As Dana noted yesterday, there's an e-mail circulating in religious right circles, slamming Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland who's running for chair of the Republican National Committee. Steele's offense: an insufficiently anti-Roe stance during a 2006 interview with the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press. His allies have come to his defense, noting that he's the only one running who has been endorsed by the hard-line National Right to Life Committee. (None of the other candidates, to my knowledge, have, like Steele, run for public office, thus opening themselves up for an NRLC endorsement or non-endorsement.)
Don Wildmon of the American Family Association (which this year is selling your very own burning cross as a Christmas decoration), has endorsed Katon Dawson, chair of the South Carolina Republican Party, and brought up the Russert interview as one reason he was lobbying against Steele. (He did not explain why he was passing over Chip Saltsman, who's also running for the RNC post, and who managed the presidential campaign of Wildmon-approved Mike Huckabee.)
Now Steele has defended himself against the charges, taking to the reporters and editors of the Washington Times to explain his position: he's against Roe, he's for amending the constitution to criminalize abortion, and he's in favor of the legality of abortion being decided by the states. (Doesn't that cover all the bases? You know, because if you want the states to decide the issue, a federal constitutional amendment is surely the way to go.) He's also throwing in a bit of Huckabee-style populism, saying the GOP has a "country club mentality" and has focused on superficial outreach rather than coalition-building.
It's the Wildmons of the Republican Party who were the target of the lately marvelous Kathleen Parker , who earlier this week warned that the party is headed for extinction if it soldiers on with the "evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP."
But Steele's not ready to let go of the religious right base, either, telling the Times that he didn't think that religious conservatives had too much control over the party. Steele exerted himself in appealing to the religious right base at this year's Values Voters Summit, with talk of a "relentless assault on [our] core values," wondering "when did being a Christian become a pejorative in this country?", claiming "how being on God’s team impacts communities, family, the nation," and gearing up the already Palin-manic crowd to "not underestimate this woman . . . . any woman who raises five kids. . . . she can do any daggone thing she wants. You don’t want to mess with this woman, she shoots moose. What do you think she’s going to do to a donkey?"
--Sarah Posner
