It’s always fun to watch a candidate seemingly self-destruct in an election year:
Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele’s Senate campaign acknowledged yesterday that he was the anonymous candidate quoted by a Washington Post political reporter as saying that being a Republican was like wearing a “scarlet letter” and that he did not want President Bush to campaign for him this fall.
The campaign made the disclosure after a day of speculation in the blogosphere and among political reporters about which Republican Senate candidate had made the disparaging remarks reported by Dana Milbank in the Washington Sketch column in yesterday’s Post.
Democrats in Maryland and Washington pounced on the comments to portray Steele as either a chameleon or a hypocrite.
Actually, there is a third possibility as well: perhaps he was simply a politician who was speaking his mind and feared the consequences if his name was attached to his comments. Was he being paranoid? Just look at what is happening now:
“He realizes that he can’t win being a conservative Republican in Maryland in 2006,” said Maryland Democratic Party spokesman Arthur Harris. “He’s out of touch with the majority of Marylanders.”
State Democratic Party Chairman Terry Lierman pointed out in a statement that Steele has held fundraisers with the president, Vice President Cheney, Bush adviser Karl Rove and National Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman.
“He has taken millions from Bush and his top aides and even endorsed Bush in a prime-time Republican National Convention speech in August 2004,” Lierman said.
During a luncheon with reporters at which he agreed to be quoted only as a Republican Senate candidate, Steele criticized the Iraq war effort and Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina and said congressional Republicans have “lost our way,” according to Milbank’s report.
Aren’t comments like that a bit similar to what someone else by the name of William F. Buckley said? AND:
Asked whether he would invite Bush to campaign for him, he replied, considering Bush’s low approval rating in Maryland, “to be honest with you, probably not.”
Steele spokesman Doug Heye did not dispute the accuracy of Steele’s quotes in the paper but said Steele spent little time at the luncheon talking about the subject and said the article did not include some comments Steele made praising Bush.
“When he agrees with the Republican administration, he absolutely does so,” Heye said. “When he disagrees, he speaks his mind.”
The obvious conclusion is that Steele is going to pay for it at the polls as GOPers decide not to vote for him. On the other hand, some GOPers aren’t totally pleased with the Bush administration. Plus, if he’s having a tough re-election race, these comments might win him some independent votes since it’s clear he is putting some distance between himself and the White House (much as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has done recently…leading to improved polls). Or will they?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.