Steele makes case to keep post at GOP
Chairman faces four challengers
WASHINGTON – GOP Chairman Michael Steele defended his rocky two-year tenure anew Monday and asked for another term, boiling his re-election pitch down to this: “My record stands for itself. We won.”
The embattled Republican National Committee chief was referring to GOP victories that included winning control of the House. Still, as he debated four challengers ahead of next week’s balloting by the 168-member panel, Steele added: “We can do more and we will do it better” and “the opportunity for all of us now is to go forward to continue to build on the successes that we’ve had.”
Pressing for change and claiming fiscal mismanagement, Steele’s opponents were unified in saying that fundraising ahead of the 2012 presidential election must be the primary focus of the next chairman in the wake of debt as high as $20 million. They also said the party leader must lure back to the RNC deep-pocketed donors who supported independent organizations out of a concern that Steele would misappropriate their money.
It was the second debate of the race, though the first that Steele attended.
Throughout the 90-minute face-off in downtown Washington, Steele’s opponents were polite and didn’t attack the chairman directly, though all made clear they believed the RNC was in shambles.
Ann Wagner, a former Missouri state GOP chair and a former ambassador, called the RNC an organization that’s lost credibility and is steeped in mismanagement, adding: “It is time for some tough love.”
“We must get our fiscal house in order,” rebuild a fundraising apparatus and strengthen state parties, said Maria Cino, a New York native who served in the Bush administration.
Saul Anuzis, a committeeman from Michigan who lost to Steele in 2009, said “the RNC is at a moment of crisis” and that he would be the best choice to “articulate the message, make the trains run on time, and raise the money necessary.”
Wisconsin GOP chairman and RNC lawyer Reince Priebus, who ran Steele’s 2009 bid, argued that he fits the bill, saying: “We need a chairman who is going to be an absolute workhorse, someone that’s going to put their head down, someone that’s going to bring unity to our Republican National Committee.”