Michael, it's time to row your boat to shore!

JOHN KASICH as been running around the state challenging Gov. Strickland to pledge that he would never-never-never-never raise taxes. It seems to me that Strickland's handlers need to inject some imagination into his non-response to Kasich's dare. (1) He could tell Kasich that he will come forward with a pledge, ridiculous though it may be, when the former Wall Street Republican self-defined gofer releases his 2009 income tax. (Did he get an even bigger bonus from bankrupt Lehman Brothers than in 2008? Don't know.) (2) He could respond cryptically by saying he would do what previous Ohio Republican governors have done in times of need. (3) He could simply say, "Read my lips" and be done with the pestering. Taxes? What, in the meantime would you call increases in state university tuition and the many fees being tacked on to high school students for activities and materials that once came with the territory? If that's all Kasich has got, he might have to be careful about what he is wishing for.

THERE ARE MOMENTS when I think Michael Steele is running the Republican National Committee like Harry Houdini. There are moments when I think he is as crazy as Glenn Beck without the tears. And then there are moments when I think he is a sly old street fox who is out to humiliate all of those rich white guys in the Republican Party. I'm not sure which of those were in play when he reportedly invited the right-wing hit man Andrew Breitbart to co-chair a reception for a RNC fund-raiser on August 12 in Beverly Hills. (Breitbart has just added another victim to his bloody toll - Shirley Sherrod - who was fired from the Ag Dept. by a grossly inattentive and shamefully soft-spined bureaucrat in the Obama Administration.")

It's torpedoes like Breitbart who are blowing hole in the Republican brand. On the other hand, it's possible he is, in fact, now the Republican brand.

The latest coiffure spill: Sen. Boxer's hairstyle

IN MY HUMBLE and imperfect effort to keep you up on the deeper issues involved in Political Planet 2010, I have assembled a few post-election tschotschkes for your scrapbook:

Three have become a crowd in the California political races. Carly is put off by Barbara's hairstyle, casually asking, "God, what is that hair?" Carly also thinks it was "bizarre" for Meg to appear on Sean Hannity's program. Carly (Fiorino) is the Republican candidate for the Senate against Barbara (Boxer), the Democrat. Meg (Whitman) is the Republican candidate for governor against a fellow familiarly known as Moonbeam (Jerry Brown), the Democrat. And this is only June.

Meanwhile, back in South Carolina, the fictitious Democratic Party is deservedly embarrassed that a mystery man on the party's ticket won the Senate primary. It was enough to note that Alvin Greene didn't campaign, nor spend any money, and has a felony charge pending against him. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) stormed that Greene was a "plant" and should be kicked off the ticket. "There were some real shenanigans going in the South Carolina primary," Clyburn said on a radio show. "I don't know if he was a Republican plant; he was someone's plant." Whatever comes of it in a state where shenanigans begin in the beleaguered governor's office, it won't make any difference. Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who makes so many foolish statements sinply because he is foolish, is expected to win by acclamation.

Up in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman has created a mini-version of What-will-LeBron James-do?by telling the media that he hasn't decided on whether to endorse Republican Linda McMahon, the Midas-rich wrestling promoter whose pastime focussed on blood and gore. Joe, who remains an "independent" in a wiggly construction of the meaning, said he didn't want to consider her life before she retired from the ring six months ago. but will give her strong consideration for the past half-year of her life. Excepting for the tail-wagging media, Joe, nobody cares. (On the other hand, do you think LeBron will stay in Cleveland? Huh?)

Finally, there's Michael Steele, who is stilling hanging around, rushing to the defense of Nevada Republican senate wannabe, Sharron Angle. "I feel good about what Sharron Angle will bring to the Senate," he glows. What she will bring, Mike, are staunch endorsements by the newly minted Tea Party and an outfit called Oath Keepers, whose militant members vow to take up arms against the federal government on matters of their choosing. So now we can include Michael Steele, who has had problems advancing on his learning curve, and the Republican National Committee squarely behind an unapologetic extremist that supports anarchy - a condition that seems to affect the whole of the GOP today. She did, however, get more votes than another candidate who wanted to offer physicians chickens in lieu of cash to revive old-fashioned bartering.

Life on the slow-witted track...

WITH THE SNOW and cold at our front door, I've been spending a little more time trying to enlighten myself with the latest insights of our friends who are flapping their right(eous) wings. Below you will find some of their carefully considered thoughts:

RNC Chairman Michael Steele: "A million dollars is not a lot of money."

Former vice president Dan Quayle: A 51-49 vote in the Senate is "unconstitutional".

Rush Limbaugh: We should be "thankful we don't have Obamacare or the death panel might not have approved of Clinton's surgery."

Glenn Beck: "It is evil for Obama to turn our kids against their parents to get elected."

H.G. Wells (a timely golden oldie): 'Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. "

Is the Summit County GOP calming down?

ANOTHER YEAR, another Summit County Republican Finance Dinner, another event in which the accolades for the home team ranged from great to greatest. Nothing new there. Political parties, Republican and Democratic but no socialists that I'm aware of - yet) get high on promoting their versions of Academy Awards night.

So it was at the Hilton West Hotel Monday evening with County GOP Chairman Alex Arshinkoff presiding over the throng whose number was described to me to be "500 plus change"). These opportunities are always Arshinkoff's high points of his long political life ( he's been at it for 32 years) , allowing him to announce that the dinner of chicken and Duchess potatoes raised between $675,000 and $700,000. Evidence enough that some of the diners paid a tad more than the going bleachers price.

For all that, the fund-raiser was tamer than some of the past adventures into stagecraft. It lacked the harshness of the past, with those earlier assaults on the Beacon Journal from the podium. (The BJ's business manager was in the crowd.) Mayor Don Plusquellic wasn't scorched. And even George Bush wasn't mentioned - by anyone!

Instead, Arshinkoff exclaimed that University Akron President Luis Proenza, who was seated in the audience, was the "greatest president in the history of the University of Akron". He also described the economy as "Obama's depression." That is pretty harmless partisan stuff on occasions such as these. Republican gubernatorial candidate John Kasich, followed up on lofty praise for him by others on the dais by calling Arshinkoff "one of the greatest chairmen Ohio had ever had." Kasich thought the way to a bright future for the country was to resurrect Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. Oh?

Still, the litany was directly from the essentials of the GOP playbook: cut taxes, stress individualism, don't screw around and ruin the health care system, create jobs. You will continue to hear a lot of that.

The guest speaker was Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, whose thick southern accent was reminiscent of LBJ's Texas patois, and his rambling good ol' boy humor was remarkably close to that of the late Jim Rhodes. He, too, declared it was time for a change, accusing the Obama Administration of "deindustrializing" America. Much of his rhetoric was a traditional locker-room pep talk to a team behind at half-time. For all of the glittering comments, it was a sign of the times that Dubya was never mentioned once. A Republican officeholder who pased by me in the back of the room whispered satirically "They left out eight years."

Barbour was a long way from home, where he has been sharply criticized for converting $600 million in federal Katrina flood relief money (tax dollars!) intended for rehabbing a lot of middle-income flood victims. The money was used instead for other projects as tens of thousands of Mississippians remain in desperate need of housing. The Bloomberg News Report also told of Barbour's family-related lobbyists who have prospered from the Katrina contracts.

Yet the nagging problem of the Republican Party is less about Barbour's possible mischief at home than it was in the sea of faces at the Monday night event. There were fewer than five African-Americans in the crowd - give or take a few - and there's not much the party has been able to do about it, even if it tried beyond its showpieces of Justice Clarence Thomas, who is more royalist than the king, and Michael Steele, the conservative head of the Republican National Committee. As I mentioned in an earlier blog about minorities and Steele, the party elders have have talked about the problem for more than a generation with promises to do better. Trouble is, the GOPers in Congress then vote the other way while many southern venues hiss, "don't bother".

The dinner also reflected the continuing disappearance of the media - print, radio and TV. Fewer and fewer keep night hours these days. As I stood alone at the rear, one gentleman rushed up to damn the Beacon Journal. I tried to explain that I hadn't worked there in 18 years. Unconvinced, he wanted to tell me he had canceled his subscription to the paper. Again, I reminded him I'm no longer on the payroll. He apologized. Later a woman rushed by, asking me, "Are you a spy?" On the other hand a Greek Republican friend fetched a program for me and invited me to lunch at his church. He said he would call. It made for a better-than-usual evening.

Steele at Bliss: the old-new-old GOP

THERE WAS something surreal about Michael Steele's visit to Akron Thursday night. Speaking in E. J. Thomas hall as a guest of the University of Akron and Bliss Institute, the Republican National Committee chairman briefly acknowledged Akron native Ray Bliss's leadership in rebuilding the party after its 1964 Goldwater disaster. Still, even with the passage of more than four decades, and with the ghost of Ray Bliss hovering over the event, it was easy enough to sense that Steele had arrived not to praise the past but to slay the image of a GOP that sloughs off the common folks to enrich the wealthy.

Against heavy odds (Walter Lippmann said it would be at least a 25 years before the party could think about returning to power after 1964), Bliss immediately, and without much public notice, set about to reassembling the GOP's broken parts into a cohesive whole. A taciturn fellow who was never inclined to hog the scene, Bliss was fastidiously self disciplined to the point of shyness., At the party dinners, never a fork nor spoon on the head table was permitted to be out of place.

On the other hand , standing on the stage as the latest successor of the Republican Party's most successful strategist, Steele offered his courteously attentive audience (mostly Republican, it appeared) little more than what we've been hearing from Republicans since the election. The party , he insisted, favors lower taxes, entrepreneurism,the true spirit of free enterprise, unquestioned wealth for the people at the top of the pyramid, and individual responsibility. As with the late Gov. Jim Rhodes, profit should never be a dirty word, he said, although I don't know many people, including me, who think it is.

For Steele, the rebuilding process could be even more difficiult as it was for Bliss as he speaks with concern for rabid groups, reminding us that they are frustrated because nobody is listening to their problems. When he does that, with the shorthand of political jabs that raises the specter of Big Brother and tax-guzzling Democrats, it is not a fresh approach to their problems but rather no approach at all. To make his case, he asked the audience if there was anybody who didn't like a little more money in his pocket. When nobody raised a hand, he considered it a vindication of his anti-tax defense. (These guys never ask whether anyone preferred to ride on dirt roads, cross rickety bridges, have nobody answer the emergency phone at the fire department or have the Pony Express deliver the mail only one day a week - services which, the last time I looked , are only possible through taxes.

He also fussed over the Obama Administration' s "rush" to pass health care reform, declaring that the President wants to accomplish it in 30 to 45 days - which , we all know, has been knocked about for nearly a year - and much longer for the Republican pols who had many opportunities to change things for the better when they occupied the White House and Congress.

Steele referred to his own meager childhood, which, with help from his mother, enabled him to become a successful African-American. He urged the audience, whites as well as the handful of blacks, to take control of their own lives for a brighter future.

When a woman asked him how a poor family with no job and no health insurance could pay for health coverage, Steele assured her that his party is working on a solution to the problem . These are always good cover lines to get to the next question. But can anyone deny that the party is no more progressive with an African-American at the RNC in order to show that the party has expanded its base? Sitting in the front row was Bob Bennett, the former chairman of the Ohio Republican Party. It must have been 25 years ago that he boasted to me, in a mild act of contrition, how the party was going to expand its base. Seeing Steele, I had to ask, This is finally how they did it?

Whatever is happening within the party's back rooms to reach out to a more diverse electorate is still puzzling to me. It's too bad that Einstein didn't solve the mystery of "hidden variables" in his research. It might tell us what Steele & Co. all means.

A nutjob who lives in glass houses...

MICHAEL STEELE is now the tarnished hood ornament of a desperate, aimless and ranting Republican Party. As an African-American cynically chosen to represent the GOP as the head of Republican National Committee to flaunt its (hollow) commitment to minorities, he has instead unwittingly served to brand the party's failure to rationally reach beyond its white masses. Seldom a day passes that he doesn't offer his critics a silly comment or two to support their case. I can't be sure how much his political fraternity brothers in the GOP quietly suffer his antics, although in their silence you could suppose, at least, that they are willing to allow him to be their fall guy to advance whatever their cause despite his negative impact on what's left of the party. In that sense, he's being used.

Steele's latest venture into quicksand was his demonic assault on New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who had written that fire-breathing right-wingers care creating a climate of potential violence against President Obama. Anyone of sound mind who has followed the inflammatory elements of the anti-Obama crowd on the Internet and at rallies could easily agree with Friedman, who is quite the centrist. But Steele called the columnist a "nutjob", asking "where do these nutjobs come from?" Maybe the RNC that installed Steele could provide us with the answer.

Steele's GOP renaissance

Michael Steele, the gabby chairman of the Republican National Committee, never fails to amuse. One could fill pages of his deepest jaunty insights into President Obama's shortcomings,  and his own party's return to credible parity with the Democrats on the nation's problems.   We look for his words each day to brighten the otherwise  sustained gloom of  political discourse.  For that reason, I can't overlook another opportunity to give him the Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy (GALL) award for his optimistic outlook for the GOP, declaring:        

"Our renaissance has begun."

 Funny.  He was contradicted by the latest Pew Research Center poll that now gives Democrats a 53-36 advantage over Republicans in voter preferences.  Seven years ago it was 43-43. Renaissance?  Michaelangelo rolled over in his grave.  

Specter: Being a Republican no fun anymore

WELL, ARLEN SPECTER just crossed an aisle as wide as the Delaware River.  He is becoming a Democrat, elevating the Republican McParty's  outbursts of hysteria to Vesuvian levels.  And in the early damage-control reaction the best that Republican National Chairman Michael Steele could offer, allowing for his minimal political insights,  was that the Pennsylvania senator was, after all, a renegade with a left-wing voting record. In a prepared statement (who writes these things anyway?)  Steele further noted that Specter was not acting on  "principles of any kind" but rather on the  reality that he was going to be defeated in the  Republican primary. Meantime,  Specter's other navel-gazing critics will have to take a number for their turns on the Fox network. The veins will be popping out of Sean Hannity's forehead.   

But just as it failed to spin socialism, Marxism and all of the other isms into the cloth worn by President Obama, few people outside of Rush Limbaugh's revivalist followers will be impressed by the current GOP's obtuse vocabulary.  Clearly, his former party had put an overwhelming hit on  him by posting up a right-winger in the next senatorial primary with overwhelming appeal to the shrinking right-wing base.  Yes, Sir Michael, you could bet the farm and every luxury car in Pennsylvania that Specter would lose.  And Specter was no more disaffected by his party's suffocating base than the 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans who are now registered as Democrats.

Although Specter's forced defection will cause more havoc in the Senate's Republican caucus, where it clings to its  fantasy of Government by Filibuster,  don't look for a sudden change in ideological direction.  Check out its gagging  resistance to the appointment of  Kansas Gov.  Kathleen Sibelius as secretary of health and human services.  How toxic could she be as a Democrat who was widely popular in one of the most Republican states in the Union?   Oh, she's pro-choice.  I see.  Republicans now in charge of controlling their party's destiny just don't get it.    

There was an old poem that said "for want  a nail the shoe was lost" and  "for want of a horse the rider was lost."

The GOP today has no horses nor riders.  Nor ideas.  Without them,  the party of Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh  is sounding only its death rattle.  The Moral?  Be careful what you wish for...

 

Bachmann: Minnesota Splats...

HERE WE MUST GO for another GALL (Grumpy Abe Linguistic Lunacy) Award to...the envelope,  please...Rep. Michele Bachmann, , Minnesota Republican, already a multiple winner after complaining that America is "running out of rich people."    Her latest contribution to the GALL archive occurred at the Conservative Political Action Conference under way in Washington.  After Michael Steele, the new African American chairman of the Republican National Committee, ended his speech to the conferees, Bachmann, who is oh- so-white,  couldn't control her enthusiasm, nor what little thought processes that trouble her brain, exclaiming to Steele:

     

                                  "You be da man!  You be da man!"

When is a job not a job?

IS MICHAEL STEELE NUTS?   The recently ordained Republican chairman had me running to volumes of dictionaries with his insistence that a government job is not a job but  "work".   I had long believed - and still do - that anybody on a payroll at public expense may be considered  one who is employed by the government, i.e. a job.   That would include safety forces in my town, school teachers, college professors,  the important guys who plow and salt the streets in my neighborhood after a snowstorm - even school crossing guards and cafeteria cooks.  Steele blitzed the language in the presence of ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who seemed as confused as I am about the isolation of a job from "work". It's a curious way of saying things  because one of Steele's first jobs (work?) as chairman will be to clear up charges that his political campaign in 2006 paid his sister $37,000 for catering services that her company never performed.  

Of Chicken Dances and bully pulpits

Well, the Republicans have finally found something to cheer about so who can blame them for doing the Chicken Dance through the weekend?  I probably should explain right here that the Chicken Dance is a fun-filled maneuver that I discovered 30 years ago in Rudesheim, Germany, in which the participants flap their elbows, wing-like, against their bodies to the loud cries of an oompah band.  The song-and-dance thing  borders on a joyful patriotic commitment to ethnic expression in some quarters to this day. 

Back to the celebrating  Republicans.  Their national committee chose a new leader, Michael Steele, a very conservative African-American that in an instant expanded its exploratory reach  for party diversity by a grand total of one. For a party that boasts of no blacks in the House or Senate and a single Jew in the House of Representatives, Steele faces a daunting task.  After all, the party has been talking about expanding its base for as long as anyone can remember but  has always  ended up with a bunch of oil men, corporate executives and Wall Streeters to underwrite the political class for tax  favors granted.    

But things will be different from now on, says Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland whose first fighting words on his Olympian tablet were a threat to "knock over" anyone who would obstruct his agenda.  Among the huzzahs were the lofty promise of former Ohio Republican Chairman Bob Bennett, who has been talking about expanding the base since Lincoln's famous address.  Bennett  impressed upon me in an interview years ago that the party was turning the corner to be more inclusive.   In response to Steele, Bennett told a Plain Dealer reporter: "You have a great spokesman for the party.  You have an outstanding leader.  I think that it will certainly benefit the party as we move forward."   Kevin DeWine, the new Ohio GOP chairman, suggested Steele's job would certainly complement the party's grassroots  "hunger  for change."  (But after all these years of  dormant diversity, might we not wonder as John McCain loved to ask,  is it really "change we can believe in"?  

From what I have read, Steele is quite capable of adapting to whatever challenges that confront the national chairman when the  Oval Office incumbent, who also happens to be an African- American, is running quite high in popular opinion.  Call it situation ethics, but I've read that Steele has even campaigned  for the U.S Senate with an ad hoc title:  His literature referred to him as a Democrat (in Democratic precincts, of course) , even though he was listed as a Republican on the Maryland ballot.  Nice try, but he lost anyway.

And although he has told black audiences of his pride that Obama was elected, on other less diverse public occasions he referred to Obama as nothing more than a "media creation."  Somehow, he seems right for the job.  

So now , should we not pause to share a moment of silence in respect to Ohio's very own Ken Blackwell who all but claimed victory with the support of so many Conservative Christian groups (as he did when he ran for governor in Ohio).  They obviously were ignored in the balloting for the RNC chair. He finished dead last on the first ballot. 

But a warning to everybody else:  unless you flap your elbows to the beat of the oompah band, look out for the new bully on the block.  He won't  hesitate to knock you over.  

UPDATE: Steele told Fox News today that the Republican future lies in returning to Newt Gingrich's Contract for/on/with America of 1994. Honest.  I'm not clever enough to make something like this up.  But it does mean that Steele has found a tailor-made rostrum at Fox.