Steele and the soul of the GOP

SAVANNAH —- To understand the churning passions within the Republican Party this weekend, all one had to do was play a game of follow-the-leader.

In one of two speeches on Saturday, national GOP chairman Michael Steele paid red-meat tribute to the defiance of 1,200 frustrated and angry delegates who showed up at the state Republican convention.

“We don’t have to remake anything. What do we have to remake? Our values?” Steele shouted.

But only a few hours earlier, at a smaller breakfast event, the chairman of the Republican National Committee had delivered a quite different message, using the blunt language that’s made him famous.

The chairman said he had inherited leadership of a party that was “stuck in a 1980s philosophy, using a 1990s strategy to win campaigns.”

The Republican demand for orthodoxy and purity, Steele said, risks making the party irrelevant to “the changing heartbeat of this nation.”

“We can no longer be afraid that to open up, to invite someone in, diminishes us. I don’t know how that works,” Steele said. “If you are true to your convictions, to your core, why are you so afraid to share that?”

The RNC chairman rushed out of Savannah without speaking to reporters. Unscripted moments have cost him lately —- plus, there was a Sunday appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to prepare for.

But more importantly, the head of the national GOP probably needed a few hours to ready himself for this week’s palace revolt.

The 108 days of Steele’s tenure as the first African-American chairman of the GOP will be marked by a special session of the 168-member Republican National Committee that elected him.

A faction within the RNC has placed at least two items on the agenda. One is a high school-prankish resolution to mandate that all Democrats be referred to as “Democrat Socialists.”

A more serious measure would put new controls on Steele’s power to determine where Republican cash resources —- which remain formidable —- will be spent.

Georgia has Republicans on both sides of a fight that is less about book-keeping practices and more about how Republicans should attempt to recover from four years of defeat.

Alec Poitevint, former chairman of the state GOP and a former treasurer of the RNC, identified himself as one of the “dissidents” insisting on tighter fiscal controls over the new chairman.

“We live in a more transparent world,” Poitevint said.

More exacting, business-style regulations would increase faith in Steele’s role as “CEO of the Republican National Committee,” the Bainbridge businessman said —- and “absolutely” should not be interpreted as the first move in an attempt to send him packing.

But Poitevint hinted at dissatisfaction with Steele’s early performance, which has been marked by gaffes —- the latest over Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith. “There’s an impatience within the Republican base. I think that’s what you see at the RNC,” Poitevint said.

Sue Everhart, re-elected by acclamation as chairman of the state GOP this weekend, twisted many an arm in January to get Steele elected. And she’ll do so again this week to preserve his authority.

To slap controls on Steele would be a blunder for a party looking to expand its reach, she thinks.

“We’ve had chairmen that were very extravagant; we’ve had chairmen that were frugal,” said Everhart. “To me, it would be sending a message. Do we not want him to be able to write checks because he’s black? We don’t trust him? Why?

“I don’t think we need to put anything on Michael that we didn’t put on any other chairman,” she said. “I think it’s just a bunch of people who didn’t get who they wanted, so they want to punish him.”

Linda Herren is the third Georgia Republican on the RNC. She’s not opposed to controls aimed at exorbitant spending.

But the constantly morphing draft resolutions she’s seen would require Steele to get approval for expenditures over $100,000 to $150,000.

“You can spend that in stamps,” she said. “That would pretty much tie his hands.”