Maybe the Republican Party figured all President Barack Obama had going for him was the color of his skin.

That's probably why they voted to make Michael Steele the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Steele has an interesting background, and electing the first black chairman would put a new face on the party and show that it is changing with the times, right?

Wrong. Steele's election has been one disaster after another. He promised to give the party a "hip-hop makeover" that would "uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets." He called the public relations campaign "off the hook," and he responds to his critics by saying, "Stuff it."

Most recently, Steele has been criticized for the RNC's $2,000 reimbursement of a staffer for a trip with donors to a Hollywood strip club that features bondage and lesbian sex shows.

One Republican leadership assistant told The Hill newspaper: "We've had a year to figure out how to work around him." GOP leaders are starting to distance themselves from Steele in what could be his final descent.

Even Republican strategist Karl Rove, who helped recruit Steele, is now criticizing him:

"The chairman of the Republican National Committee, for good or for ill, is the steward of the party's money," he said during a recent appearance in San Francisco "And whenever you have whatever lax controls are down in the bowels of the building so that somebody can submit a $2,000 voucher for entertainment at Voyeurs ... somebody ought to go check the thesaurus and find out what that means."

Maybe his antics are why poet and activist Amiri Baraka called Steele a "real public coon."




I don't like to use that language, but Steele's comments about luring blacks back to the Republican party with "fried chicken and potato salad" almost makes me want to hop over that fence and join Baraka on the other side. However, Steele is an African American who is accomplishing a "first" in this country. How he handles himself still, unfortunately, matters. That's why it's kind of sad to him in a predicament worse than what Baraka claims: A powerless token.

Steele's use of hip-hop language wouldn't be bad if that is who he was. Instead, it seems like a caricature of what his constituents might expect of a black man. In short, Steele is blowing it and making an ass out of himself at the same time. He is on the verge of being booted out as party chairman without having accomplished any of his stated goals.

Steele said one of his goals was to increase the reach of the party:

"We need messengers to really capture that region -- young, Hispanic, black, a cross section ... 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," Steele told the Washington Times last month.

Instead, the GOP is veering drastically to the right, led by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the Tea Party. Steele smartly took on Limbaugh but then ended up looking like a spineless leader when he apologized. Steele said he is pro-choice but had to backtrack when he made his opinion about abortion public.

Without a serious focus, Republicans have taken to fear mongering, using the idea that this country is headed toward socialism under President Obama to raise money.

Steele has been scrapping for his political life almost since taking the chairman's job. It's ironic that the only reason he is still holding on now may be because of his race.

According to The Hill:

Removing Steele before the elections would be extremely difficult. A motion to oust him would have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the entire RNC. Such a move could be disastrous politically, because senior GOP officials say the party is trying to attract more minority voters. Steele, who is black, last year said white Republicans are afraid of him.

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic recently argued that Republicans are too disorganized and that Steele is not enough of a threat for them to risk kicking him out.

Contrast that with Obama, who just passed the most important piece of domestic legislation in several generations and is now moving on to tackle other important issues. Obama made it trendy to have a black leader but much more is required to actually be a good leader.