RNC Member: Don’t Count Michael Steele Out Yet

RNC Chairman Michael Steele
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Several media reports suggest the vultures are circling Michael Steele’s Republican National Committee chairmanship. But it’s not quite over yet, according to one voting member of the Republican National Committee who says he’s supporting Steele. That member laid out Steele’s path to victory in a phone interview with TPM this morning.

David Lewis is a four-term North Carolina state Representative and a voting member of his state’s RNC delegation. Along with the rest of the 168 voting members of the RNC, Lewis will cast his vote in January to elect the party’s next chairman. And at this point, he says Steele’s still the man to beat — and the candidate who has his vote.

“This race is not played out in the press,” Lewis said. “I’d be confident to say [Steele] has 100 votes.”

[TPM SLIDESHOW: Best Boss Ever? Michael Steele & The RNC Interns]

Lewis’ take runs pretty much directly counter to the conventional wisdom about the RNC race. Steele has been pushed out of the post-election spotlight by most in the Republican establishment, who have seen his gaffetastic tenure as something of an embarrassment. Potential challengers to Steele are popping up like mushrooms after a storm and one of the men he beat — former Michigan Republican party chair Saul Anuzis — has already made his campaign to take Steele out official. As far as the chairmanship is concerned, a lot of DC insiders see Steele as as dead man walking.

This morning, the Daily Caller’s Jon Ward reported as much, quoting a number of anonymous Republicans who say Steele doesn’t have the votes to hang on, and saying that the only drama now will be to see which of the 10 or so unofficial candidates — and the competing Republican constituencies each represents — will win out in the end.

But Lewis, who’s backing Steele, told me that no one really knows what will happen until balloting begins when the RNC meets in January. And he said that anyone who’s counting out Steele is ignoring the past, when Steele emerged as chair after six rounds of balloting in 2009.

“The last chairman’s race actually developed in the room,” Lewis sad.

“Chairman Steele is a very, very smart man,” he added. “He’s very astute at counting votes.”

Lewis said that Steele’s only chance to make it will come on the “first two to three rounds” of balloting. If the chairman hasn’t won by then, his chances at being reelected will be much slimmer.

Why would Steele still have a chance at all after a term that often turned the RNC into a national laughingstock? For the same reason a lot of prominent Republicans will get to keep their jobs this year, Lewis said — they won.

“It’s one thing to try and maintain your chairmanship after a humiliating losses,” Lewis told me. “It’s another thing to maintain it after a historic win.”

Lewis said that “grassroots activists” like him will stand with Steele for other reasons too. Steele has claimed to make a habit of getting money out of the RNC and into the hands of state parties. The low cash on hand at the headquarters has made for some bad headlines for Steele in Washington, but Lewis said the practice has built a nice base of support for the chairman.

“Like any organization, the RNC has haves and have-nots,” Lewis said. “Chairman Steele has done a good job of reaching out to the have-nots — and their votes count just as much as anybody else’s.”

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