Steele reassures GOP's right flank

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By Ralph Z. Hallow

Michael S. Steele, whose sixth-ballot victory Friday made him the first black leader of the Republican Party, immediately began mending fences within the Republican National Committee and showing conservative leadership muscle after the long and nasty five-way contest for chairman.

The former Maryland lieutenant governor has already told one of his chief rivals, conservative businessman and former Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, that there will be a place for him in helping to run the RNC under Mr. Steele's chairmanship.

"He wants me to be part of it, no specifics," Mr. Anuzis told The Washington Times on Saturday. "We're to talk next week."

Mr. Steele also is seeking to erase doubts that he could establish himself as a conservative leader willing to offer help and direction to Republican lawmakers and chart the party's comeback.

Right after breakfast with RNC members at the Capitol Hilton Hotel in Washington on Saturday morning, Mr. Steele flew to the House Republican retreat at the venerable Homestead resort in Hot Springs, Va. He urged Republican lawmakers to remain steadfast in their opposition to the Obama administration's $819 billion stimulus measure as they hammer out strategy for the new Congress.

Oklahoma Republican Chairman Gary Jones, a social conservative who initially backed former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell in the party chairman's race, said Mr. Steele was "brilliant" at a private breakfast Saturday morning, assuaging the most conservative members who were worried that he might lead the party in the wrong direction.

"They -- we -- all felt reassured afterward," Mr. Jones told The Washington Times in a telephone interview between plane changes on his way back to Oklahoma.

Despite the standing ovations, prolonged applause and foot-stomping approval by RNC members upon his election Friday, there was considerable tension within the committee over who Mr. Steele really is and where he will lead a party that has lost two straight national elections, lacks a clear leader and is perceived as philosophically rudderless.

Mr. Steele began his first day as national chairman with several members saying that he has a number of formidable tasks ahead, chief among them to unite the ideological and regional factions in the party that have become increasingly obvious.

In particular, party officials said, Mr. Steele will have to use his considerable charm and rhetorical skills to allay the fear among conservatives in the South that he is too moderate.