For RNC Chairman: Newt Gingrich.
A few weeks ago, Jon Henke at The Next Right
brought up the idea of installing Mitt Romney in the Chairman’s
chair at the Republican National Committee. I think it’s a worthy
idea for consideration, not just because I supported Mitt for the
nomination way back when (I love Palin, but I still believe the
better ticket would have been Mitt Romney/Peter Pace), but because
I think the GOP needs a major overhaul from top to bottom, and love
him or hate him (and quite a few people here quite obviously still
do
really hate him), Romney has made a career of turning
troubled entities around into highly successful enterprises.
However, since the man is reportedly not interested in it, it’s a
moot point.
Going with yet another guy who ran for the nomination this year,
there’s an active movement afoot in favor of drafting
Fred! for the job. Jon Henke in his follow-up
post to his Romney for RNC Chairman trial balloon suggested
once again dividing the Chairman’s spokesman and management roles
(i.e. Paul Laxalt/Frank Fahrenkopf Jr. in the 80s and Mel
Martinez/Mike Duncan in 2007) between Fred and Mitt to give us the
best of both worlds.
Another very, perhaps even more popular name, with people I
deeply respect, than either Mitt or Fred - especially in the
aftermath of 2006, and now in the aftermath of 2008 - is that of
former
Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele. Would it that President
Bush had listened then, because now, the GOP offering the job to
one of the better qualified men on the scene will almost certainly
open ourselves to the charge of engaging in the crassest form of
tokenism. Notwithstanding his qualifiations, a hostile Press Corps
is certain to report that his selection was solely in response to
the Democrats giving the nation it’s first black President. That
said, the fact is that the man ran one of the best campaigns in
2006 and likely would have won were it not for the albatross
President Bush and his Administration’s political incompetence had
become around the neck of every Republican. Add all this to his
very successful tenure as Chairman of the MD GOP and his two years
as the current sitting Chairman of GOPAC and he clearly has the
resume to take the reins at the RNC. Another advantage is that he
is a highly charismatic and able communicator - a welcome
difference from the last eight years of New Tone™.
In other words, Michael Steele is a first class choice …
But, at the moment, I believe a better person would be
Newt Gingrich. Back when I heard that the former Speaker was
thinking about throwing his hat into the ring for the Presidency in
2007, I was very definitely not happy. But as the Chairman
of the RNC, I believe the chances are better than even that he
would prove as positively transformational a figure as he did when
he took over the leadership of the House GOP from Bob Michel. First
of all, his
opinion of the GOP’s pedestrian coterie of pencil-pushing campaign
consultants pretty closely matches my own (strangely enough,
so do a lot of actual GOP campaign consultants). And second,
and most important of all; he gets it - the
fact that political success is about all of the following in equal
parts; salesmanship, vision and principle.
Watch this below; this is Newt at Mackinac Island, Michigan last
year. Take note of the fact that he points out the need for
innovation in communications strategies to circumvent the liberal
Press Corps, he mentions outreach efforts and messaging, he talks
about recruiting in every area for offices at all levels of
government, he addresses the importance of ideas and following
Thatcher’s algorithm of winning the argument in politics - the
basic building blocks of any overaching strategy to rebuild a party
on the ground and struggling to get up. Consider also, that he has
been on the receiving end of what Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, and
most recently, Sarah Palin and Joe (the Plumber) Wurzelbacher have
endured, and therefore, unlike every other top echelon Republican,
he’s not burying his head in the sand about the MSM’s partisanship
and bias.
Newt has apparently
let it out that he would be willing to serve if called upon by
the Republican National Committee and apparently
both his and Steele’s camps are gearing for the selection by
the full committee in January. He’s also made it clear what
direction he wants to go …
The RNC has to do some soul-searching and decide what
level of change is necessary. If that answer is bold, energetic
change led by someone who has done it before, then Newt would be a
good choice … If the party is eying a shift toward the middle,
that isn’t Newt …
In truth, I’d be happy with either Steele or Newt. But at the
moment, I believe that every Republican interested in guaranteeing
that our sojourn in the wilderness would end much sooner than the
Left is gleefully predicting should inform the 168 people that
constitute the full body of the Republican National Committee to
elect Newt Gingrich to be the next Chairman of the RNC.
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