But Can He Steal Democratic Votes?
Currie, Duncan
But Can He Steal Democratic Votes? Maryland's lieutenant governor runs for the Senate. by DUNCAN CURRIE Annapolis, Maryland IF YOU'VE HEARD of Michael Steele, the Maryland lieutenant governor,...
...He will, however, have a formidable opponent in the fall—either Rep...
...Because this is a new era.'" Steele says there's been a nascent shift rightward in the black community, particularly among younger black men "who were all about the American Dream...
...He prides himself on being a maverick: a "center-right" black Republican and a "traditional guy" on values, "who also has the ability to connect with the hip-hop community, [and] to connect with a lot of very strong liberals in Montgomery County...
...I tell people all the time, 'Get your popcorn,'" he says...
...It's what made me a Republican— that and my mother...
...If Republicans take a drubbing come November, Maryland is about the last state where you'd expect them to pick up a Senate seat...
...The Washington Times reported that one state legislator, Baltimore's Salima Siler Marriott, "said Mr...
...Blacks made crucial strides under Reagan and George H.W...
...Bush and his wife Barbara will appear at a Steele event in Chevy Chase, Md., on May 19...
...Even if Steele can siphon a small percentage of black voters away from the Democrats, it's still a constituency that went 89-11 for Kerry over George W. Bush...
...Bush, says Steele, but thanks to the Democrats, "you still had hanging over the party this rhetorical discord about who we are, and what we really feel about black people...
...And it was the Republican party...
...He's staunchly pro-life...
...And he rejects both same-sex marriage and gay civil unions (though he also opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment, preferring the matter be left to the states...
...Republicans expect a nasty campaign, the tone of which was set not only by the racist anti-Steele outbursts last fall but also by the revelation that two Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staffers had illegally acquired a copy of Steele's credit report...
...As the Democrats see it, Steele's social views bolster their claim that he is too closely tied to President Bush, who remains woefully unpopular in Maryland...
...They saw the movie...
...The general assembly tilts heavily Democratic...
...One of the staffers pleaded guilty in March to fraud...
...Small wonder he has no serious primary rivals in his Senate bid...
...The Maryland Democratic party has never nominated an African American to run statewide...
...Which party's policies were really addressing that...
...He calls himself "an unqualified supporter" of affirmative action, which sounds less nuanced than it is...
...the black community, that is...
...This may all prove a false alarm...
...Says USA Today columnist DeWayne Wick-ham: "Democrats need to counter [Steele] with their own black candidate, or run the risk of further alienating their black base...
...Last week the Washington Post reported that former president George H.W...
...He opposes embryonic stem cell research...
...They read the story...
...It may come down to how many onetime Democrats Steele can pick off in Maryland's "Big Three": Baltimore City, Prince George's County, and Montgomery County, all of which lean overwhelmingly Democratic...
...Steele caught a barrage of flak this past winter after he indirectly compared embryo-destroying research to medical experiments in Nazi Germany...
...This largely stems from fears that he will attract black voters to the Republican party...
...That drops by about five points when Steele is paired against Mfume...
...I like to tell people I'm an African-American, Roman-Catholic Republican—and I like to live dangerously," Steele says...
...It was always about creating economic opportunity...
...He should do well in the rest of the state, which generally votes Republican...
...Blogger Steve Gilliard posted the message "Simple Sambo wants to move to the big house" over a Photoshopped image of Steele wearing minstrel-show blackface...
...Even Steele's more responsible critics seem fixated on his race...
...But in his personal as well as in his political life, Steele, 47, is used to challenges, which may explain why he appears so sanguine about the Senate contest...
...When Steele declared his candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Maryland Democrat Paul Sar-banes last october, the comments from some black officials were all too predictable...
...Most pollsters give Cardin a small lead in the primary...
...Ben Cardin, 62, an elder statesman of Maryland politics, or Kweisi Mfume, 57, the former five-term Maryland congressman and ex-NAACP boss...
...John Kerry won Maryland by 13 points...
...Steele knew Fletcher, also a black Republican, and spoke with him extensively before Fletcher's death in July 2005...
...Well over six feet tall, he is also long on charisma and wry humor...
...Although his spiel on taxes, free markets, Social Security reform, and economic liberty could easily have been written by Jack Kemp, Steele is hardly a doctrinaire conservative—or a reliable partisan...
...Now they want to go out and live it...
...He later apologized for his offhand remark...
...Al Gore by 17 points...
...The conventional wisdom says Cardin, the establishment favorite, would make the stronger opponent...
...Besides Ronald Reagan, he credits his mother, a stalwart "Roosevelt Democrat," for making him a Republican...
...She "raised me the right way," he grins...
...We've got him getting 20 percent of the black vote in a matchup with Ben Cardin," says Gonzales, a nonpartisan analyst...
...Throughout our interview in his spacious Annapolis office, Steele brims with wonkish policy chatter, charming anecdotes, playful jokes, and toothy smiles...
...Every economic tool that's ever been designed by the United States Congress—from 'forty acres and a mule' during Reconstruction to affirmative action—was done so by Republicans...
...Belcher recommended that "a persuasion campaign should start as soon as possible to discredit Steele as a viable candidate for the community" Duncan Currie is a reporter at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...But it's also possible that if black voters feel Mfume wasn't given a fair shake they could pull the lever for Steele, or perhaps just stay home...
...Republicans are the historic party of civil rights...
...Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master...
...More recently, a survey conducted by Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher found that "a majority of African-American voters are open to supporting Steele, particularly younger voters...
...Every major piece of civil rights legislation ever created and promulgated in the United States Congress" was written or supported by Republi-cans—"from the very first piece to the last piece, the Voting Rights Act of '65...
...It's one of the things that I took from Ronald Reagan's first run [for the White House] in 1976...
...A Rasmussen poll released in late April had Cardin leading Steele by 10 points, 45-35 percent, and Mfume holding a smaller, 4-point edge, 4238 percent...
...The state hasn't elected a GOP senator since 1980...
...And the reality for them was, Which party was talking to them about that...
...Democrats also howl that Bush, vice President Dick Cheney, and ex-White House chief of staff Andy Card have all headlined fundraisers for Steele, whose campaign has already raised over $2.6 million...
...It's gonna be fun...
...Just before the 2002 election, which Steele won on a ticket with Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich, the Baltimore Sun sneered that he "brings little to the team but the color of his skin...
...Both draw on sizable bases...
...Steele, too, is bullish on the GOP's "empowerment" message...
...This hit home for Steele during the 2002 campaign, when, as he tells it, "A young brother came up to me and he said, 'You know, I'm thinking about voting for you.'" Steele thanked him, and asked why he was hesitant...
...The DSCC apparently had no knowledge of this—and the two staffers resigned—but GOP leaders were left fuming...
...Raised in Washington, D.C., Steele has a B.A...
...Then "along comes someone like me, who gets elected state chairman, I'm on the executive committee of the RNC, and I'm telling people, 'Y'all better wake up...
...Mfume is more than another Senate candidate," Donna Brazile, the Democratic consultant, has written...
...It's one of the things that drew me to the party...
...Despite all that, Steele argues, the events of the 1960s—from the GOP's reluctance to embrace Martin Luther King to its post-Gold-water adoption of a "southern strate-gy"—opened the door for blacks to leave the party in droves...
...from Johns Hopkins and a law degree from Georgetown, and he served a stint as chairman of the Maryland GOP (the first African American to chair a state party), with several years as a seminarian at Villanova sandwiched in between...
...Both expect to be well-financedheading into September's Democratic primary...
...True to his personality, Steele remains relentlessly upbeat...
...Unlike his youthful supporter, Steele finds common ground with the social right on most core issues...
...He will become a symbol of how Democrats intend to treat qualified black candidates in the future...
...by DUNCAN CURRIE Annapolis, Maryland IF YOU'VE HEARD of Michael Steele, the Maryland lieutenant governor, chances are you know he's a Republican, a conservative, and an African American—the target of repeated "Uncle Tom" barbs tossed his way by black Democrats...
...Steele has thought long and hard about blacks and the GOP, and he offers a surprising take...
...Anyone who watched his speech to the 2004 Republican convention in New York can attest to Steele's rhetorical talents...
...As Mfume told me, "The issue of race is all over this campaign...
...He opposes the death penalty and is unafraid to zing the Bush White House for its ineptitude...
...He cites the chief architect of modern affirmative action, a Nixon administration Labor official named Arthur Fletcher...
...Well, the young man admitted, he was a tad uneasy about the GOP's attitude toward blacks...
...Both are consistent left-liberals, though Cardin is more moderate and less partisan...
...But he ended up by saying, "I love your message on money...
...For Steele to win, says Maryland pollster Patrick Gonzales, he'll need to capture roughly 50 percent of independents and peel off a third of the registered Democrats...
...And whichever man wins, he will enjoy the "reverse coat-tails" of Bush's unpopularity...
...Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly two to one...
...He also had qualms about social conservatism...
...Any Republican faces an uphill battle in Maryland, even in a good year...
...While this endears him to national conservatives, it poses a problem in liberal Maryland...
...Affirmative action is not quotas, and affirmative action is not racial preferences," Steele says...
...He was so frustrated and disappointed at how—as he put it—the other party had 'bastardized' affirmative action into a quotas program," Steele told me...
...Because it was never about quotas...
Vol. 11 • May 2006 • No. 34
