Ken "The Other African-American Guy " Blackwell gaining momentum & endorsements

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Steele's bubble is starting to deflate? Toomey already previously endorsed Blackwell, I thought.  But hell, if you endorse him twice that's twice the mileage!  Ken might actually pull this off.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0109/Top_conservatives_back_Blackwell.html

Two dozen conservative luminaries will announce today their support for former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell for Republican Nation Committee chairman.

The group, which mixes leading economic conservatives, including Steve Forbes and Pat Toomey, and leading social conservatives, including James Dobson and Tony Perkins, had agreed to endorse and campaign together for a candidate based on a questionnaire assembled by veteran GOP activist Morton Blackwell (no relation).

"The conservative endorsers noted that there were other good candidates, but all agreed that Ken Blackwell is the best choice. They intend to contact grassroots conservatives across the country and ask them to urge the three RNC members from each state and U.S. territory to vote for Ken Blackwell for RNC chairman," they said in a press release going out shortly.

Blackwell appears to be one of the leading candidates in a race for the support of 168 members of the RNC, in which success can be difficult to gauge. Blackwell now has the public support of 12 RNC members. Some of the candidates will debate in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

Here's the full list of conservatives who are endorsing Blackwell today:


Gary Aldrich, Chairman, CNP Action Inc.

Morton C. Blackwell, Virginia Republican National Committeeman

Robert B. Bluey, Contributing Editor, RedState

L. Brent Bozell, Founder and President, Media Research Center

Kellyanne Conway, CEO and President, the polling company, inc./WomanTrend

T. Kenneth Cribb Jr., Former Domestic Adviser to President Reagan

James C. Dobson, Ph.D., Founder and Chairman, Focus on the Family

Becky Norton Dunlop, President, Council for National Policy

Stuart W. Epperson, Chairman, Salem Communications Corp.

Steve Forbes, Chairman & CEO, Forbes Media

Dr. Ronald Godwin, Vice Chancellor, Liberty University

Rebecca Hagelin, Author and Conservative Columnist

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

David Keene, Chairman, American Conservative Union

Tim LaHaye, Founder and President, Tim LaHaye Ministries

Ed Meese, Past President, Council for National Policy

James C. Miller, Past President, Council for National Policy

Tony Perkins, President Family Research Council

Ken Raasch, Chairman & CEO, Creative Brands Group

Alfred S. Regnery, Publisher, The American Spectator

Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum

Pat Toomey, President, Club for Growth

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202377.html?wprss=rss_print

This is a good summary of the race as of now.

Basically - The activists are concerned with Steele being part of the Republican Leadership Council that urged the party to be more accepting of moderates on the life (or even pro-choice!) issue in moderate counties.

Blackwell is racking up the support but there's a concern that electing a passionate ideological activist might not be the best way to win.  As Florida sez: "We are known to be the party of pro-life, we are known to be the party of traditional marriage," said Jim Greer, chairman of the Florida GOP, who has floated his name as a candidate but has not entered the race. "But once we affirm that, we need to move on. We need to focus on the issues that are being talked about at the dinner table."

I'm starting to think Blackwell might be overtaking Duncan as the frontrunner.  He really stole a lot of Steele's racial thunder.

Anuzis is probably the second-best pick after Steele since he is a pragmatist that understands that appealing endlessly to the base isn't going to win you elections (he knows because he's watched so many Republicans lose in Michigan, when was the last time Katon Dawson saw a Republican candidate lose in South Carolina because the Republican wasn't pragmatic enough?).

I think Katon Dawson's former membership to an all-white country club and Saltsman's Magic Negro CD's are too much of hot potatoes.  Will the RNC really give the Democrats a 30 second magnificent soundbyte to be used against the incoming chairman?

Lucky for Ken Blackwell, if Saltsman and Dawson decline, he's likely to scoop up their support in the successive rounds of voting.

So, I'm feeling like I might predict a Blackwell win here peeps.  I don't know how pragmatic the folks voting on this are, but my instinct says "not very"

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Wow, just wow.

Maybe if Blackwell won it would be for the best.  2010 may not be pretty and of course if Steele were RNC Chair at that time his eeeevil moderation would be blamed for the loss.  Of course, even if Steele isn't Chairman, the fact that moderates are even allowed to breathe will be blamed.

You really think letting the CFG help manage the party for four years will help y'all out?

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Well, what about the 2012 elections where there are going to be far more Democratic Senate seats up than Republican ones?

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Well, what about the 2012 elections where there are going to be far more Democratic Senate seats up than Republican ones?

All RNC resources will probably be devoted to replacing Senators Snowe, Corker, Hatch, and Lugar with "more conservative" nominees who will go on to lose, but "at least we stood up for principle".

Edit: the Utah seat would survive

Hopefully Toomey & Snow will focus on Snowe.

[Lunar]

Well, what about the 2012 elections where there are going to be far more Democratic Senate seats up than Republican ones?

All RNC resources will probably be devoted to replacing Senators Snowe, Corker, Hatch, and Lugar with "more conservative" nominees who will go on to lose, but "at least we stood up for principle".

Edit: the Utah seat would survive

Hopefully Toomey & Snow will focus on Snowe.

Actually, these organizations are inherently supportive of incumbents (see Santorum endorsing Specter, Obama endorsing Lieberman [initially] etc).  The real danger is whether RNC gets behind the right people for open seats and challengers.  I don't see Blackwell ever delivering resources to a pro-choice/moderate non-incumbent ever, but we'll see

[Lunar]

Wow, just wow.

Maybe if Blackwell won it would be for the best.  2010 may not be pretty and of course if Steele were RNC Chair at that time his eeeevil moderation would be blamed for the loss.  Of course, even if Steele isn't Chairman, the fact that moderates are even allowed to breathe will be blamed.

Anyone that Don likes = moderate



Steele is a conservative. Time to suck it up, my friend.

Steele is a conservative, but he's a pragmatist, that's the difference.  He was part of an organization that supported tolerance of abortion moderates in GOP candidates.

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Well, I think Don is almost always more focused on bureaucratic moderatism and big-tent philosophy rather than purely ideological moderatism (although he might value that as well).

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Bush does strike me as someone who might be slightly pragmatic "big tent"-y with his immigration bill, auto bailout, etc.

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How come the entire republican field for the RNC post are basically electoral failures whereas the DNC is going from one Governor to another?

Because if they weren't then they'd be governor or senator right now.

But I wouldn't say that the South Carolina GOP Chair is an electoral failure