Steele: Moderates Are Welcome To Join GOP -- But Not To Change It
Michael Steele has an interesting message for moderates, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. During a news conference at the Wisconsin GOP convention on Friday, Steele said moderates are welcome to join the Republican Party -- but not to change it.
"All you moderates out there, y'all come. I mean, that's the message," Steele said. "The message of this party is this is a big table for everyone to have a seat. I have a place setting with your name on the front."
But, he added: "Understand that when you come into someone's house, you're not looking to change it. You come in because that's the place you want to be."
He also had tough words about Arlen Specter's support for the stimulus. "That vote on the stimulus bill was the effectiveness of a party call," he said. "That was a stand-up moment for every Republican ... And so, you voted yourself out of the party. We didn't kick you out."
Hmm. Does Steele think that Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins from Maine, the two remaining pro-stimulus Republicans, voted themselves out of the party, too?
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Wasn't Steele supposed to have been considered a moderate before he took this job, or something?
May 4, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. Steele tried to position himself as a moderate when he ran for Senate in Maryland in 2006, but that was a mix of smoke and mirrors, and reversing some of his previously-held positions.
May 4, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting.
May 4, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's good to see that with this and Sessions as Ranking Member at Judiciary that the rebranding of the GOP as the Southern White and Male Party (SWaMP) continues apace.
May 4, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've said it a million times since November 2006:
GOP = Gulf-states Only Party
May 4, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, we have a big tent, we'll invite anyone inside as long as they agree with us 100%, or at least keep their silly ideas to themselves. Don't ask, don't tell.
May 4, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who really feels welcome when the GOP pitches a tent?
For some reason I picture that big GOP table like some sort of bizarro Klan rally.
May 4, 2009 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eat at Steele's Place: anyone can sit at our table ... but you have to eat exactly what we serve you, no substitutions, and you have to smile and say you like it.
May 4, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
And who makes the menu? Rush Limbaugh. Smell what he's cookin'! Bitter, sulfurous and rank. Mmmmm good!
May 4, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You gotta swallow it all: hook, line, and sinker!
May 4, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know we all get it, but somebody needs to explain to this guy what a "seat at the table" means in political terms. Maybe at home it means "shut up and eat your damn broccoli", but in politics it means you have a _voice_, and you get to use it to persuade and cajole and get your way.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, Mr Steele. Either your party members have a seat at the big boy table, or they need to shut up and fall in line.
May 4, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly, nail on the head. What he's describing is not a political party in American terms. It could be in Hugo Chavez' Venezuela, or inside the now defunct Soviet system. But shut up and eat your damn broccoli is not how Americans view political participation. It's also a ham-handed and alienating thing to say, instead of any kind of a welcome.
May 4, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aww, come on guys and gals. I really like broccoli!
May 4, 2009 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
NEWSFLASH: steele is an idiot.
May 4, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It really seems so. I get worried that we're going to find ourselves all called racists one day for say that, too.
May 4, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. Steele's house analogy assumes moderates are guests, not residents. Residents have a say in their own house if it is to be a home.
So, moderates take note: the Republican Party thinks of you as a potential guest, not family, and their house is NOT your home. On the other hand, Democratic home life can be a little like Thanksgiving - the good food and the crazy uncle as part of the deal, but as the saying goes, "Mi casa es tu casa!" Welcome home.
May 4, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. Really well said. And your house/guest distinction is exactly the point.
Another rendering would be observer status. You are so very warmly welcomed to participate as an observer only.
May 4, 2009 3:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The longer Steele waits to get a PR person (it's still vacant, right), the funnier this is. Just to rehash, here's a bit from Steele's "Blueprint for tomorrow:"
And this. Note the last one.
So he's acknowledging that their brand is 'badly tarnished' and that change needs to happen. But they can't change either:
So, to sum up, the only thing new that Steele's adding to the Republican Party's angle is that they do the same old same old: They try to redistrict more fervently, learn to use the internet, raise more money, and (oh yeah) maybe try for a little integrity.
http://www.repconcaucus.com/files/resources/steele_blueprint_for_tomorrow.pdf
May 4, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points all, esp. about the PR person. Remember when he said government never created a job for anyone, nowhere, ever?
This is a guy who likes to hear himself talk, and who doesn't know what to say, but he isn't troubled by that.
May 4, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. He completely likes to fill any vacuums.
May 4, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even Franken couldn't write this stuff:
"I am trying to avoid the use of any words that start with “re” . . ."
Um, er . . . does that include RE-publican?
What a twit.
May 4, 2009 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. He's stuck with talking about Democrats because he's not allowed to say 'Re'. Priceless.
May 5, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Doesn't sound like how you'd treat a guest, but a water carrier. You come, we fill the buckets, you carry!
May 4, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
And don't you be a-spillin' none, neither!
May 4, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Glad you clarified that! Yes, Ma'am!
May 4, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Precisely. Steele has unwittingly revealed the fundamental problem with the Republican Party...they're living in the Grand Old Past!
May 5, 2009 4:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
When is Olympia Snowe going to leave the land of the Gopasaurs? She's got to be more embarrassed by the day . . .
May 4, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm tempted to say something about moderates being welcome to ride in the back of the bus, but under the circumstances it might be seen as inappropriate.
Oops.
May 4, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
It does about sum it up, though, apart from the "circumstances." Who is going to respond positively to this "message?"
As someone noted on another thread, Steele really is an idiot.
May 4, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Steele should be fired for telling the truth.
May 4, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, truth-telling violates GOP protocol.
May 4, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"stand-up moment for every Republican"
You are right. All 21% of you.
May 4, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Enter the tent, but know your place and don't get uppity.
May 4, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
But feel truly welcome nonetheless. One of your first opportunities for really party work will be to go over kiss Senator De Mint's posterior.
May 4, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
And god forbid the tent honor the First Amendment!
May 4, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I guess if I'm OK with voting for a bunch of Nazis, then I'm prefectly welcome to join Steele's totally rad, off-the-hook big-ass tent, as long as I'm happy standing under the part that leaks like a colander.
May 4, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
so beyond cutting-edge...
May 5, 2009 1:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
GOPers all bow down in worship of Ronald Reagan. Didn't Reagan say never to speak ill of another Republican? :-\
May 4, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe it was called the 11th commandment.
May 4, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
This does show indirectly that when they rhapsodize about Reagan, they're not recalling him but again merely bloviating.
They all agreed that they had one fantastically great plan for Iraq, but if you asked them what it was, they couldn't say other than to tell you it was embarassing that you could not see the obvious. So also with Reagan: he was just incredibly great, whatever all it was that he did. Then they go on and engage in profligacy in these negative, internecine behaviors that Reagan never would have tolerated.
May 4, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Priceless. So the GOP is looking for plastic surgery so it won't in the future be relegated to the status of the party of the (politically shrinking) deep south. And Steele says, 'Oh we know who we are. We got that part covered. So don't you moderates try to change a darn thing, comprende?' I'm not too familiar with GOP chairs, but surely Steele is in the running for Worst Tactician Ever, no?
May 4, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Understand that when you come into someone's house, you're not looking to change it.
Except when it's a urine-soaked flea and tick haven, overrun by 400 cats, you really do kind of want to change it, you know?
And if you can't, you don't come in because that's the place you want to be.", you come in because you have absolutely no other place to go.
Everyone else is out in the fresh air.
May 4, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right on CT. I read the welcome statement and kept thinking no ... there is something wrong with this. When I invite people to my house for a meal I ask them if there is any food they won't eat; I clean up some; hide the plastic iguana that scares everyone. In general I do things to make them feel welcome once they get there. Steele seems to miss this part of invite and welcome.
May 4, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. His approach appears to be "invite and dictate", rather than invite and welcome.
May 4, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, let me get this straight:
You can wear your hat however you want, but you have to keep your mouth shut?
May 4, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Big Tent is a revival meeting complete with a charlatan or two claiming to heal the afflicted only with tax cuts and swooning worshippers lining up to drink the tea.
May 4, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really want to know what Michael Steele's wedding proposal was like.
"Andrea, will you consent to be my wife? You are free to co-habitate with me and eat at my table just as long as you understand that you're not going to change me. What do you say?"
May 4, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
So the GOP is now the house that Steele built?
I have a feeling Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt would be none too happy to see what the squatters have done to the place over the last thirty years.
May 4, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't mean to sound too gleeful about Steele, but he's practically the GOP's Manchurian Candidate: it's hard to imagine at this point in time a worse person to lead the party for the next while without destroying it. A sleeper Dem operative could do no more damage than Steele is doing.
This makes me somewhat sad, as a democracy functions best with many competing voices. As a Democrat, I'm not actually in favor of the Dems having overwhelming control as that can easily be misused, as it has by both parties repeatedly over the last 100-odd years.
What I'd like to see is one or two new parties rising from the ashes of the Republicans, ones that advocate conservatism and moderation in their best forms. I doubt we'll see them, though.
May 4, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"What I'd like to see is one or two new parties rising from the ashes of the Republicans, ones that advocate conservatism and moderation in their best forms. I doubt we'll see them, though."
I agree. The problem is there seems to be an incredible lack of ability to master the process of thinking and forming thoughts based on facts in the Repub grouping. Facts seem to be obstuctions to their thought processes.
May 4, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, maybe if the Republican Party dies, it might open the field for a real progressive party to emerge.
May 5, 2009 1:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't lose much sleep worrying that the Democrats might have too much control. Even if they got to 64 seats, which is the most any party has had since 1967, they'd still have DINOs Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, and Evan Bayh to make sure that progressive legislation would be filibustered.
May 5, 2009 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm waiting for an intrepid reporter to take this quote -
And ask Sen. Snowe and Sen. Collins what they think about it.
May 4, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What indeed they must think. Really a fricking circus.
Will they be down to 37 or 38 Senators after the 2010 elections?
May 4, 2009 5:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's DeMint's plan:
“I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”
It's also the only thing he's ever said that ALL DEMOCRATS agree with.
May 4, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a nutty thing for him to have said, in his ridiculous, smug arrogance. No wonder they're in such dire straits, having such incapable leadership.
May 4, 2009 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I vote for the intrepid Eric Kleefeld to ask them.
May 4, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Eric can get Biden involved, it might not be too hard flip them.
May 4, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Barbara Boxer says she's repeatedly asked Snowe to flip, but that she is too devoted to the prinicples of the R party (whatever those are). But that was before the latest events. I could see her becoming an Independent, if she got a good deal from the Dems; I don't see her pulling a full Specter.
May 4, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing wrong with the founding priciples of the Repub party. Their problem is they are not smart enough to understand that these principles are now just distorted into talking points.
May 4, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think of all those train rides with Amtrak Joe whispering into Specter's ear, ten years or so trying to flip him, but no dice. Like talking to a wall.
Till last week.
I'm not a professional politician, and I don't have quite the gift of B.S. they are born with and cultivate. With my imperfect skills, if I were Snowe or Collins, I wouldn't relish receiving Eric's call to get me to comment on the stand-up moment and how I'd voted myself out of my party. On the one hand, you can hit this kind of thing out of the park, but on the other, the whole thing is wearying.
May 4, 2009 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. And part of meet might really wish for Eric to patch in the Veep so we could open up the discussion a bit more.
May 4, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The longer Steele's in charge making these kinds of claims, if the Republican Party has any chance of making it in 2012, there's going to have to be some kind of backlash. How long can this keep up before it's obvious that kicking out the moderates isn't helping the Republicans? Will their "listening tour" really help out? Are they even capable of listening anymore?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=7489345
I kind of wonder occasionally if its too late and Steele and Bachman are now truly the voice of the Republican Party.
May 4, 2009 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the whole "listening tour" thing is one of the most over-rated political ploys ever unveiled.
Just what are they "listening" to? If they couldn't "hear" the results of the last "election", no amount of "listening" is going to do any good.
On the other hand, it will remind people of how phony Mitt Romney appears. I guess that's a net plus.
May 4, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
So true on the Mitt comment. He reminds me of the Senator character on the TV show Heroes.
May 4, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
As far as Reagan goes, I hope his legacy will be viewed properly. Unemployment was worse in his first 3 years than it ever was under Carter. He invented the trickle-down theory (Reaganomics). History has proven it doesn't work. He also invented MEGA-deficit-spending, which of course GW perfected. This means borrowing out the yingyang in order to make the economy look better than it really is and leaving the debt-burden to your children.
May 4, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reagan also terminated initiatives during the Carter administration for developing alternate fuels sources for electricity and automobiles and we are paying the price for it today.
May 4, 2009 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Also tried their best to eliminate passenger rail service, put industry-worshipping fruitcake (and lounge lizzard) James Watt in charge of Department of Interior, allowed hunting in wildlife refuges, and put hordes of bible-thumping religio ideologues in charge of countless things.
One these sanctimonious imbeciles claimed that the bible and Cheezuz would forbid recovery efforts for the Dusky Seaside Sparrow and so they drove the handsome little bird to extinction. Because the bible had laid out this Holy destiny, and what the bible says, government must do.
May 4, 2009 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Michael Steel = Brain Donor
Stay classy GOP
May 4, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, go easy on Steele, he's just doing what Rush tells him to.
May 4, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it kind of amusing that many of us can look at the GOP's rabid anti-moderate hatred -- the sneering references to Snow and Collins (and Christ) -- and then turn around and act the same way, albeit without the unhinged venom that the GOP does so well.
May 4, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Try your argument again, but without the straw men this time.
May 5, 2009 1:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
We own the place. You can visit, but keep your mouth shut and do as you're told.
May 4, 2009 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
We would be like the Republicans if we let the most virulent Daily Kos blogger (may they be praised) run the Democratic Party apparatus and be responsible for maintaining party cohesion.
May 4, 2009 6:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
WTF???
It seems like every day Michael Steele torpedoes his stated mission of recruiting candidates that can win general elections. What kind of incentive is this? It's political "tokenism" at its worst.
Just when I think I have seen it all from this wacky crew, I find that I haven't.
May 4, 2009 6:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steele apparently doesn't understand why those within the USA identifying themselves as republicans has declined from like 33% in 2004 to somewhere around 25% in 2008.
"Moderates", whatever they might be, won't return to the republican party so long as its recognized leaders are such far out extremists as Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Joe the Plumber.
May 4, 2009 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steele brings to mind the story of Procrustes, who required visitors to fit in the small bed he provided, even if it meant amputating a limb.
May 4, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
The republicans are like a wounded tiger. Terribly dangerous, know they are dying, but try ever so tenaciously and violently to hold on.
You reap what you sow is the old biblical proverb for the republican party. They planted a Bush of thorns and poisons. And so many many suffer terribly because of it.
Their deserved destruction and total exposure as a contemptible and morally sick force in American politics is happening. Of course, these so called patriots would actually destroy this nation if only it meant they could continue the rape of the middle class.
If Steele found his guts, he would follow Sen Spector to the Democrats. And there are prob a few more good republicans, who could also follow, & get re-elected as a dem. And we could go back to a civil discussion between liberal, moderate, and moderately conservative factions on how we run the country - the greatest good for the greatest many. While not leaving out minority groups - especially those victims of conservative religious dogma not unlike what supported slavery, segregation, and bans on inter-racial marriage - all of course in the name of a corrupted view of God.
Mr. Steel - the opportunity still awaits you.
May 4, 2009 10:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The current crop of fools is contemptible. I would worry about the ones yet to come.
Eventually someone rational, moderate, even socially liberal yet strictly republican in the original sense will come to the forefront of the party. How do you keep the current wingnut idiots from taking over again whatever the GOP morphs into in the future?
A chronic deficiency of an effective counter party will inevitably lead to corruption and complacency. For now its great but in the longterm its a disservice to all of us.
May 4, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am a life long moderate Republican. So what is Steele telling me?
May 5, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink