Michael Steele is a buffoon. He throws off periodic gaffes of a volume to make even Joe Biden blush. He’s had repeated scandals in the Republican National Commitee. And, not surprising, donations to the RNC have been way off this cycle, compared to donations to other conservative groups.
Yet every time he stops to insert is foot in his broadly grinning mouth, any speculation that “this may be the one that has the party leadership asking him to step down” turn to ashes, and he skips along to the next publicity screw-up.
Now, were I a conspiracy-minded Lefty, I’d speculate …
… well, that this was all a big plot. I.e.,
- Steele says something asinine, makes some cretinous tactical error, or lets something else embarrassing to the GOP happen on his watch.
- Donation flows away from the RNC and over to other, more shadowy conservative groups, run by those not in charge of the GOP.
- Those groups give money to the Republican candidates of their choices. (Repeat back to 1 several times.)
- Those Republicans win Primaries, knocking longer term GOP candidates, including a number of moderates, out of the running.
- GOP wins big in November, solidifying candidates beholden to the corporate/political interests that funded their way in, but not to the RNC.
- RNC is reduced to irrelevancy or, more likely …
- … RNC leadership then changes to get rid of Steele and put in the folks who have been running things outside of the RNC limelight, aided by all those candidates they just brought to power.
A lovely silent coup within the Republican party, with the benefit that (a) they’ve been able to make lots of donations that, unlike the RNC’s donations, aren’t as closely tracked, (b) they’ve gotten their own candidates into place, (c) they can repeat this indefinitely if they want to hold off on #7, or if they discover that the varied interests on the Right are able to function better together with a scapegoat at the RNC rather than having to decide with of them are in actual power in the GOP.
One minor question would be whether Steele is in on it or not.
Now, that’s if I were conspiracy-minded. I tend to think most conspiracy theories depend too much on too many people coordinating together in utmost secrecy, and this might be one of them.
On the other hand, it does seem to fit reality, and explains why Steele is still running the RNC …