Team Steele promised something akin to a prize fight at the recent RNC Chairmanship debate.
A Steele insider tells Power Play that the embattled chairman will “name names” and “make it personal” when he faces off with the four candidates looking to replace him as RNC chairman at today’s debate hosted by The Daily Caller and Americans for Tax Reform.
That it didn’t happen causes me to wonder if the pre-debate statement wasn’t simply stage craft, perhaps designed to get the others taking shots at him. I think Steele handled himself very well, in fact, but he has shown a tendency to enjoy playing the victim a bit too much during his term. If he wanted a me against them debate, he didn’t get it and he certainly didn’t start any fights. And while I continue to like Steele, that he lost so many PR and narrative battles, some of which he didn’t deserve, it’s that, almost as much as anything, that convinces me the RNC needs to turn the page. In prize fight terms, I ranked him fourth of the five RNC Chair contenders that took to the ATR/DailyCaller stage yesterday.
In lieu of judging it as a fight against one another, I’ve been thinking in terms of ranking them based upon how well they would likely perform as fighters for Republican candidates and the party going into 2012, especially given the unique demands of the job.
I liked Maria Cino more than I thought I would. Still, she struck me as someone who may very well need to be working for the next RNC Chair in an important role, as opposed to leading the team. She can spin it however she wants, but lobbying for Pfizer, which supported Obamacare, even to improve it on their behalf, means she was doing precisely what she now claims to have not been doing. Given that, plus the fact that even NRO didn’t buy her explanation of her supposedly Pro-Life stance, while acting contrary to it, she gets a DQ for disqualified. Frankly, after hearing her out, I’m glad we have someone like Maria Cino in the GOP. I’m just not convinced she’s the right person to be one of the leaders of it as RNC Chair right now.
I came away seeing Saul Anuzis as an able fighter, but ultimately second best in this particular case. He’s a favorite in some corners of the grassroots and I can see why. However, even as a member of the grassroots, my sense is, we need more than that. If Saul does come up short, it’ll be on the high-end fund raising side. We need a Chairperson who can work both with the base and high-end donors. It’s a fact of politics today, one to be taken seriously. For now, that ring is one in which I’m unconvinced Saul would truly shine.
As for Reince Priebus, his performance left him bloodied in my view. At times overly dramatic, repeatedly relying on catch phrases like “playing in the sand box” and “licking envelopes” didn’t impress and sometimes even insulted, as when he applied the term “sand box” to the Tea Party crowd. His remarks left the impression he doesn’t really think things out and speaks too loosely, as he did when calling Osama Obama three times in a row without catching himself. A man who likes to hear himself talk but doesn’t actually think about, or listen to how he sounds, or what he’s actually saying, or has said, can be a dangerous thing in an RNC chair. But then, we already know that. At least, I hope the committee does.
He looked on edge, or furtive, spoke from the side of his mouth and opens his eyes wider than his lips when he talks. At 38, looking at his real resume and accomplishments, beyond the PR blasts, frankly, I don’t see the heft needed for the slot. I’m afraid twelve rounds with hard fighting Democrats and an incumbent president on a national stage could leave a guy like Reince Priebus face down on the canvas and the GOP disappointed after 2012. This country can’t afford that given the crucial political and economic times we’re in. We need competence going forward, not a comeuppance.
Ron Johnson beat Feingold by putting up $8 million of his own, while raising another $4 million. Prior to the GOP wave of 2010, Priebus really had not delivered the goods in any measurable form back in Wisconsin, not so far as I can tell, despite his claims to the contrary. As a fighter, I was left with the impression that, if Reince Priebus walked into a dark room and tripped over a guy on the floor, his first reaction would be to reach for a phone to tell the world he knocked him out – and dramatically, at that. Sorry Reince, I’m just not buying it. The RNC doesn’t need a drama queen, especially not now, to say nothing of his actions behind the scenes as General Counsel and close confidante to Chairman Steele.
That leaves Ann Wagner edging out Anuzi in my book, at least for the January 3 go round. Over at The Washington Post, Jennifer Rubin says she has the goods for the base. I’d agree with that. But her resume goes well beyond.
… she sure was the most telegenic and amusing. What’s her favorite book? “Well, there is my kitchen table… oh, BOOK… I thought he said bar.” A lady who drinks at her kitchen table and owns 16 guns is hard for conservatives to dislike.
It’s that, combined with her campaign management and re-districting savvy, along with her state and big dollar national fund raising success I like best. She can and will punch, calling Steele out early, without going too far. Yet, she seems calm, controlled and professional, ever a smile on her face. That may be just the kind of person the RNC needs right now, someone with both the attitude to fight and the ability to raise big money to hire the right people so they can go kick some Democrat butt in 2012, while knowing the chairperson will have their back in a scrape. That, to me, is what the RNC Chair role is really about. Smiling professionally as she does it may give Wagner just enough of an edge over Saul, perhaps. If she has Anuzi’s grassroots appeal, combined with enough Mehlman-like political and fund raising savvy, it would be a combination that would serve the RNC and the GOP extremely well, especially now.
I’m not endorsing her, nor anyone, at this point. And in a race that can end up looking like anything from selecting a prom king or queen, to a hard fought political contest, I’m hard pressed to even predict a winner. But based upon her January 3 performance, I’m far from prepared to call it over for her on a technicality like a male co-chair in Wagner’s case. It’s my understanding there may be a way around the Rule 5 business, in any event.