Steele Becomes First Black RNC Chairman

On Friday, Steele said, "It's going to be an honor to spar with the new president, and I'd add, 'How do you like me now?'"

WASHINGTON, (MCT) - Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele became the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee on Friday, promising to renew a dispirited party by challenging Democrats in every place and among every demographic group.

He won on the sixth ballot, after more than five tense hours of backroom maneuvering among five candidates battling to win a majority of the 168-member committee. Steele bested his last standing rival, Katon Dawson of South Carolina, 91 votes to 77.

Steele accepted with a pugnacious optimism that stood in contrast to expressions of concern by party leaders that the GOP was shrinking, increasingly limited to its Southern base and unable to attract minority voters.

"It's time for something different, and we're going to bring it to them," Steele said. "We're going to bring this party to every corner, to every boardroom, to every neighborhood, to every community. And we are going to say to friend and foe alike, 'We want you to be part of us, we want you to be with us, and those who are going to obstruct, get ready to be knocked over.' "

Steele's selection was also unusual because the RNC tends to select its leaders from among its own ranks and he's not a member of the national committee.

Steele works as the chairman of GOPAC, an organization that recruits and trains Republican political candidates. A former Maryland state GOP chairman, he was elected lieutenant governor in 2002 on a ticket with former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, the first Republican governor in nearly four decades. In 2006, Steele ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Maryland.

In that race, then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigned against Steele, calling him "amiable" but unqualified.

On Friday, Steele said, "It's going to be an honor to spar with the new president, and I'd add, 'How do you like me now?' "

Republican insiders said the candidacy of Dawson, the South Carolina party chairman, suffered as some voters worried he would reinforce the perception that the GOP is fast becoming a Southern regional party. Opponents also repeatedly pointed out that Dawson had resigned from an all-white country club as he began his campaign, a potential embarrassment in the year the nation inaugurated its first black president.

"The party's got to turn from vanilla to butterscotch," said Holland Redfield, the committeeman from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Aides said that Steele aggressively courted support from the territories, whose RNC members helped give him his margin of victory.

"This is a new day for the Republican Party and the nation," said Kevin DeWine, the new GOP chairman of Ohio. He declined to disclose his vote, but praised Steele as a "visionary" and a charismatic spokesman who can "go toe-to-toe with our opponents on any national TV show or union hall."

Steele got a boost when the other African-American candidate, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, withdrew after winning just 15 votes on the fourth ballot, urging the committee to elect Steele.

We must be a party that makes good the promise of Lincoln," Blackwell said. "We must unleash a new birth of freedom." A social conservative, Blackwell was the favored candidate of the Christian right, and his endorsement was unexpected. After all, some conservatives believed that Steele was too moderate.

But former RNC chairman Jim Nicholson described Steele as otherwise. "He is quite conservative, and lines up with the value system of the party: pro-life, supply side economics, low taxes. He is center-right, just like the country."

The vote signaled a desire by party leaders to gain separation from former President George W. Bush, whose unpopularity helped drag the party's image down. Chairman Mike Duncan, installed in the job by Bush, withdrew from a re-election bid after getting 41 votes on the third ballot, down from 52 votes on the first ballot.

"Obviously, the winds of change are blowing at the RNC," Duncan said.

After his selection, Steele acknowledged that the GOP has an "image problem" that he will need to work hard to correct.

"We've been misdefined as a party that doesn't care, that's insensitive ... unconcerned about the dreams of average Americans," Steele said. "Nothing could be further from the truth. We've allowed ourselves to be marginalized; enough is enough."

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© 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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