Is Michael Steele Done As RNC Chairman?

Since his recent dust-up with controversial radio talk show entertainer Rush Limbaugh, new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has raised the ire of the right wing wing of Republican Party. Today, political analyst James Carville even suggested that Michael Steele might even be done for as RNC Chairman and pressured to resign within days. This is too bad.

As the head of the Republican Party, Michael Steele has the job to represent the party as a reasonable alternative to the voters that offers reasonable candidates with workable proposals if elected to office. By comparison, Rush Limbaugh is a loud and crude bully who's never held a public office, not even dog catcher.

Rush Limbaugh is the same sort of bully that stole your lunch money as a kid or beat up the little kids on the playground. Bullies never have the intellectual means to reason very well, and only use their loud voices and brute force to bully around others. By comparison, Michael Steele is a civil and educated man, who once studied to become a Catholic priest. Anyone considering such a life career is able to think and meditate on issues. Steele was right to be critical of Rush Limbaugh's attempt to bully his way into acting as the de facto Republican Party head. Steele knows that Limbaugh is no good for his party. But then, like all victims of bullies who might make a weak attempt to stand up to them , Limbaugh intimidated Steele, and then Steele backed down and apologized to Limbaugh. It was just like the picked-on school nerd who freely hands over his lunch money once he is threatened by the school bully.

Part of the reason that Steele might be such an easy target for a loud-mouthed overweight former prescription drug addict like Rush Limbaugh is that his position as Republican Party Chairman was always a weak one. While Michael Steele is a very decent and intelligent man with plenty of personal charm of his own, probably he was largely selected by the GOP leadership as a counter to the immense popularity of Barack Obama and largely as a ploy to lure in many minority voters to the GOP. However, with political positions as conservative as any of the other lawmakers or candidates within the GOP, Steele really has very little new to offer. And so far he has offered few new ways to lure new voters to to the GOP. He's probably set himself up as weak target, just primed for a bully like a Rush Limbaugh to muscle around.

The fact of the matter is that Rush Limbaugh is certainly not the future of the GOP. Being rude and loud and obnoxious certainly won't lure in new GOP voters, and if anything will only shrink the smaller base of the existing GOP voters. Democrats account for around 40% of all voters and GOP voters around 33%, with the remainder split between independents. And Rush Limbaugh has little appeal with independent voters or with the many reasonable voters within his own Republican Party. Very few Republicans are loud obnoxious bullies like Rush Limbaugh. Probably, even many Christian Right voter find Limbaugh to be a crude and immoral man, with a lifestyle built on past drug abuse and serial marriages. That's hardly a magnet to attract them, and potentially only shrinks the GOP voter pool by driving many voters away.

After Limbaugh let it be known that he wished for the Obama Administration to fail, hoping that the nation falls into further economic crisis, which is easy for a millionaire radio personality to offer up since he will always have money regardless of his listeners own plights, he also made himself a legitimate target for the Obama White House to respond to as well.

The Obama Administration is probably perfectly happy to allow Rush Limbaugh to go out on the stage and make a complete fool of himself, acting as though he is the voice of the Republican Party. But, unfortunately the rightful head of the party, Michael Steele, is acting way too much like some schoolyard bully victim, crying all the way home to his mother. That's deeply sad.

Michael Steele might not have any grand plan for the GOP to regain power in the near future elections. He's hardly any grand strategist on the order of a Karl Rove. But he's a thoroughly decent man who certainly deserves far better treatment than this from some in his own party. Now just might be a good time for Michael Steele to decide to grow a good set of balls and to stand up to his bully and act like the rightfully elected GOP head that he really is.