RNC member asks Steele to resign as chairman
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/19/art.steele.gi.jpg caption="Steele is taking heat from members of his own committee."]WASHINGTON (CNN) - A member of the Republican National Committee is asking chairman Michael Steele to resign his post, saying that she has "never seen such ineptness in our GOP leadership."
North Carolina committeewoman Ada Fisher, one of three African-Americans on the 168-member committee, e-mailed members of Steele's transition team on Wednesday asking them to encourage the chairman "to step aside in the best interest of the party and let us elect another chairman." Steele himself was copied on the e-mail.
"From where I sit and from what I am seeing, Mr. Steele is further eroding confidence in the Republican Party," she wrote.
Fisher is an outspoken member of the committee who has never been a fan of Steele. She backed South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson for the committee chairmanship in January.
In the e-mail, first reported by The Hill newspaper and provided to CNN by a GOP source, Fisher wrote that "the fiasco with Rush Limbaugh is a Republican Horror Show."
"Limbaugh has already promised that 'His Conservatives' won't be giving to the RNC," she wrote. "I would suggest to you that that is a real bet. If we can't raise money and continue to allow the alienation of the few verifiable red states remaining, we are foolish."
Fisher argued that Steele's attempts to reach out to African-Americans are embarrassing.
"I don't want to hear anymore language trying to be cool about the bling in the stimulus package or appealing to D.L. Hughley and blacks in a way that isn't going to win us any votes and makes us frankly appear to many blacks as quite foolish," she wrote.
UPDATE: Reince Priebus, the Wisconsin GOP chairman who is heading up Steele’s transition team, dismissed Fisher’s criticisms.
“She has been spewing poisonous e-mails about Michael Steele from the day Michael Steele decided to run for chairman, on a weekly basis,” he told CNN.
Priebus said that Steele is halfway through a 60-day transition that includes a series of department reviews which will be followed by “implementation and hiring.”
“Key hires will be happening very soon,” he said.
Steele will also hold a series of “regional roundtables” beginning on April 2 in five different cities, meetings that will involve feedback and questions from state party chairman and executive directors.
Priebus said Steele is following through on his promise for “wholesale change at the RNC.”
“Doing the same old thing that we’ve always done after being clobbered in the last two elections would be absolute malpractice,” he said.
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She will be ostracized by the GOP for this. They hate the truth.
Didn't we see this happen in 2004 when everyone was upset with Howard Dean?
Hey Steele, Fisher is to you what you are to all African Americans.
LOL! Mr. Steele looks just like Dick Nixon in that picture...
I love it, they have no use for this token anymore I guess they realized that he is not the answer for minorities, I hope they replace him with Rush! LOL
She makes a good point about steele trying to be cool by using street slang.
Hes an extremely well educated,experienced politician.
He should start acting like it! and not using terms like "off the hook" and "my bad"
the only thing that would make all this nonsense more entertaining is for a republican leader to send out a cd with a song entitled "steele the magic negro" or for someone to draw a cartoon with rush in the back of a limo with steele as the driver. please someone draw that cartoon....please!
Why are our politicians so short-sighted to focus solely on the best path to getting themselves reelected vs. what might actually get us out of this mess we are currently in? Calling for Steele to resign because Rush has threatened to pull back fundraising?! This is not a game, nor is it a playground. I, for one, would love to see politicians check their party differences at the door and finally work together to come up with a good plan. Like it or not, in this situation, we may need the government to step in to stop the dominos from falling. Resisting working with peers across the aisle or worse, hoping that the administration "fails" for whatever reason, is ludicrous, because in the end, who really gets hurt if the administration fails? Only the Democrats?!
Mr. Steele, "Bro" U and WHITE RNC voter McCain! Pres "O" is the Chief, then RNC "We need a Bro". 60 days in, "THE RNC, U OUT AND RUSH IS IN" Pres "O" is home the next 8 yr's!
hey its not my fault i can't spell, i'm 14-locke
i'm 14 what do you expect?-locke
the republicans are just as responsable as the demacrats in the sense that if they try to place blame it'll send them straight to hell, they have to be the "night in shining armor" and if they're not then they'll look bad so much that they'll have to restart their entire scam for control because then they can resume their plans for getting all the positions currently occupied by democrats. then and only then will there be a true republican dictatorship.-Locke
oh and the whole being 14, sorry that's a lie to, i must keep my true identity secret-Locke
i agree with Lesley, the position has become a disastrous mess of a title. the way he parades around trying to get more voters by trying, and obviously failing,to get with the "in croud" may seem like a suitable and productive way to bust your standings, it is asinine and just being to needy. if i were a voter, i would steer clear of anyone trying that hard to get the popular vote. it generally means they are not doing very good and for good reason. but Lesley is absolutely right, he needs to get out
of the position-Locke
who would have thought that the so called "fad", as a fellow philosopher wrote, is exactly what this country needs most. the rise in African American political officials is just the wake up call to bring the population to the edge of their seats, and start voting smart instead of voting big. the increase of smart voters will,in no essence of this insulting, show a drastic decrease in democratic voters and a moderately increased number of republican voters. the decrease followed by the not-so drastic increase will bring about a balance in the power distribution of the two parties, rendering the dictatorship of either group non-existent- Locke
Enough already about Rush amd Steel. Mr Bojangles and his band of libs are stealing our Country and we're more concerned about stupid crap like this.
explain..., please-Locke