Posted March 13, 2009 – Surely, Michael Steele had a completely different expectation of what it would be like to break through the ultimate glass ceiling and become the HBIC – the Head Brother in Charge – of the GOP. After all, he likely pondered, the Democrats had gotten an HBIC of their own, and they lifted him up as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln.
But when Obama ascended to his party’s throne, there wasn’t a 300-pound shock jock with a boat load of money and a following of 20 million listeners already heating the cushion. So the challenge for Steele has been to figure out a way to wrest the reins of power from that shock jock, Rush Limbaugh, who is proving much more formidable than Steele ever could have imagined.
It’s still not clear why the Republican Party, which hasn’t warmed up to Black folks since before the Civil Rights Movement, decided on an African-American chairman in the first place. But what’s clear now is that Republicans are having second thoughts. Even Black members of the GOP are calling for Steele to step down. In recent days, Dr. Ada Fisher, a national committee member from North Carolina, said that Steele is "eroding confidence" in the party. "I don't want to hear any more language trying to be cool about the bling in the stimulus package or appealing to … Blacks in a way that isn't going to win us any votes and makes us … appear to many Blacks as quite foolish," Fisher wrote in a recent email.
Obviously, Steele is feeling the heat. In a less-than-stellar moment in leadership, he recently found himself apologizing – almost groveling – to Limbaugh for calling him “ugly” and “incendiary” and dismissing him as merely an “entertainer.” He said he had been misunderstood. And it’s a good thing he chilled out, because Limbaugh, a small-college dropout, had taken to the airwaves, sharing with his loyal legion of listeners why the Republican Party had made a grave mistake in naming the law-degree-holding former lieutenant governor of Maryland its chairman.
On Thursday, he was serving up another mea culpa after the media splash over his meandering from the party line on such stalwart conservative-value issues as abortion and homosexuality during an interview with Lisa DePaulo of Gentleman’s Quarterly magazine. In the interview, Steele said, "The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other." Responded DePaulo: "Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?" Steele replied: "Yeah. I mean, again, I think that's an individual choice. … Absolutely."
It took less than a day for the chairman to issue a statement designed to get the message back on track. "I am pro-life, always have been, always will be," said Steele. "I tried to present why I am pro life while recognizing that my mother had a 'choice' before deciding to put me up for adoption. I thank her every day for supporting life."
His comments about homosexuality have much more potential for trouble. Not only did he manage to undermine the longstanding Republican Party line that gay people choose to be that way, but once the multitude of Black evangelical preachers, who tend to be outspoken in their disdain for homosexuality, get wind that he likened being gay to being Black, he can expect to get a big-time ministerial beat-down. “I think that there’s a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that you just can’t simply say, oh, like, ‘Tomorrow morning I’m going to stop being gay,’” Steele said. “It’s like saying, ‘Tomorrow morning I’m going to stop being Black.’ ”
Tony Perkins, a White ultra-conservative who runs the Family Research Council, wasted little time responding to Steele’s comments to GQ. "I expressed my concerns to the chairman earlier this week about previous statements that were very similar in nature," said Perkins. "He assured me as chairman his views did not matter and that he would be upholding and promoting the Party platform, which is very clear on these issues. It is very difficult to reconcile the GQ interview with the chairman's pledge."
For many people inside and outside the party, the challenge is whether Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, is on the money with a prediction he offered up late Thursday. “Michael Steele is toast,” Rendell said.
What do you think? Will fellow Republicans force Michael Steele to resign as chairman of the party?