Anuzis could challenge Steele for chair of national GOP
Former Michigan GOP Chair Saul Anuzis could challenge current national chair Michael Steele for the chairmanship of the national Republican Party, reports the New York Times.
Anuzis says he is considering a run in January to challenge Steele.
Saul Anuzis, who represents Michigan on the Republican committee and ran for party chairman two years ago, said he was considering running again. “There clearly have been many major donors who have dropped off and have not contributed,” Mr. Anuzis said. “That’s a problem.”
Steele, the first African American to chair the national GOP, has been under a barrage of criticisms, including failing to keep major donors happy and making comments that have caused controversy. In one such incident, Steele said the war in Afghanistan was “not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.” The war was started by the U.S. in 2001 when the Taliban rulers of the country declined to hand over Al Queda leader Osama bin Laden who was in the country and under the protection of Taliban military leaders. President George W. Bush authorized the military involvement in Afghanistan to get at bin Laden who was believed to have been behind the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and the Pentagon.
Anuzis was in the running for the chairmanship two years ago, when the national party chose Steele.
The Times also reports that several other national leaders are quietly working behind the scenes to convince Steele not to seek re-election to the post, as well as actively recruiting others to seek the post.
Michigan Republican to challenge Steele
Washington (CNN) - Pledging to focus on the “nuts & bolts,” Michigan Republican Saul Anuzis declared his candidacy Friday to head the Republican National Committee, setting up a potential showdown with current Chairman Michael Steele.
Steele has not publicly stated whether he will seek a second term, but is privately taking steps to do so including reaching out to trusted advisors to discuss his campaign team and strategy.
Anuzis unsuccessfully sought the chairmanship in January 2009, a contested battle featuring several candidates and multiple rounds of voting before Steele finally won.
Anuzis, currently an RNC national committeeman, states in a lengthy letter sent to fellow RNC members that he struggled with challenging Steele for the post, but ultimately decided that “the simple fact is that the overriding challenge we face is winning back the Presidency in 2012 and we will not accomplish that objective unless there is dramatic change in the way the RNC does business.”
The statement is a direct criticism of Steele’s leadership of the RNC, including questions about his fundraising ability and oversight of the committee’s funds. Steele has defended himself from this criticism in the past and points to the successful run Republicans have had during his tenure as chairman, including wining the late Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat, taking back the governorships of New Jersey and Virginia and the huge Republican gains made in the midterm elections.
But Anuzis seeks to neutralize Steele’s argument by stating that history has demonstrated, “We cannot be misled by our victories this year.
“In 1994 we won the House and Senate yet just two years later Bill Clinton cruised to re-election. As we’ve seen in the past two years public opinion can change with breathtaking speed. We can’t rely on our wins in 2010 to carry us to success in 2012. We also can’t win in 2012 unless the RNC re-establishes itself as the powerful force that put us over the top in the 2000 and 2004. But to be a force, the RNC must change and that requires new leadership at the top. I am offering you an alternative, a choice, a different approach to the leadership and stewardship of our party.
“Chairman Steele’s record speaks for itself. He has his way of doing things. I have mine.”
Anuzis goes on to offer further critiques of Steele, although he doesn’t mention the chairman by name. CNN has left telephone messages at the RNC and is waiting to see if Steele has a comment on Anuzis’ candidacy and comments.
In addition to sending the letter directly to the RNC members, Anuzis, who is known in GOP circles for embracing and advancing technology, announced his candidacy on Twitter and posted the letter on his personal Web site, That’s Saul, Folks.
In recent weeks, several other names have been floated as potential candidates for the chairmanship. The election will take place in January.
Did Steele play the race card in the RNC chair race?
Er, not really.
The Daily Caller accuses Michael Steele of playing the race card and hinting that racism might be the motive if he gets bounced from his position as RNC chair after a historic midterm victory. But the report by Jonathan Strong makes a weak case for it when the actual interview is heard: Embattled Republican National [...]
Steele Gets a Challenger
Michigan Republican National Committeeman Saul Anuzis announced that he’ll challenge RNC Chairman Michael Steele for leadership of the Republican party.
Anuzis, who ran for the post two years ago, is the first major challenger to announce a bid to unseat Steele.
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
First Major Challenger To Steele Announces Bid
Former Michigan Republican Party chairman Saul Anuzis on Friday will become the first major candidate to announce a bid to chair the Republican National Committee.
In a letter being sent to national committee members, Anuzis says the decision to challenge incumbent chairman Michael Steele did not come easy, given his close relationship with Steele. But, he says, the only way for Republican to win back the White House is to get the RNC on the right path.
“The overriding challenge we face is winning back the Presidency in 2012 and we will not accomplish that objective unless there is dramatic change in the way the RNC does business,” Anuzis wrote to members. “We can’t rely on our wins in 2010 to carry us to success in 2012. We also can’t win in 2012 unless the RNC re-establishes itself as the powerful force that put us over the top in 2000 and 2004.”
Many members of the RNC are unhappy with the committee’s direction after two years under Steele’s leadership. But Anuzis said he wouldn’t dwell on any perceived gaffes as he makes his pitch to members.
“I’m not discussing or addressing the past two years. Steele’s record is the record and it speaks for itself. I am focusing on what is in the party’s best interest this next cycle,” Anuzis told The Hotline as he prepared to make his announcement public. “People like that I’m not bashing Steele, second guessing his policies or highlighting his mistakes. I don’t have to. They are known, well-documented and written about.”
Still, Anuzis’s pitch is heavily laden with references to some of Steele’s more controversial moves. “My agenda is very straightforward. I have no interest in running for office. I won’t be writing a book. It is not my goal to be famous,” Anuzis wrote, referring to a book Steele wrote that angered RNC members. Anuzis also pledged a “detailed review and supervision of how we allocate our resources,” a reference to Steele’s often strained relations with the party’s biggest donors.
The pitch also focuses on what might have been had the RNC been as big a player in the party’s get-out-the-vote operations as it had been in earlier years.
Steele Coalition In Danger Of Collapse
As he contemplates running for a second term, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is on the verge of losing his coalition of supporters. Even some of those closest to the controversial chairman have begun urging him to step aside.
Strategists familiar with the RNC who both support and oppose Steele agree there are between 40 and 50 of the 168 voters who will back Steele for a second term. Another 40 to 50 members will definitely vote for someone else. The remaining members, numbering between 88 and 68, are undecided.
Meanwhile, a group of prominent Republicans led by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie are searching for a consensus candidate capable of defeating Steele. Though they have not settled on a challenger, and in fact are unlikely to find a consensus choice, strategists who both support and oppose Steele say coalitions are forming now to deny Steele a second term.
Underscoring the difficulty Steele will have: Prominent RNC members have approached Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Reince Priebus about the possibility of running for national chairman. Priebus has listened to entreaties from several members, including Mississippi national committeeman Henry Barbour, as first reported by the Washington Post and Wisconsin national committeeman Steve King, as well as from other Steele supporters.
Priebus was Steele’s top promoter during the 2009 chairman’s race, and Steele named Priebus the RNC’s general counsel. He has spent much of the last two years trying to keep RNC members in line, privately assuaging doubts about Steele’s chairmanship and serving as a conduit between members and the RNC.
That Priebus would listen to colleagues who urge him to run for national chairman and would not refute those calls in public is a leading indicator that even Steele’s most trusted advisors believe it is time for someone new . Priebus refused to comment on the record for this story.
Among those discussing names to replace Steele: Rove, Gillespie, former RNC chairman Mike Duncan, Ohio party chairman Kevin DeWine (son of former Sen. Mike DeWine), Mississippi national committeeman Henry Barbour (nephew of Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour), Massachusetts national committeeman Ron Kaufman and Michigan national committeeman Saul Anuzis. The group had been hesitant to knock Steele in public before the midterms, but they no longer feel bound to keep such criticism inside the family.
Those who want Steele out have been searching for a candidate who could unite two factions — one that opposes Steele explicitly and one that believes the RNC should take a new direction but harbors little ill will against the incumbent chairman.
Likely Rival Blasts Steele
Connecticut GOP Chairman Chris Healy “is strongly considering” a bid to replace RNC Chairman Michael Steele and in an interview with Roll Call “unleashed a scathing critique of Steele’s leadership.”
Said Healy: “I think at some point someone has to step up and say the emperor has no clothes. I’m more than willing to do that. I think I can give the RNC what it needs over the next two years. I don’t have any confidence that the current management can get it done.”
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
Key Republicans Seek to Dump Steele
The Fix: “There is an active effort underway among prominent Republican National Committee members to recruit a serious alternative to Chairman Michael Steele if and when he decides to stand for a second term early next year, according to a series of sources familiar with the conversations.”
Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire
Dump Steele movement gains steam
Chris Cillizza reports on the behind-the-scenes efforts to recruit a credible challenger to RNC chair Michael Steele:
There is an active effort underway among prominent Republican National Committee members to recruit a serious alternative to Chairman Michael Steele if and when he decides to stand for a second term early next year, according to a series of sources familiar with the conversations.
Henry Barbour, the nephew of Gov. Haley Barbour and a committeeman from Mississippi, has approached Reince Priebus, who served as the chairman of Steele’s first run for chairman in 2009, about the possibility of challenging the incumbent early next year.
Steele lashes out at GOP critics, defends record
(CNN) - As he contemplates reelection for a second term heading up the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele is lashing out at fellow members of his party who he says “don’t want me in this job.”
“They don’t want me in this job, to put it rather bluntly,” Steele told NPR Monday. “That has been a concerted effort since I got the job.”
Steele’s remarks were prompted by recent comments from Republican Governors Association Chairman Haley Barbour, who expressed criticism over the RNC’s lack of fundraising prowess during the last election cycle.
Other Republicans have also taken aim at the RNC for executing a poor get-out-the-vote effort in the remaining days leading up to election, a factor some say limited what could have been greater GOP gains in the House and Senate.
“I will say this time, the RNC was not able to do what they’ve often done in the past,” Barbour, the governor of Mississippi, told Fox News last week. “The Governors Association, the Senate House campaign committees and others, had to scramble around and increase their gathering of resources beyond what normally would be the case because the RNC was not able to do what it had done in the past.”
Days before the election, the RNC said it raised $ 167 million over the last election cycle - close to $ 30 million more than the Democratic National Committee raised in the 2006 midterm elections.
But this year the RNC lagged the DNC in total fundraising by more than $ 10 million, and it was forced to take out a $ 2 million loan in September.
In his interview with NPR, Steele pointed to fundraising restrictions placed on the national committees not subject to the RGA or the congressional committees, and said President Obama’s star power is largely the reason the DNC was able to raise more cash.
“They can raise unlimited cash from all donors and corporations. I can’t do that,” he said, referring to the RGA. “I can only take individual money up to $ 30,000. And yet, we raised $ 185 million.
Steele also pointed to the GOP’s success at the ballot box over the last two years as evidence the RNC has proved effective under his leadership.
“None of my predecessors have been able to put together the kind of combination of wins. And it’s because we tried to make the party more grassroots oriented - not top down, but bottom up,” said Steele.
