An interesting look at the behind-the-scenes wrangling that led to Michael Steele becoming chairman of the Republican Party from Brad Todd. Todd, one of the smartest of a young generation of Republican strategists, describes a sophisticated national campaign to get Steele elected.
The core of Steele’s winning coalition were the RNC’s newer members-people like [Wisconsin GOP chairman Reince] Preibus and mostly-unknown state party chairs like Jim Greer of Florida and Bob Tiernan of Oregon. Half of Steele’s 21-person “whip team” on the committee rose to their current Party leadership roles after the disastrous election of 2006. They’re the brave ones who swam toward the sinking ship… Though the race is decided by a finite pool of 168 party insiders, Steele asked Republican activists around the country to sign up to support his bid for chairman. In the two months after Obama’s dispiriting rout, his website enlisted 42,000 such activists. Blaise Hazelwood, Steele’s campaign manager, put the 42,000 to work. Hazelwood first came to prominence as the driver behind the “72-Hour Task Force” in 2001-the party’s last meaningful revision to its tactical campaign playbook. This time, Hazelwood innovated again, asking those online supporters to email their national committee members. While urging a vote for Steele, the supporters pledged a specific donation of volunteer hours to their state parties. This caught the eye of hungry state chairmen like Preibus. This was a fresh committee: 141 of the 168 who voted had never served through a contested chairman’s race. They were much more impressed by Steele’s actions than by the cajoling of the old bulls. Steele was himself an underutilized talent during his term on the committee in 2001 and 2002. That experience birthed an Election Day operation surprisingly ready to do hand-to-hand combat against the GOP’s most experienced operatives.
