The Michael Steele Experiment is Over

Filed under: News, Profiles, Politics, Race and Civil Rights

Republicans catch a lot of hell from black people in this country - and with good reason.

For decades, the Republican agenda on issues of concern for most black folks wavers somewhere between apathy and downright hostility. But I'll step out on a limb and give the old GOP some credit.

The party that hasn't received more than 20 percent of black votes for any of its national candidates in my memory took a huge gamble and put Michael Stephen Steele, a Maryland lawyer, failed businessman and former brother-in-law of Mike Tyson at the helm of its party.

But the Michael Steele Experiment is over with his announcement that he would not seek a second term as Republican National Committee chairman. Wisconsin GOP Chairman Reince Priebus will take over the debt-ridden GOP.

At first glance, its easy to see why Steele got the job in 2009.

Tall, elegant and well-spoken on many topics, Steele, the first black elected statewide in Maryland, had the looks of a guy who could attract black folks to at least listen to the Republican message.

Unfortunately, Republican kingmakers didn't look beneath the surface.

If they had, they would have found a man with a penchant for putting his foot in his mouth, spending lots of money and offering few solid results. It takes a lot more than throwing around a few hip-hop terms at ritzy GOP fundraisers to build a black presence in a political party.

That is not to say that Steele is a bad man. He isn't. The former seminary student showed great courage, but a heap of political naivety, in taking on Rush Limbaugh two years ago in a dispute over who speaks for the Republican party.

In the end, Steele was simply not up to the task of bringing black folks to the Republican message. Perhaps no single person is.

If so, that would be a shame because black people, if considered a monolith, will never gain political power giving all of its votes to a single political party.

Maybe if Republicans are serious about bringing blacks into the fold, they would rethink their opposition to issues like affirmative action and funding of job training programs that turn off so many black people from the jump.

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