Black Steele in the Hour of Chaos

It is darn hard to be a Republican these days. The voters have been clear over the past two national elections that they are not interested in GOP solutions to the nation's problems. One way to look at Barack Obama's victory would be to say that a Black man was able to win the presidency because America has moved forward with respect to its racist preconceptions (some have even argued that his race helped him). Another way to look at it is that the GOP is in such sorry shape that even a Black guy could beat their nominee. After all, research (and history) shows that in most cases, Whites will not vote for Black candidates. Obama was a special kind of candidate, but the contemporary GOP is an especially pathetic kind of party, too.

It was a weekend ruled by Steel (uh oh, Stephen's football bias seeps in). While the Pittsburgh Steelers collected their record-setting sixth NFL championship trophy, we remain somewhat ambivalent about the national Republican Party's choice of Michael Steele, who is African American, as the leader to get them back to a competitive position in American politics.

In a vote with multiple contenders that required a majority (as opposed to a plurality) to win, it took six ballots before Steele was declared the victor.

In some very interesting rhetorical maneuvering in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Steele repeated over and over that he was going to energize the base and bring back conservatism. He is referring to the "Reagan" wing of the party (Hannity, in typical form, could not wait longer than two minutes into the interview to mention Reagan's name), which historically has ignored if not shown outright disdain for the poor but pales in comparison to the most recent "base." Today's "base" has been a bigoted, anti-gay, anti-science, fundamentalist Christian crew that has rendered the Party largely irrelevant to the vast majority of 21st century Americans. So the first order of business for Steele is to redefine what the "base" of the GOP really is. When he said in his acceptance speech, "for those who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over," he could very well have been talking to those who seek to push the party further to the right and further into irrelevancy. (How Steele does not think Hannity is one of those people is curious, but Hannity supported him for some reason against more socially conservative opponents in the race, so we guess Steele feels grateful.)

In fact, Steele seems to recognize that AM talk radio might be bad business for the Party:

Asked about the controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh and his back and forth with President Barack Obama, Steele was careful not to wholly embrace the controversial conservative talk radio host. "Rush will says what Rush has to say, we will do what we have to do as a party," said Steele.

The election results were predictably met with some skepticism. Like the choice of Sarah Palin, Steele's rise could be seen as a trick -- a hypoctritical quota fill -- by a party for which a perception of exclusion has cost them dearly. Conservatives and progressives alike find such selection distasteful if, in fact, Steele's race was a deciding factor.

The Washington Post reports that the final ballot came down to Steele and South Carolina Republican chair Mike Dawson, who acknowledged belonging to a Whites-only club. Further, concern about Steele largely centered on questions of whether he was conservative enough; ultra-conservative (and also African American) Ken Blackwell of Ohio dropped out after the fifth round of balloting and swung his support to Steele.

So let's recap: despite Sean Hannity's endorsement, Steele 1) was elected despite not being seen as socially conservative enough by many party insiders; 2) beat Dawson, who belongs to an all-White club, after the Party already forced out of the race Tennessee GOP chair Chip Salzman for circulating the parody song "Barack the Magic Negro" (which came from Limbaugh); and 3) Steele has already mentioned America's poor more times in his first couple of days than his last three or four predecessors combined.

For real progress to be made, the GOP's policies have to match its symbolism, but it is reassuring that a White woman and a Black man have been placed in two of the three highest positions in the Party over the last few months. A skeptic will acknowledge that Party officials know that they must make such changes if they are to win the support of younger voters, but irrespective of intent, the outcome is positive. We are sure that we will disagree with Michael Steele on many policy preferences and possibly even political tactics, but the bottom line is that he has lived his life as a person of color in America, and that perspective can only help move forward the cause of similarly situated Americans.

And to be honest, we have always sort of liked Michael Steele because his campaign commercials during his U.S. Senate run in 2006 were so entertaining. But let's not forget: it was Steele who, during his speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, first invoked the "drill baby drill" chant and referenced Jeremiah Wright in order to leverage racist support for John McCain.

Still, given the options and acknowledging our suspicions about pandering, we are pleased for Michael Steele and hopeful that he will lead the GOP in a direction that is rooted in compassion for the poor and sensitivity to America's racist past as it opposes Obama's policies.