Posts Tagged ‘Michael Steele’

Someone left a copy of an RNC fundraising presentation given by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart laying around, and Ben Smith of Politico got a copy. The presentation is anything but laudatory regarding Republican donors.

One slide covers the motivations of the givers. For smaller givers (Visceral Giving), the first reason listed is “Fear.” Their other attributes of interest are “Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration” and “Reactionary.” The larger givers (Calculated Giving) want to be on a “Wall of fame” and are “Ego-driven.” These givers also face “Peer-to-peer pressure,” want “Access,” and are looking for “Networking opportunities.” It almost sounds like they hate their donors.

A big portion of the RNC strategy is to play on the fears of possible donors, making sure to note that they can “save the country from trending toward socialism.”

The main thrust of the strategy seems to be manipulating their stupid or big-headed donors into giving more money.

The slide show also contained a page dedicated solely to caricatures of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid. The title of that slide is “Evil Empire.” Because the President of the United States, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and the Majority Leader of the United States Senate are evil, I guess.

The RNC was quick to distance Chairman Steele from the controversy. “Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the Republican National Committee – in any capacity – in the future.”

Odd that their financial chair would give a presentation at a $2,500-per-head retreat when there is no plan to use any of the information, huh?

It’s also quite telling that the fundraising strategy isn’t about presenting different, better ideas than the scary ones Democrats are giving. Instead of focusing on how they would govern, the focus is on fear. It’s been obvious to most that this has been their strategy (death panels, Nazis, Glenn crying, etc.), and it’s hard to think anything different when they admit it in a confidential fundraising presentation.

Enjoy the spin on this one.

Adam Feser

RNC Chair Michael Steele claims the GOP has no ideological divisions. I am not sure I agree. The GOP has seemed fractured for some time.

The whole thing was brought up by a congressional race in New York’s 23rd Distrcit. Dede Scozzafava, the Republican nominee, eventually dropped out after Doug Hoffman received high-level endorsements (from the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck) and momentum. (Scozzafava remarked that what all Hoffman’s endorsements had in common was that they didn’t live in New York’s 23rd). Hoffman got all of his momentum and Scozzafava dropped out because she was seen by many Republicans as too moderate.

So the more conservative movement won a victory by getting their preferred candidate, Hoffman, in the spotlight. But they lost the race and a traditionally GOP seat in the process. Regardless of the outcome, the more conservative movement feels it won.

This seems sort of reminiscent of when MoveOn.org threw their weight behind more liberal candidates. The difference is that no then there was a Republican president, and now there is a Democratic president. Maybe having the president makes fractures less likely. Perhaps I should do some research and write a paper about party divisions comparing parties with the presidency and without.

Sorry for that little digression, but it does seem interesting. I think there is a strong division in the Republican Party. I don’t mean the common disagreements on specific issues, but a larger scale rift. I wonder if you, the reader, agree with Michael Steele that there is no rift or side with me and believe there is a rift.

Here’s another article about it:

Enjoy Miller leading a comeback (get behind him already!).

Adam Feser

RNC head Michael Steele wrote a piece for the Washington Post, and it is just odd. A large part of it is meant to scare seniors about their Medicare coverage. Another part of it is to promise the seniors that he will work to ensure their coverage is not toyed with.

Does this strike anyone else as ridiculous? He’s spreading fear about a government-run program ruining and rationing health care while at the same time promising to keep a single-payer, government-run program strong. He’s singing the praises of a program Republicans have always hated. It’s just silly.

Ed Kilgore also sees a return of the “welfare wedge,” as he calls it. It is a classic argument used by conservatives to try and stop programs. Undeserving, lazy people (welfare queens) straight up steal your hard-earned dollars. In this instance, Steele frames it as undeserving people will steal your health care. (I can’t help but think of people not willing to wait in line, even if it means others go without care. How compassionate we are.)

This is a weak argument, because Medicaid covers many of the classic welfare queens so many conservatives hate. This bill is to help people that are working or were recently working that simply cannot afford care.

At any rate, it’s an interesting article.

Enjoy Inglorious Basterds.

Adam Feser

Michael Steele, Republican National Committee Chairman, gave a speech against health care reform. It appears much of the speech came directly from a memo by Alex Castellanos, Republican strategist. For the similarities between the memo and the speech, view the link.

I’m not terribly surprised by the use of phrases and such from the memo. If they polled well, they’ll be used. What is surprising is Steele’s response to a question about whether or not he favors requiring citizens to get health coverage. “I don’t do policy,” he replied.

So, first of all, if he doesn’t do policy, why is he speaking about a policy proposal? Why should we care what he has to say about the Democrats’ proposals? Why does he care about politics? Why is he the RNC Chairman?

When asked why the GOP didn’t act to reform healthcare when they were in charge, he claimed there was a “general lack of focus on the issue.” So instead of helping to solve a problem, he’ll just stand up there spouting the same garbage in an attempt to kill an actual attempt at reform.

He did eventually bring up some Republican ideas, but he didn’t mention their ideas were all included in the Democrats’ version. (Side note, does this mean the bill is already bipartisan?) Also, if he doesn’t do policy, why was he even discussing policy ideas?

Republicans should be upset with their representatives. Instead of trying to solve what is an obvious problem by presenting their own ideas, they are spending all their time shooting down the ideas of others. Maybe if they could come up with a better plan to insure the 45 million Americans without healthcare, we would all jump on board. But instead of demonstrating any ingenuity, they are simply proving themselves to be a party of “no.”

Republicans should demand an alternative. Dr, get some people on the horn and demand something to root for. It must get old constantly saying, “Yes, I want everyone to be insured, but I don’t like how you do it” without the ability to say, “And I think we could do it like this.”

Then maybe we could debate some of the merits of your ideas instead of the constant “Government sucks at running programs,” “No they don’t” back and forth.

Enjoy the reform push, ’cause it’s a comin’.

Adam Feser

I’ve loved this tea bagging thing. There are plenty of things hilarious about this, including the obvious sexual connotations Republicans don’t seem to be aware of. (For those of you not aware of the dirty version, click here. Seriously, do not click the link if you are underage or easily offended.)

First of all, they have representation, making the comparison to the Boston Tea Party silly. Losing does not mean you lack representation.

There was also the fact that a Chicago Tea Party group rejected Michael Steele. The RNC chairman apparently lacks clout.

Then there was the crazy people in the parties. The video of the guy claiming the commies infiltrated our country in the 50s didn’t help. The switch to digital cable is also apparently a means of brainwashing us. The same video had people yelling about burning books and pulling kids from college because they’re being brainwashed. Burn those evolution-teaching books, they say. Here is that link: Insanity.

There’s also the fact that most of the people at the parties actually received a tax cut.

This isn’t grassroots, it is, as Paul Krugman puts it, astroturf, or fake grassroots. This isn’t citizens spontaneously tea bagging, it’s manufactured by people like Dick Armey.

Here David Shuster does a pretty good job of breaking this thing down. Both he and Krugman point out that taxes on the top bracket under Obama are 10% lower than under Reagan, God of fiscal conservatives. He also nails Fox News, especially Neil Cavuto. Cavuto defended Fox News’ promotion of tea bagging by claiming Fox News was there for the Million Man March. The problem is that Fox News did not exist at the time of the Million Man March. Oops.

This whole thing is pretty funny. I’m sure these people have some pretty great policy alternatives. Burn evolution books!

Enjoy the insanitea bagging (couldn’t help myself).

Adam Feser

Update: Apparently this did get Steele in a bit of a pickle.  Once again, what came out of his mouth wasn’t what he meant.  He either is a ridiculously bad speaker or is full of it.  Here is a link:  Steele in trouble. Thanks to aks for the heads up.

Michael Steele, in an interview he did with GQ, basically said he is pro-choice. I’m not sure if he meant to, but that is how it looked. Michael Steele is off to a rocky start as the new chairman, and this probably won’t help. How about his “beyond cutting edge” attempt to bring the Republican Party to the hip-hop community? For someone just stepping into the national political spotlight, he has said a lot of questionable things. He called out Rush Limbaugh, saying his rhetoric is incendiary and ugly. As with all Republicans, he instantly apologized. He apparently believes both that Rush’s rhetoric is horrible and that he’s a great leader. At any rate, Steele is not making things easy for himself.

Enjoy the upcoming apology for his pro-choice slip.

Adam Feser