Michael Steele Wins RNC Chair Race

Congratulations, Chairman Steele!

In the sixth ballot, Michael Steele beat Katon Dawson to become the new RNC Chairman. Here's how things played out:

First Ballot

• Mike Duncan: 52
  
• Michael Steele: 46
  
• Katon Dawson: 28
  
• Saul Aunzis: 22
  
• Ken Blackwell: 20

Nobody dropped out. The rules do not require any candidates to be dropped, or to pull their names out of contention. Duncan's vote total was lower than expected (the audience gasped, according to National Review Online).

Second Ballot

• Mike Duncan: 48
  
• Michael Steele: 48
  
• Katon Dawson: 29
  
• Saul Aunzis: 24
  
• Ken Blackwell: 19

No one dropped out here, either.

Third Ballot

• Michael Steele: 51
• Mike Duncan: 44
  
• Katon Dawson: 34
  
• Saul Aunzis: 24
  
• Ken Blackwell: 15

Mike Duncan dropped out after the third ballot, without endorsing anyone.

Fourth Ballot

• Katon Dawson: 62
• Michael Steele: 60
  
• Saul Aunzis: 31
  
• Ken Blackwell: 15

Katon Dawson took the lead in the fourth ballot. Ken Blackwell withdrew, endorsing Michael Steele.

Fifth Ballot

• Michael Steele: 79
  
• Katon Dawson: 69
  
• Saul Aunzis: 20
  

Saul Anuzis pulled out, without endorsing Steele or Dawson. Steele retook the lead.

Sixth Ballot

• Michael Steele: 91
  
• Katon Dawson: 77
  

Steele emerged victorious on the sixth ballot. Congratulations, Chairman Steele!

RNC Chair Update - Vote Tomorrow

Final Update to the RNC Chair race... the vote takes place tomorrow morning.

Chip Saltsman is out. Never even got a public committee endorsement.

It's anybody's guess right now. According to YourRNC.com's latest endorsement count, current chairman Mike Duncan is in the lead with 36 pledged votes. Katon Dawson leads the pack for second, with 20 pledged votes. All the rest are close behind.

My thoughts.

• Mike Duncan: Should not be re-elected. Yes, he barely got on the job in time for the 2008 election, but we need dramaticly new leadership.
• Katon Dawson: Got hit early on for being a member of a "whites-only" country club (he was unaware of the long-forgotten rule). Showing surprising strength down the stretch. Would probably be okay...
  
• Michael Steele: Too moderate for my taste. However, with Obama as president, I think Steele could be a good counter-figure.
  
• Saul Anuzis: An overall bad choice. Very poor job as Michigan GOP Chair. Read here for more.
  
• Ken Blackwell: Strong conservative; OKGOP Chair Gary Jones' pick. I really like this guy... solidly conservative, and would take the GOP in the right direction. Being African-American like Steele gives him an edge for criticizing Obama. I hope he pulls it out, but can he?
  

We will find out who the new chairman is tomorrow...

RNC Chair Debate

In case you missed it, the RNC Chair debate held by Americans for Tax Reform was held on January 5th.

It ran on C-SPAN, and you can view the debate in its entirety here.

Politico's 'Guide to the RNC Chair Race'

Here's Politico.com's 'A Guide to the RNC Chairman race':

A Guide to the RNC Chairman race
by Alexander Burns

The six contenders for Republican National Committee chair are rolling out every gimmick, plan and endorsement in the hopes of gaining an edge — any edge — in the tight contest for the GOP’s top job.

Just Tuesday, Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state, announced that he was forming a ticket with Texas Republican Party Chairwoman Tina Benkiser, who is running for national co-chairwoman of the party. Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele unveiled a set of ethics regulations designed to polish the GOP’s tarnished public image.

Earlier this week, Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis contacted RNC members to advertise his “Blueprint for a GOP Comeback.”

Not to be outdone, incumbent Chairman Mike Duncan, who confirmed his intention to seek a second term last week, is making plans for the formation of a new conservative think-tank, the Center for Republican Renewal.

The attention-grabbing stunts are a necessity in a race where the candidates don’t have many chances to confront each other directly. Two of the few opportunities will take place during the first week of January, when candidates will face each other at a debate hosted by the fiscal conservative group Americans for Tax Reform and then later that week when they compete for support from the RNC’s Conservative Steering Committee, which will hold a straw poll and release a list of approved candidates.

There’s still a ways to go in the race, and experienced Republicans point to the 1997 contest for RNC chairman — when Jim Nicholson upset a crowded field in the party’s last competitive leadership election — as evidence that anything can happen.

Here’s a look at each candidate’s prospects six weeks out from the start of the RNC’s winter meeting on Jan. 28.

Mike Duncan — As the current committee chairman, Duncan knows the party’s insiders better than anyone else in the running. And while his present term in office has left Republicans with mixed feelings — his prolific fundraising doesn’t quite make up, in some leaders’ minds, for the GOP’s devastating November losses — he’s ended on a strong note thanks to Saxby Chambliss’s victory in the Georgia Senate runoff and the GOP’s two House wins in Louisiana.

Most of all, Duncan is benefiting from a divided field of opponents who haven’t developed a consistent critique of his leadership and against whom he could quickly become an unobjectionable consensus candidate.

“If there was a movement that could push Duncan out, I think it would be identifiable at this point,” said one Republican strategist who expects Duncan to be reelected. “I just do not get the feeling that there is going to be some great change.”

Saul Anuzis — Among the field of candidates seeking to become the anti-Duncan, Anuzis stands out for his energetic campaigning and his emphasis on technology. The Michigan GOP chair announced his bid on Twitter and has been hammering away at the theme of tactical innovation. Multiple Republicans noted Anuzis’s big, colorful personality — he rides a Harley-Davidson and sports a goatee as an asset in a race where candidates are struggling to distinguish themselves from an ideologically homogenous field.

Anuzis has also rolled out more public endorsements than any other candidate, drawing heavily on support from blue states like New Jersey and Connecticut and shaping a perception that his candidacy is picking up steam.

“If I had to assign momentum in what has been a very, very sleepy race, I’d assign it to Anuzis,” said another Republican strategist.

Anuzis’s weakness? Michigan has been very tough ground for the GOP in recent cycles, and the support he’s receiving from Republicans back home may not be quite enough to kick voters’ suspicion that he just hasn’t delivered the wins an RNC chair needs.

Michael Steele — Steele, a former state party chair who served as Maryland’s lieutenant governor before losing a Senate race in 2006 to then-Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), is essentially tied in second place with Anuzis. Steele announced his candidacy on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity and Colmes” to great fanfare, touting his skills as a political communicator at a time when Republicans lack a high-profile leaders on the national stage.

Steele’s campaign hasn’t gone quite the way he expected it to, according to some Republicans, who believe Steele expected his star power to carry him farther than it has in a race in which many RNC members would prefer to elect one of their colleagues on the committee.

And though he’s consistently reaffirmed his commitment to conservative social positions, his association with the moderate Republican Leadership Council has some RNC members uneasy.

“I don’t think there’s any question that he is personally pro-life. I think the only question is how he views the role of social conservatives within the party,” said James Bopp Jr., the influential social conservative who serves as national committeeman for Indiana.

But despite these hiccups, Steele seems destined to make it to the finish line with the clout to make it through multiple ballots. And if he can edge out Anuzis on the first vote he could give Duncan a run for his money.

Katon Dawson — Running a little behind his fellow challengers, but still mounting an energetic and serious campaign, is South Carolina Republican Party Chair Katon Dawson. With a better win-loss record than Anuzis and a closer rapport with RNC members than Steele or Blackwell, Dawson could ride a wave of conservative and Southern support into the late stages of balloting — particularly if the Blackwell-Benkiser gambit falls flat.

The Palmetto State Republican is billing his campaign as a vehicle for outside-the-Beltway competence and emphasizing the need to return control over the RNC to successful state-level leaders — a message that’s certainly in tune with the mood on the committee.

Dawson’s major obstacle is, in a word, Southernness. At a moment when some are labeling the GOP a regional party, Dawson may not look (and sound) like the change the GOP needs. And his critics are only too eager to hype up a damaging story that Dawson belonged to an all-white country club as recently as last summer.

Ken Blackwell — The former Cincinnati mayor and Ohio secretary of state entered the RNC campaign late — on Dec. 5 — and has lagged behind the other contenders. While his candidacy hasn’t exactly caught fire, it got a potentially significant boost this week in the shape of his partnership with Benkiser, who could help Blackwell appeal to the significant social conservative bloc on the committee.

Blackwell has also moved forward with a series of moves that appear designed to capture the RNC’s fiscal conservative vote, receiving the endorsements of publisher Steve Forbes and Club for Growth head Pat Toomey. Endorsements don’t necessarily pack much of a punch in an internal election like this one, but every little bit helps.

Like Steele, however, Blackwell’s not a member of the RNC and he still faces skepticism about both his qualifications and his viability. The Ohioan still has some catching up to do in this race and a running mate alone won’t do the trick.

“He’s a very plausible candidate,” said one member of the RNC, who cautioned: “He’s neither fish nor fowl. He’s not a figure with national prominence and he’s not a figure with experience keeping the trains running on time.”

Chip Saltsman — A former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party and campaign manager to Mike Huckabee, Saltsman has more to gain than any other candidate from a protracted, multi-ballot knife fight for the chairmanship. The 40-year-old has been running a vigorous race against more established candidates, though he’s had to distance himself from the Huckabee campaign in a race where no one wants to support a stalking horse for 2012.

Saltsman knows he’s an underdog, but as a student of GOP politics he also knows that once an RNC race gets past the first or second ballot, all bets are off. If Saltsman can become a second- or third-choice candidate for a significant number of RNC members, and survive the first ballot, he could try and follow the Jim Nicholson path to victory. Yet even if he is unsuccessful, he’s established himself as a name to be taken very seriously in years to come.

The MuskogeePolitico has not yet decided which candidate to support. Certainly not Mike Duncan, with the terrible performance and leadership the RNC has had the past few years.

As we reported, Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Gary Jones endorsed Ken Blackwell; so far, he has been the only Oklahoman to endorse a candidate.

RNC Chair candidate websites:

• Saul Anuzis
• Ken Blackwell
• Katon Dawson
• Chip Saltsman
• Michael Steele

(Current RNC Chairman and candidate Mike Duncan does not yet have a website.) [CORRECTION: Duncan does have a website]

I have added a list on the sidebar with the candidates websites linked.

OKGOP Chair Endorses Ken Blackwell

Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Gary Jones has endorsed Ken Blackwell in the RNC Chair race. Here is the letter from Chairman Jones and Lousiana GOP Chair Roger Villere. Blackwell has made them the co-chairman of his RNC chair campaign.

Dear RNC Member,

Today we join Steve Forbes and Chuck Yob in announcing our support for Ken Blackwell for Chairman of the Republican National Committee. As part of that support we have agreed to serve as Co-Chairs of Ken’s campaign.

We believe that Ken Blackwell will make the strongest RNC Chairman for the following reasons.

- Ken is a conservative who has experience working with important segments of our base such as the National Rifle Association, the Family Research Council, and the Club for Growth.

- Ken has experience representing our party on national television and has the authority to be taken seriously by the media and the American people.

- Ken knows what it takes to win elections having been successful in thirteen out of the seventeen times he has been on the ballot.

- Ken understands the mechanics of our party having worked in all fifty states across the country to fight Democrat attempts to rig the census.

This year Louisiana Republicans experienced one of the best years ever, winning two congressional seats in runoffs this past Saturday by a combined 2% while ousting an incumbent Democrat in a Democrat district. It was a phenomenal ending to a phenomenal cycle in Louisiana.

Oklahoma Republicans also had a successful year, winning majority in the Oklahoma Senate for the first time in state history while delivering every county for John McCain.

We want to thank Mike Duncan for his service on the job he did under difficult circumstances and appreciated the help provided by Chairman Duncan and commend him for his many years of service to our party.

That said, we believe it is time to go in a new direction and that Ken Blackwell is the best person to lead our party against Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi.

While we realize there is an effort to make sure that a current member is Chairman of the RNC, we believe it would be a mistake not to field our best team against the Democrats.

Ken understands the importance of working with RNC members in building partnerships between the RNC and the states. Ken pledges to appoint RNC members as deputies and to use their experience and knowledge to prepare our party utilizing the best training and technology available going into the next round of elections.

We look forward to working with each of you in the years to come and urge you to join us in helping make Ken Blackwell RNC Chairman.

Sincerely,

Gary Jones, Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman
Co-Chairman - Blackwell for RNC Chairman

Roger F. Villere Jr., Louisiana Republican Party Chariman
Co-Chairman - Blackwell for RNC Chairman

(link)

You can visit Ken Blackwell's campaign website here.

Update to RNC Race

Current RNC chairman Mike Duncan will be running for re-election, and has launched his own website.

Here's the current list of announced candidates:

Mike Duncan
Michael Steele
Saul Anuzis
Chip Saltsman
Katon Dawson
Ken Blackwell

UPDATE: Added Ken Blackwell to the list.