WORD ON THE STREET: The next RNC chairman will be Norm Coleman, after he loses his recount fight and big donors see Michael Steele’s March numbers.
I can see how this might make sense: Steele has been relatively unpopular:
Most chairmen wave the party flag; Mr. Steele smiles and shreds it. A man of constantly colliding analogies, he compares Republicans to drunks in need of a 12-step program and to the mentally ill. He has insulted Rush Limbaugh and moderate Republican senators alike, and he has promised a “hip-hop makeover” that would attract even “one-armed midgets” to his party.
Norm Coleman would be a perfect replacement as RNC chair and the antithesis to Steele’s style. Even though Coleman lost the Senate race, he still has deep (although arguably corrupt) ties with Washington politicos as well as deep connections to one of the right-wing’s best fundraising machines. He knows how to pull money out of people as well as government and he knows how to smear opponents in a way few others do. Norm Coleman as chair might be exactly what the RNC needs right now.
More at Mike Allen’s Playbook’s on Politico.
After the Coleman Donorgate internet debacle do you think Republicans are this stupid? Wouldn’t the basic ridicule of having a guy who seemingly could screw-up a wet dream replace the guy who also can’t do anything right be too much? I admit I don’t have a lot of respect for the modern Republican party’s political intellectualism but this would be just throwing your hands up and saying fuck it let anybody do whatever they want ‘cause we got nothing. Oh wait that IS what they have done on everything as of late.
Bring on the Exorcist and the Snowbilly for 2012.
I don’t think so. Norm is going to be tied up in legal problems and potentially club fed for the next 5 years or more. I just can’t see this happening at this point.
Assuming Norm doesn’t get indicted, RNC Chair is a natural fit. He knows how to shake the money tree, he can be all things to all people (donors), and he doesn’t have to bother with those pesky ethics reports and such. Plus he needs the work, he has lawyer bills and election contest fees to pay (though I wouldn’t pay Trimble or Knaack a penny).
It’s very messy to replace an RNC chair. And dumping a black guy to get another white guy in record time might look worse than the snafus that steele has specialised in.
I love thinking back to four years ago when the establishment (and many republicans) were bloviating about how terrible “renegade” Governor howard Dean would be as chair of the DNC. Jump forward four years to tremendous Democratic electoral success, largely due to Dean’s fifty state strategy, and now the RNC chair will be lucky to keep his job, and in the meanwhile, Nearly indicted Norm Coleman is being considered as the leading candidate for his replacement.
Is this the same Norm Coleman who lost to jesse Ventura and Al Franken, and who just accidentally released his entire donor database (replete with credit card information) to everybody with an internet connection? You bet it is!
I have a post over at my blog discussing Michael Steele’s failed “hip hop” makeover for the GOP. Link is below.
http://www.ricoexplainsitall.com/politcs-economy/2009/3/16/michael-steeles-hip-hop-makeover.html
Seriously: Norm Coleman is to the republican party what the republican party is to the American political scene….an embarasment.