Michael Steele faces test in electoral races

Things are looking up for the once-beleaguered Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele on the eve of his first Election Day since getting the party’s top job.

They will look even better for Mr. Steele, the first black to head a major national political party, on Tuesday night if the Republican Party racks up wins in the three biggest contests on the board: the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and the special election to fill a vacant House seat in upstate New York.

The sometimes gaffe-prone former Maryland lieutenant governor earned some very mixed reviews for his first nine months as leader of the Republican Party’s top fundraising, candidate-recruitment and voter-energizing committee.

Normally the top fundraising organization in either major party, the RNC under Mr. Steele, which raised $22.9 million in the July-September quarter, has been outdone by the rival Democratic National Committee, which reported $24.2 million for the same quarter.

However, party officials say the RNC has largely regained its edge since Mr. Steele took office at the end of January and completed his reorganization of the national committee in July.

“So far, fundraising has been solid,” Randy Pullen, the RNC’s elected treasurer, told The Washington Times.

Republicans in the know say privately, however, that small donations, averaging $36 each, are coming in but not the big-time contributions — the kind a national chairman is expected to cultivate. Mr. Steele, insiders tell The Times, is making few of those major-donor pitches.

Mr. Steele ran for chairman on a promise to be the face and voice of the Republican Party, which was otherwise leaderless — and still reeling from resounding back-to-back electoral defeats nationally.

However, a Rasmussen poll last month found him still trying to make a mark even within his own party. The poll showed that 39 percent of likely 2012 Republican Party primary voters had a favorable view of Mr. Steele and 27 percent saw him unfavorably, while about 35 percent said they still don’t know enough about him to make a judgment.

Mr. Steele in interviews has embraced the idea that Tuesday will be a “referendum” not only on President Obama, but on his own tenure as well.

In Virginia, Republican Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell is on track to reclaim the governorship for the Republicans, with the RNC heavily supporting his campaign. In New Jersey, Mr. Steele has campaigned in person for Republican challenger Christopher J. Christie in his tight race against incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine.

And Mr. Steele’s RNC had to move fast in the New York special House race when the official Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava, dropped out of the race late last week in the face of an insurgent campaign from Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman that split the party’s upper ranks.

Mr. Steele praised Ms. Scozzafava — who subsequently endorsed the Democrat in the race — for dropping out and quickly lined up behind Mr. Hoffman.

“Effective immediately, the RNC will endorse and support the conservative candidate in the race, Doug Hoffman,” Mr. Steele said in a statement released Saturday. “Dougs campaign will receive the financial backing of the RNC and get-out-the-vote efforts to defeat [Democrat] Bill Owens on Tuesday.”

“We’re lucky these elections aren’t a referendum on our party,” said American Conservative Union Chairman David A. Keene. “If they were, we’d lose because people still aren’t sure our leaders ’get it.’”

Whatever the outcome Tuesday, the unusually public criticism of Mr. Steele from state Republican Party chairmen and other elected RNC members has dwindled to almost nothing in recent months as he has taken to doing “pretty much the job he was elected to do — all that a chairman can be expected to do,” Mr. Pullen said. “We’ve spent tons of money on the two targeted races this year — in Virginia and New Jersey.”

From the outset, Mr. Steele set the bar high for himself.

After fighting his way to a six-ballot election as chairman in January, he said he would yank “old” from “Grand Old Party and execute an “off the hook” public relations campaign to sweep young voters into the party. Because the party had become too much identified with the South, he pledged to recruit “messengers to really capture … young, Hispanic, black, a cross section” of new voters. He would preserve the party’s conservative principles but “apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings,” he said.

How’s he done so far?

Mr. Pullen cited several Steele achievements, beginning with the RNC’s spanking-new interactive Web site — the subject of which has become almost an obsession with Republican Party officials looking to bring their party up to digital parity with tech-savvy Democrats. Mr. Pullen also praised the hiring of former Colorado party Chairman Gentry Collins as RNC political director and Ken McKay as chief of staff and the creation of a “coalitions department” that party leaders hope will pay big dividends in the longer term.

The RNC’s new Web site, which debuted last month, “is the best thing we have now for focusing on how to reach out to young people to register Republican,” said Mr. Pullen, who also is the elected Arizona Republican Party chairman.

But other Republicans give the DNC’s Web site the nod over the RNC’s. “I regret to say it’s the DNC site hands-down,” said former Republican Rep. Bob Schaffer of Colorado. “It’s action-oriented, fresh, better organized, more visually pleasing. It makes socialism look fun.”

Wendeen Eolis, a Republican who was senior adviser first to New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and then to New York Gov. George Pataki, said, “The DNC Web site is more calming and compelling in its visuals. The Democrats also get the nod for more balanced headlines between hip and simple.”

On another front, Mr. Steele is getting a handle on his unfortunate penchant for gaffes, according to Louisiana RNC member Ruth Ulrich.

“His statements early on showed a man on the learning curve,” she said. “He no longer makes statements that open him and the party up for criticism.”

Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy, citing fundraising and the party’s more thoughtful image, gives Mr. Steele high marks for his tenure so far.

Douglas McKinney, West Virginia Republican Party chairman, said Mr. Steele’s two biggest achievements so far are “simply surviving as chairman” and “uniting the other chairman candidates.”

Asked if the chairman and his team are doing what’s needed to help the party win back Congress and the White House, Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Gary Jones said Mr. Steele and his consultants are “probably doing a decent job.”

However, he said the RNC still is “too heavy-handed as far as working with the state parties — too much control over and not enough working with the state parties.”

At least one RNC member gives Mr. Steele the highest possible grade.

“I give him a 10,” said Sharon Giese, Arizona RNC member, who cited three top accomplishments: “fundraising, visibility and re-organizing the RNC.”

Mr. Steele has been in an organizational bind from the beginning of his chairmanship. For the first time in the RNC’s history, there are formal ideological subgroups operating within the national committee — the 24-member Republican National Conservative Caucus and the 96-member Conservative Steering Committee, formed last year to try to elect a conservative national chairman. Both want the national chairman to take a leading role in setting conservative policy for the whole party, including its House and Senate members and leaders.

Neither subgroup is completely comfortable with Mr. Steele’s leading the way on conservative policies — mainly because they aren’t convinced he is a conservative.

For this reason, Mr. Steele is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.