"Forget the Party Labels"

This one has been swirling around in my mind for a bit. It's not formulated completely, but I just want to put it out there.

Michael Steele is getting support from the national Republican party because he is a Black Republican. He's getting help from Karl Rove, the president, and national conservative talk shows.

Michael Steele is the man.

Michael Steele is running his U.S. Senate for Maryland race, not as a Republican, but as an individual. His campaign is saying, forget the party labels and look at the man and the issues.

Now, he could be said that he is doing that so that Blacks "forget" he is a Republican and vote for him. But that is not the case.

Indeed, his campaign is looking at the Maryland demographics, 2:1 registered Democrats to Republicans, and see that in a state wide race, there is no other way to run.

His campaign, which has started, has already putting out that he should be considered independent of his party and the president.

Comments

[Cobb]

Steele is unapolgetically Republican, but he knows that black voters are basically ignorant of the Republican party. So he says focus on me. That doesn't mean he is independent of the party.

[DarkStar]

He's doing this statewide, not just in Black areas.

He's trying to figure out a way to beat the Dem:Repub 2:1 registration. By using the "vote for the man" line, he's trying to offset the Republican tag.

Ehrlich (R) won because Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (D) was a horrible candidate. Ehrlich stated that if Martin O'Malley had been the Dem. candidate, he would not have entered the race.

[MIB]

I'm not sure if Steele is receiving adequate support from his party. I don't see the Governor, for instance, doing much publicly on his lieutenant's behalf. Granted voter registrations in Maryland run 2:1 against Republicans, you'd think in such a high-profile contest Steele would be the recipient of significantly more money from the GOP's national mechanism than what's been received to date.

But... on to his campaign!

I think Mike Steele's bright enough to understand Gov. Ehrlich, President Bush and prevaling GOP politics are all gigantic political negatives in a run for Sarbanes' seat and has to delicately distance himself from all three albatrosses. I know he's a capable executive from his days as the state's party chairman. I can also accept his occasional GOP talking points recitations as part of his j-o-b. But his campaign for Senate will have to provide policy substance over ideological window dressing in order to be successful.