Most people in this age of Obama will probably notice the fact that Michael Steele is African-American, but not the son of an African immigrant. Steele is the son of an abusive alcoholic father, whom passed away early in his son's life, and a sharecropper's daughter, whom on multiple occasions was pulled out of class in South Carolina to work the tobacco fields and as a single mother moved to DC and supported her family on minimum wage for decades as a laundress. Anyone thinking that Michael Steele needs to be lectured on what it's like growing up in a family struggling to make ends meet is sadly mistaken. He knows firsthand and through his parents' experiences and racial heritage the brutal and subtle prejudices people of color have experienced and continue to experience.
In 2006, Michael Steele was stuck having to answer for things beyond his control, an increasingly unpopular Bush administration which incompetently botched Hurricane Katrina and seemed mired and clueless in the Iraq occupation. As RNC head, Michael Steele is going to focus on what went wrong after the breakthrough 1994 election: upon gaining power, instead of holding down spending and new entitlement initiatives, the GOP members became complacent and corrupted with power. I trust Michael Steele to be a constructive adversary to President Obama, to work hard at expanding the party's reach and insisting on a respectful tolerance of differing opinions; lawmakers should abide by a higher standard of conduct, and the party should focus on its roots, in particular, limited but effective government, individual responsibility and traditional values.
