EXCLUSIVE: Steele chastises 'country club' GOP

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By Jon Ward and Ralph Z. Hallow, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Mr. Steele said if he gets the RNC job, he expects the press to ridicule it as a race-based attempt to piggyback on the election of Mr. Obama, the nation's first black president.

"If I'm elected chairman ... many in the media will dismiss it as tokenism by the Republican Party, trying to play their form of the race card ... and it will speak to a general disrespect they have of guys like me," said Mr. Steele, whose run for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland in 2006 drew Mr. Obama into the state twice to campaign against him.

Mr. Steele said that during the 2006 election, he and two other black Republican candidates for statewide office - former football star Lynn Swann for Pennsylvania governor and former Ohio state Treasurer Ken Blackwell for governor there - were called "lawn jockeys" for the Republican Party.

Nonetheless, Mr. Steele had praise for the people who have surfaced as Mr. Obama's first two likely Cabinet choices: former Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat.

He called Mr. Holder, who was reported Tuesday to have been chosen for attorney general, "a good man ... a smart man."

"I always found Eric Holder to be his own man, a principled individual, and he will, like Hillary, be a very good choice for the job he's being chosen to do," said Mr. Steele, speaking of reports that Mrs. Clinton will be named secretary of state.

Michael Steele Interview Part 2:

Mr. Steele also talked at length about how the Republican Party has been left "standing still" by the Democrats and by Mr. Obama when it comes to the use of technology and outreach to young and minority voters.

The RNC candidate said that Mr. Obama, with his unprecedented coalition of new voters, "is already laying down the seeds for his re-election."