The Elephant In The Room-- Michael Steele Is A Crook

Despite Michael Steele's grasping the third rail of Republican Party politics-- and refusing to let go-- Chris Cillizza offers the controversial-- some would say "clownish"-- RNC chair a glimmer of hope that he won't be out on the street looking for a job again-- at least not right away. In his Washington Post column today, Cillizza lists 5 reasons why Michael Steele won't be removed anytime soon.

1. No More Drama: The Republican Party is reeling from a disastrous 2008 election and a race for party chair that publicly exposed the fissures between its warring factions. The last thing the party needs now is further chaos at the top, which is what would almost certainly ensue if Steele was ousted.

2. Symbolic Suicide: In the after-action report of the 2006 and 2008 elections, Republican operatives concluded that one of the party's biggest problems was that they were viewed as the party of old white men. Putting Steele atop their party infrastructure was a move greeted with a sigh of relief by the GOP's professional political class. Pushing Steele aside just over a month into his tenure would send the exact wrong message about who the Republican Party is and where it's going.

3. If Not Steele, Who?: The field for RNC chair was roundly panned as lacking any real star power. Among a group of largely unknown party chairs from around the country, Steele was the only candidate who could make the case that he could be a star thanks to his personal magnetism and charisma. While that bet hasn't paid off to date, there's not an obvious candidate who could step into the void if Steele was knocked out.

4. Procedural Problems: National party committees are ruled by a series of arcane rules and procedures for doing just about anything. (Ask anyone who attended the RNC chair election; it seemed to go on forever.) Removing a party chairman, not surprisingly, is not something that can be done quickly or easily.

5. Positive Movement: After a month occupied by a huge internal review led by a committee of 10 RNC members, the senior staff is starting to fall into place. Ken McKay, a former chief of staff to Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri, was named executive director on Thursday, and today Trevor Francis, a managing director in Burson-Marsteller's media practice, will be announced as communications director. Putting the senior staff in place should quiet some of the chatter that the committee is off the rails.

But what Cillizza isn't taking into account are the implications of the FBI probe into Steele's embezzlement of campaign funds to enrich himself-- and his role in an elite GOP prostitution service, some of whose big name clients are now in prison.

In his wingnut opinion column in yesterday's DC Examiner Byron York was willing to shout about something other Republicans have only whispered about; "There has been all but no discussion of this kind of thing," said an RNC member. "People are terrified that discussing it can make it a reality." It's the elephant in the room though-- and everyone knows about it now. York: "[T]here is another issue about the new chairman that is the topic not of public discussion but of worried private conversation among some of the RNC's 168 members. That topic concerns the allegations of financial irregularities in Steele's 2006 run for Senate from Maryland.  While some RNC members, including the chairman himself, view those accusations as completely unfounded, others worry they could dog the Republican party for months to come, even as Steele tries to remake it."

On February 7, just a week after Steele was elected, the Washington Post reported in a front-page story that Alan Fabian, the finance chairman of Steele's unsuccessful 2006 run for the U.S. Senate, told federal prosecutors that Steele "arranged for his 2006 Senate campaign to pay a defunct company run by his sister for services that were never performed." The day after the Post story appeared, Steele, speaking on ABC's "This Week," said the money-- it was about $37,000-- was "a legitimate reimbursement of expenses" for catering and other services provided by his sister's company.  Steele pointed out that Fabian has been convicted in a multi-million dollar fraud case and made the allegations against Steele in an unsuccessful attempt to have his sentence lowered.  "Those allegations were leveled by a convicted felon who is trying to get a reduced sentence on his conviction," Steele told ABC.

In late February, WBAL-TV, a television station in Baltimore, reported that Steele's 2006 campaign paid $64,000 to a company called Allied Berton, owned by a friend and a supporter of Steele's. The station reported that Allied Berton is a commodities trading firm, dealing in minerals, metals, and agricultural products.  The report said that finance reports filed by the Steele campaign listed the services provided by Allied Berton as "political consulting." When WBAL tried to ask what kind of political consulting a commodities trading firm performed for the Steele campaign, a Steele spokesman declined to comment.

The allegations, which haven't received much national attention, have nevertheless rattled a number of RNC members across the country. "This came out right after his election," one member told me Wednesday. "If people had known that when he was running, he would not have won."
"The committee is split almost down the middle on this," the member continued. "The people who are concerned are very concerned. These are very serious allegations."... [H]is handling of the question is just making already skeptical RNC members even more skeptical.

And in the background is the race to replace Kirsten Gillibrand in one of the only Republican-leaning districts left in New York State. Replacing moderate Democrat Gillibrand-- who is now a U.S. Senator-- with a well known, if inept, local Republican Party hack, Jim Tedisco, was supposed to be Steele's cherry on the cake of the GOP resurgence his election as RNC chair was symbolized. But now Tedisco, once seen as a shoe-in, is blaming the RNC (and the equally inept NRCC) for blowing his 21-point lead, a lead that is down to 45%-41%... for an election on March 31. Independent voters looked at the two candidates and at the obstructionist behavior of the national Republican Party and its bizarre leaders and moved firmly out of Tedisco's camp and into Murphy's. Many observers say that if Tedisco manages to lose the race, it will be another nail-- perhaps the final nail-- in Steele's coffin.