Many Republicans rolled their eyes when Steele talked of bringing GOP principles to “hip-hop settings.” Some scratched their heads when he derided the stimulus bill as a wish list of folks wanting “to get a little bling-bling.” Others seemed bewildered when he offered “slum love” to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Rumors of Steele’s ouster began to gain steam as spring ushered in a particularly rotten season for his party.

So Steele, staring into the dark abyss that confronts the Grand Old Party, made an adjustment. For the better part of a month, he has mostly shunned cameras, turned down scores of interview requests (including one for this article) and dropped the off-the-cuff, in-your-face street talk that had earned him recognition, admiration, scorn and ridicule — sometimes all at the same time.

Instead he has embarked on a listening tour of state and Republican organizations, promising to transform the national headquarters from a political arm of the White House into the logistical hub of the loyal opposition.

He didn’t remain completely silent. It’s not in his nature. He went on CNN on Tuesday to declare “good riddance” to Sen. Arlen Specter, who had just defected to the Democratic Party, and issued a terse statement that concluded: “Republicans look forward to beating Sen. Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.”

That salvo notwithstanding, Steele and the GOP have been trying to shift the spotlight from him to the conservative values that bind members.

“The message was mixed at first — but I think Michael’s cleared that up,” said South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson, who was the last of Steele’s five challengers standing when the balloting for party chairman concluded on the sixth ballot in February. “There may be some interviews that caused consternation among some [RNC] members. Michael is new. He’s had a learning curve.”

Party leaders from both coasts said Steele was secure in his post. “In fairness to the chairman, you want to give him time to work the bugs out,” said RNC member Solomon Yue of Oregon, who supported Mike Duncan over Steele.

It’s not surprising that it’s taken time for Steele to get comfortable with party members. He is, after all, the most unlikely of Republican leaders.

Steele has been surrounded by Democrats for nearly all of his 50 years. He was raised in a Democratic family in a middle-class neighborhood in heavily Democratic Washington, D.C., where as a young man he volunteered for one of Marion Barry’s early campaigns. (Barry said through a spokeswoman he has no memory of that, though he said the two were friends.)

He raised his family in overwhelmingly Democratic Prince George’s County and was elected lieutenant governor in Democratic Maryland.

And in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s an African-American in a party that received only one in 25 black votes for its presidential candidate last fall.

“Republicans come in all colors and with all kinds of backgrounds,” said John Gizzi, the political editor at the conservative periodical Human Events. “Will Michael Steele’s color and heritage be helpful? I hope so, if it advances a conservative agenda.”

Steele was born at Andrew’s Air Force Base and adopted by a struggling couple living in D.C.’s Petworth neighborhood. He was raised by his mother who worked for minimum wage at Sterling Laundry, first in Georgetown and then on Blair Road, for 45 years. Her highest salary was $3.60 an hour. His father died of alcohol-related liver disease when Steele was 4.

Steele attended Archbishop Carroll High School near Catholic University in Northeast Washington. He was a big kid — today he is a burly 6 foot 4 — but he shunned athletics even at a parochial school where sports were king. Instead he thrived in drama. In “Damn Yankees,” he played the devil, who tries to lure a beleaguered Washington Senators fan into trading his soul for a championship; he was King Duncan’s son Malcolm in “Macbeth”; and in “Fiddler on the Roof,” he played Perchik, a Jew from Kiev.

Steele was straight as an arrow and clean-cut — except for a ’70s-era Afro — with a big personality and a self-deprecating sense of humor.

“If you were casting Michael, he’d be more at home in ‘High School Musical’ than in ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High,’ ” said Matt Dolan, a local tax lawyer who has known Steele since their days together at Bishop Carroll.

Jim Mumford, a drama teacher who directed Steele in school plays and recruited him for summer stock on the Eastern Shore, said his pupil was gregarious — much as he is today — but never a ham.

As for politics?

“Zippo,” said Mumford, who is now retired. He was quite surprised years later when Steele, who was attending law school after spending three years studying to become a priest, told him that he was becoming active in politics. And he was just as surprised to learn that it was with the Republican Party.

“Not that I ever spotted any liberal philosophy in him. But in a school in Northeast Washington, a lot of kids coming from blue-collar Democratic families, it’s just sort of a given what politics are.”

Even his mother was apparently surprised to learn of her son’s inclinations, Steele recalled in a speech before the Republican convention in 2004. He credited her and Ronald Reagan as his biggest political influences.

“She never took public assistance, because as she put it, she didn’t want the government raising her kids,” Steele said. “A lifelong Democrat, she once asked me how I could grow up to be such a strong Republican. I simply replied, ‘Mom, you raised me well.’ ”

And now it is the D.C. kid who will preside over the party in one of its most trying hours. Two polls this week found that barely one in five voters identify themselves as Republicans, the lowest number in a quarter-century. The party is split between those who believe it should return to its conservative roots and others who believe it should reach out to independents and moderates.

Steele appears to believe he can do both. As he told The Washington Times in February: “We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”

It is that mix of conservative values, black street talk and a disarming openness that paved the way for Steele’s rise through Republican ranks in areas dominated by Democrats.

“And now for something completely different,” Steele exulted after winning the chairman’s post in February.

On that score, at least, he has not disappointed.

Marc Sandalow is the former Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle. He is currently teaching politics and journalism at the University of California’s Washington Center.