night with his wife

Next on the list- rename the Democratic Party. New name, courtesy of RNC members: Democrat Socialist Party.

Economic crisis, North Korea testing nukes, GM in bankruptcy, unemployment still climbing....when faced with all of these issues, members of the RNC chose to focus their efforts on name calling. I'm sure they will be back in power in no time!

Kind of crazy when Michael Steele is the voice of reason in your party and helps put an end to this nonsense.

Marriage is bankrupting small businesses

Well, that's the take away I get from RNC Chairman Michael Steele's last statements, but I'm not real sure that even he knows what the hell he's talking about. Mr. Steele, uncle to Mike Tyson's children, is now casting his opposition to gay marriage as being driven by economics. The AP quotes him:

Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.
"Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for," Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. "So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money."

So when Jack and Diane want to get married, they are costing you money. Ungrateful punks.

Did Steele blow off the Jews for Tyson?

RNC Chair Michael Steele, who is the brother of Mike Tyson's second wife, attended the premiere of the new documentary "Tyson" but then skipped out the next morning on a scheduled speech to a group of reform Jewish leaders. I'm not sure that Steele will make it to 2010 in his current job. But I will continue to uphold my promise that I will look for every opportunity to mention that the RNC Chairman is the former brother-in-law of my buddy Mike Tyson.

Assorted Polling: Good news for Obama

A host of recent polls have been very positive - both for Obama himself and for progressive policies in general.

A Pew poll shows Obama at 61% approval with only 26% disapproval ratings, with 60% agreeing that the government needs to do more to regulate the financial sector (with only 31% opposed), and by a 54% to 36% margin Americans feel Obama's economic plan will reduce the deficit in the long term.

A recent CNN poll revealed that only 26% of America agrees with Dick Cheney's recent claim that Obama's policies have increased the chances of a terrorist attack against the United States, while a resounding 72% disagree. That 26% pretty well tracks Cheney's normal personal approval numbers, and the percentage of Americans who agree with almost any of his policies. But its a bad sign for the GOP - when they can't sell America on fear, they have a tough time winning elections.

Heck, more Americans polled feel their taxes are fair rather than too high. This as we watch the Fox News promoted "tea parties", where small groups of right wingers protested Obama's tax policies (even though all of them making less than $250,000 were getting tax cuts) and the expansion of the federal deficit in general (although strangely most of them were silent while Bush was running up deficit records).

Obama is also the most trusted current political figure, and 71% specifically trust him to fix our economy.

Much of this is the early support of a popular new President, elected with a clear mandate, who has been following through on his campaign promises. But part of it also has to be attributed to the comically poor nature of the opposition party. Following its massive defeats in the 2006 and 2008 elections, the GOP is still staggering about aimlessly, trying to find leaders and a message (one different than their usual stale platform that has been soundly rejected at the ballot box). When your public face consists of such crazies, has-beens, and not ready for prime time players as Michael Steele, Newt Gingrich, Bobby Jindal, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann, and Rush Limbaugh - something has gone very wrong. Ironically, many Republicans tried to convince themselves that their party's political ills were all due to Bush's low personal approval ratings. Yet compared to that group, he looks like the most sane, reasonable, well liked leader they have going for them.

More Steele news

Man, Michael Steele, RNC Chairman and uncle to Mike Tyson's kids, just can't get out of his own way. He's now backtracking from an interview he gave to GQ in which he sounded entirely too reasonable to be the head of the GOP:

Asked whether he thought women had the right to choose abortion, Steele said: "Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice."

On Thursday morning, Steele attempted to clarify his remarks in a statement.

"I am pro-life, always have been, always will be," he said. "I tried to present why I am pro-life while recognizing that my mother had a 'choice' before deciding to put me up for adoption."

Michael Steele - the party starting to end?

Reports today that top Republicans at the RNC are starting to have enough of Michael Steele.

I'm still kind of amazed he got the job in the first place. I know the GOP saw the lesson of the 2008 election results as "we need high profile minorities" rather than "our policies failed the country for 8 years", but Steele was still an odd choice. I remember watching his failed Senate campaign and thinking he was kind of a goof, who made all kinds of odd statements, and didn't run a particularly good campaign. And in his brief run as RNC chair he is pretty much doing the same, talking about how he is going to appeal to urban voters with an "off the hook" message, picking fights with Rush Limbaugh, and showing a general lack of organizational or strategic ability over at the RNC. It will be interesting to see how long he keeps that job.

JC Watts back in the mix?

It is not a coincidence that two of the "new faces" of the GOP, Bobby Jindal and Michael Steele, happen to be different faces than the traditional white male normally associated with the GOP. With the news that JC Watts is contemplating a return to public office, the GOP may have officially exhausted its bench of minorities.

The Steele-Rush duel

Obama's plan to make Rush Limbaugh the public face of today's GOP is looking more and more brilliant all the time. In an Obama vs. Rush debate, the American people will choose Obama every single time, and you can see that in all the recent polling. Now the actual RNC leader, Michael Steele, is pushing back. But I'm not sure how much better Steele is than Rush when it comes to the public face of a political party. All in all, I think every day the GOP spends deciding who officially represents them between Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele is a day the Democrats won.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/02/gop.steele.limbaugh/index.html

"Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in an interview with CNN that he, rather than Limbaugh, is "the de facto leader of the Republican Party." And Steele described Limbaugh as a performer. "Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment," Steele said. "Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly.""

Who da man?

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-Minn.) makes an idiot of herself yet again. At the CPAC dinner that she was emceeing, she told RNC Chairman Michael Steele " You da man. You da man."

No Michele, we already know who the man is:

Learning the wrong lesson from 2008

Update from Brian: Added the pic above because the best thing about Michael Steele is that he is the uncle of Mike Tyson's kids.

Reading all these articles about Piyush "Bobby" Jindal giving the Republican response tomorrow, made me wonder just what the GOP thinks the lesson of the 2008 election really was. First they select one of their few (only?) prominent elected African-American members, Michael Steele, as the new RNC Chair. Then they choose Jindal, an Indian-American, as their public face for the national address.

The Democrats look at their big wins in 2008 and see it as a vindication of their push for more progressive policies, competent leadership, and responsible government. The GOP seem to have looked at the 2008 election and thought "Our policies were great. We just needed less white guys".

This is a great time though to be one of the few elected minority leaders in the GOP - you are basically guaranteed lots of airtime and your choice of major roles.