GOP Senators Blast Steele Over Talk Of Primary Challenges

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Michael Steele’s back-and-forth flirtation with possible primary challenges to the party’s pro-stimulus Republicans is now causing him to catch some real flak. And it’s not just from those same Republican, but also from conservatives concerned about winning elections — perhaps indicative of internal strains in the GOP between a hard-line conservative agenda, versus the basic electoral goal of winning office.

Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), a pro-stimulus Republican who will be up for re-election in 2012, told Roll Call that she approached Steele about his comments and asked him bluntly: “You didn’t really mean that, did you?” She said that Steele has agreed to set up a meeting with the three pro-stimulus GOPers to discuss this.

Snowe pointed out that the loss of GOP moderates, and the view that they don’t belong in the party, has contributed to the party’s overall decrease. “When we were in the majority, there were more of us. Now that we’re in the minority, there are less of us,” Snowe explained, also adding: “If that’s what they want to be, well that’s their choice.”

And NRSC chairman John Cornyn, a right-winger whose job description right now is quite simply to elect more Republicans, said that while Steele has backed off a bit, Republicans should focus on attacking the Democrats and not each other: “We need to be finding candidates that can win in different parts of the country … not forming circular firing squads, especially when our numbers are so small.”

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