I really like Newt, but I personally would much rather see Michael Steele as the head of the RNC.  Newt, God love him, is part of the old Republican guard.  He had his chance, and he let his personal failings get in the way of his message. 

Steele is an effective messenger, even though the one time I’ve seen him speak in public left me less than enthused.  It also appears to me that he can be a good leader.  And as much as I hate to focus on his race, we have to recognize outsiders think GOP stands for Gray Old Palefaces.  Michael Steele would show Americans that we ARE diverse, no matter what Spike Lee says.  His prominence will also encourage more minorities to listen to our message.

Update: Here’s some notes from a conference call Steele had on his run for the chair.  The post includes another take on why we should push for Steele to be the chair.  As an African-American, he won’t be burdened with the race card when attacking Obama’s policies.  In fact, as Allah points out, it would bait the left into showing their true colors when it comes to race.  They consider Republicans of color either race traitors or “house slaves,” all the while berating the party for not having enough people of color as members.

What’s the lesson of the fundraising choices of this year’s candidates?  Just say no to public financing.  Not only is the candidate limited to the $84 million dollars, but an FEC audit is required.  However, raising ungodly amounts of money through suspected fraudulent means won’t trigger an audit because the amount of proven fraud is such a low percentage of the total.  Unreal. 

Obama had the most corrupt campaign fundraising machine, and no one except the blogosphere seems to give a damn.

Many of you have heard of the Election ‘08 series that Newsweek reporters write post-election to air a lot of dirty laundry learned over the course of the campaign.  OK, maybe you haven’t heard of it, but I’m sure you’ve heard some of the Palin smears that originated from the first part of it.  Debbie Schlussel took the time of going through the entire thing, and she has picked out some of the most interesting tidbits from Obama’s camp as well as some of the lowlights from the McCain camp.

Before the election, I wrote a post arguing Obama will not be able to stand up to Pelosi and Reid because he’s pretty much a political neophyte in D.C.  However, the people around him aren’t, and the machine they are putting into place is massive.  Erick over at Redstate argues that if Obama is having trouble with Congress, he’ll just shoot out an email to his Manchurian electorate to get them to contact their Senators and Representatives to vote “Obama’s way.”

Just think about how powerful that is.  Chances are they have physical addresses to match the email addresses.  If Obama is having problems with a Republican Congressman from a slightly red district on a vote, he can target those constituents and get them to flood their Congressman with emails and phone calls to try to change his / her mind. 

He also has all those phone numbers he collected when the world was waiting for the text message with his VP announcement.  Text alerts could go out just before votes for a last-minute bombardment of Congress.

Think about election day 2010.  Voter turnout usually falls dramatically from the Presidential election.  If he targeted districts that were barely lost to Republicans, he can get his Manchurian electorate to once again turn out and vote for the Democrat and once again gain seats. 

I hope the RNC is watching and learning.  They have email addresses, too, and they can get more from the McCain campaign.  They can use them for more than just continually begging for money.  In fact, if they keep doing that, many people will just drop themselves off the list.  We’ve got smart, technologically inclined Republicans.  We can do better than the Obamachine.

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