As readers may know, the Republican National Committee is wrapping up its annual meeting in Hawaii. The media asked the moderate-conservative chairman various questions, which I've highlighted below:
On a presidential bid in 2012: "Come on, don't ask me that," He adds: "In all honest-to-good seriousness, that is such silly Washington talk. It's just not even on my mind," Mr. Steele said.
On his gaffes: "Sometimes it's deliberate. Sometimes it's accidental. I'm a very passionate guy. Sometimes I'll push the envelope because I want to get a rise, I want to see if you're paying attention. But then I realize, oh gee, they're more focused on me as opposed to the problem I was trying to highlight. And so that's when you realize, OK, I've got to approach this a little differently and you know have some more creative ways to do that."
On whether his race is part of the reason that his critics feed some of the negative storylines about him that have emerged during his 1-year tenure: "I don't see stories about the internal operations of the DNC that I see about this operation. Why? Is it because Michael Steele is the chairman, or is it because a black man is chairman?", he asked in the current issue of Washingtonian magazine.
He adds: "It's not because of my race, but race is more of a factor than it ordinarily would be -- just as it is for Barack Obama," Mr. Steele said in response to a question about the Washingtonian piece. "Look," he added, "I've been in this political world for a long, long time. And it was no different when I ran for lieutenant governor, no different when I became state party chairman. There is a different way of looking at how, particularly as a Republican, how we approach issues, how we approach problems. The general mindset when you see, hear or read about an African American, you think, politically, Democrat. And all of a sudden, you've got this brother who's a Republican and you go, 'OK now, what does that look like and how does it manifest itself?' That's it. More curiosity than anything else. It's just one of the things you've got to live with."
On trying to bring tea party activists - many of whom despise both political parties - into the Republican fold: "I think it's all about attitude and approach," Mr. Steele said. "In the first instance, we don't have them in the fold. You're not trying to capture somebody and co-opt them or bring them in. What you're trying to do is figure out where you have common ground and stand on that ground together." He adds, "I think it affords us an opportunity to partner and fight the same fight on the battleground of small government, low taxes, clearly free markets, free enterprise...all those things that a lot of people out there are very nervous about."
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Michael Steele Unplugged
