The NYT had an article this weekend entitled, Why Is Michael Steele a Republican Candidate?

This is a good question. It is also a wonder that this guy is so freaking clueless. Take for example, the first freaking paragraph of the article:

It was last spring when Karl Rove called Michael Steele, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, to sell him on running for the Senate, and to close the deal, Rove paused to put President Bush on the phone. As Steele recalls it, the president's adviser said, "Here, the boss wants to talk to you." Steele froze, then demurred. "I went, 'No, no thank you.' I was so stunned that he was going to hand the phone to the president. I said, 'That's all right, we'll have that call later.' I couldn't believe it." Other top Republicans called. Senator Elizabeth Dole. Ken Mehlman, the party chairman. One day Steele's cellphone rang, and Vice President Dick Cheney was on the other end.

Luckily a Republican consultant gives us an answer to the question in the same article, that also provides me with a new political vocabulary term:

Don't be an "outreach pawn," Steele's friend Curt Anderson, a political consultant, warned him. By that, Anderson, former political director of the Republican National Committee, meant, Don't get into the race just so the party can say it is fielding a black candidate or so it can appear to be softening its image. "I have a dim view of the typical Republican outreach," Anderson told me. "It's like: Yeah, look, we have a black guy. We have a Hispanic guy. Look over there, we have a Jewish guy. It's surface. It never bears fruit. I told him: Don't do it for the Republican Party. Don't do it for the president. Do it for yourself. He had to ask himself, Can I win? Everything else is silly."

How could he be anything less? Ehrlich's Governorship is an unmitigated failure. Everyone agrees, right and left, he has accomplished nothing, and was completely incapable of generating anything resembling consensus. Why would Steele, who's only accomplishment is being elected with Ehrlich considered a candidate by Republicans? Hmmm, "outreach pawn" sounds about right.

That, and there is his ridiculous persecution complex about being black and Republican. Like the Oreo cookie-throwing incident he fabricated to sound like he's just a poor oppressed minority black Republican trying to make his way in a cruel liberal world. For a more complete debunking of the Steele Oreo myth check out this post.

Anyway, a pathetic candidate for a pathetic party and their efforts to get "outreach pawns."