Steele Wants GOP Cash to Keep Coming
The alarm bells started ringing inside the Senate campaign of Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele earlier this week: Was the national GOP leaving them behind?
As reported today, with anywhere from five to seven U.S. Senate seats to defend around the country, the GOP sent signals it would not match the quick infusion of $750,000 that the national Democratic party put into television ads in Maryland on behalf of Rep. Benjamin Cardin.
"They've made the commitment to have Sen. [Hillary] Clinton come here, Sen. [Barack] Obama come here. The natural question is: 'This is what these guys are doing; what are you prepared to do?' " Steele said in an interview yesterday.
During the courtship that brought Steele into the race, he had been made many promises, his aides said. Steele said he recognizes that the political landscape has changed. And he's appreciative of all the party has done for him to this point--which is substantial.
The RNC underwrote the cost of a microtargeting program that helps identify and attract Steele voters, and it is paying for staff members to help with get-out-the-vote operations until Election Day.
President Bush, former president George H.W. Bush, Vice President Cheney, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson appeared at fundraisers organized with the help of the Republican National Committee. Those efforts yielded $1.1 million for Steele's campaign. The committee also contributed $267,000 directly to a joint candidate fund that benefits Steele.
"The commitments made to me have stayed in place so far," Steele said. "It's been an unprecedented commitment so far. My hope is it will be an unprecedented commitment through the end."
National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Dan Ronayne said he would not discuss "strategic plans" but added, "It does say a lot about how well Michael Steele is positioned in this race that the [Democrats are] spending serious money in Maryland."
Two sources close to Steele said that the campaign team began to sense that the party's financial commitments had essentially dried up as the senatorial committee has seen more pressing needs arise in states where sitting senators are under fire from Democratic challengers. Both sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, because they were discussing the internal workings of the campaign. They noted that party has paid for ads in three states: Missouri, Ohio and Tennessee.
Steele has reached out to RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman for help in keeping the spigot open. Mehlman has been a champion of the party's efforts to begin an earnest outreach to black voters, though he expressed annoyance with Steele in a recent interview with The New York Times, saying he was "flabbergasted" to learn that Steele had been taking shots at the White House during a background session with Washington reporters.
Steele said he believes Republicans have the chance to convert African American voters because of a sense that the Democratic Party has taken them for granted -- especially since former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume lost the Senate Democratic primary.
"A lot of people were watching what happened to Kweisi," Steele said yesterday, adding that those voters will want to know, "Will my party be bold in its effort to show that it's commitment is different from theirs?"
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September 29, 2006; 10:12 AM ET
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Posted by: Anonymous | September 29, 2006 11:01 AM
How interesting !!
It looks like the Republicans are engeged in a bit of "cut and run". What does THAT say to African-American voters in Maryland about puppy-loving, lapdog Steele?
Posted by: jmsbh | September 29, 2006 12:17 PM
How sad that it now appears that Maryland U.S. Senate races for both parties are now decided by people outside the state in Washington D.C. and from the top of the parties down rather than from the people of Maryland up.
Posted by: Robin Ficker Independent for Montgomery County Executive | September 29, 2006 12:28 PM
How sad that it now appears that Maryland U.S. Senate races for both parties are now decided by people outside the state in Washington D.C. and from the top of the parties down rather than from the people of Maryland up.
Posted by: Robin Ficker Independent for Montgomery County Executive | September 29, 2006 12:28 PM
I agree. Steele has no momentum. Ehrlich is still within reach of victory. But even for him, it is getting harder.
Posted by: Yockel | September 29, 2006 3:20 PM
Could mean alot of things honestly...not just that Steele has lost any momentum. Don't count your blessings just yet. It is literally a lifetime until the elections. A more prudent explanation should evolve. To think Steele is loosing momentum is laughable. To think Cardin has any momentum outside of Balmer is also laughable. Maybe someone is just upset and sending a message? Not a sermon...just a thought.
Posted by: WAM | September 29, 2006 3:49 PM
Steele doesn't have the juice to win this race. It's going to be a bad year for Republicans, which means it's going to be a good year for Maryland.
Posted by: Marylander | September 29, 2006 7:53 PM
Why should the Republican party donate anything to Steele? The main message of his campaign seems to be "I'm not a Democrat, but I'm not really a Republican, either." A candidate who delivers that message so often is not what a party wants to elect at a time when the next election is likely to produce a split Senate or one in which the majority party has an edge of only a seat or two.
Ehrlich also seems to have shifted away from his "governs from the middle" line and tried to talk about his "achievements." I wonder if he realized that he was going to have to run as a Republican to get Republican backing.
Posted by: newcomer | September 30, 2006 2:08 AM
"It is literally a lifetime until the elections." - WAM
It is not literally a lifetime until elections, it's less than 40 days away. Thats literally less than one percent of my lifetime and I'm only in my twenties. Literacy is FUN-damental.
Steele's hardly ever had momentum in this race. It was clever to run without mentioning that you're a Republican, but the Democrat's ads are shooting holes in this tactic and I think most Marylanders are too smart to fall for such a ploy, anyway.
I also disagree with the idea that African Americans are going to be disillusioned with the Dem's because Cardin won the primary. Ben Cardin has a loing career of service to Maryland and he had a massive fundraising advantage. I don't believe I ever saw a Mfume ad in Montgomery county, but I saw Cardin ads.
I'm not sure that Erlich is really within reach of victory. Despite all his ads and efforts he has failed to get any closer than 6 points out in any poll I've seen.
Posted by: Jason | October 2, 2006 10:51 AM
For Marylanders afraid of change (other than raising other people's taxes, of course), Ben Cardin's whitebread wagon seems to be the right place.
Posted by: Rufus | October 2, 2006 1:33 PM
Jason, when you get some experience under your belt, you will realize that 4 weeks in campaign time, is a lifetime. Anything can happen. To say that Steele has no momentum, is just irresponsible. The players know it. Why else would they bring in national heavy-hitters to a state that is 2 - 1 Democratic. Cardin is a good guy - certainly. But watching him and his commercials is like watching paint dry. Couple that with Steele personality and it drives the hardcore up a wall.
Posted by: WAM | October 2, 2006 9:05 PM
The comments to this entry are closed.
This is nice spin, but RNC is simply looking at the landscape and coming to grips with the fact that Steele's candidacy is not moving in a direction that would be strategic for them to spend money in Maryland. Steele failed to build momentum and the GOP is realizing what many of us have known for months: Maryland is not going to elect a Republican Senator.