Lt. Gov. Michael Steele insists he and his campaign for U.S. Senate are not keeping their distance from President Bush.
“I?m not running away from the president, I?m not running toward the president. I?m running for the U.S. Senate,” Steele said Wednesday in the first of what he said would be “regular” telephone press conferences.
In several public statements in the past few weeks, Steele has staked out positions at odds with the Bush administration on cuts in homeland security grants, reductions in student college aid and extension of the Medicare drug prescription deadline. He was in Las Vegas to raise money for his own campaign last week when Bush headlined a fundraiser with Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
Steele accused reporters of applying “a double standard”: If he appears with Bush, as he has on several occasions, “I?m cozying up to the president,” Steele said. “If I?m out of town, I?m running away from the president.
“What?s important is what I think, not what George Bush thinks.”
But “I?m very proud of the support that I?ve received from my national leadership,” including the president. “I know that Kweisi [Mfume] wishes that his own party would drop a dime for him,” he said, referring to a Democrat running for Senate.
The state Democratic Party is dropping plenty of dimes to link Steele with Bush. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Democrats sent out press releases quoting news articles, most from 2004 and 2005, showing Steele?s support for Bush policies on Iraq, No Child Left Behind, tax cuts and privatization of Social Security.
“Michael Steele?s America is a lot closer to George Bush?s America than most Marylanders would like,” said Derek Walker, executive director of the state Democratic Party.
These attacks are consistent with a March 27 consultant?s report to the party, distributed to reporters by the state GOP, that says: “Connecting Steele to National Republicans, especially on issues such as Medicare reform and Social Security privatization, can turn Steele into a typical Republican in the eyes of voters, as opposed to an African-American candidate.”
