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A lot of talk, little action: The RNC counts down President Obama's top 10 "broken promises"

Natalie Gonnella

With President Obama's announcement this week officially announcing his intent to seek reelection in 2012, the Republican National Committee has outlined the "top 10" promises the President has failed to deliver on during his current term.

As the Administration prepares to step up efforts for the 2012 campaign, here's a look at the RNC's list of President Obama's biggest broken promises and the realities behind the Administration's current policy:

1. Serious about reducing the deficit and debt: Since President Obama took office, the national debt has increased by $3.5 trillion. 
2. If you like your plan, you can keep it: As many as 69 percent of employees and 80 percent of small businesses could be forced to change health care plans under Obamacare's new regulations.
3. The stimulus will keep unemployment below 8 percent: The unemployment rate is 8.8 percent and has remained above 8 percent for 26 straight months. 
4. Health care negotiations will be televised: The two biggest deals in Obamacare were reached in secret.
5. Lobbyists “won’t find a job in my white house”: President Obama has granted numerous exceptions to his lobbyist ban.
6. Obamacare will reduce premiums: insurance companies are raising rates because of the requirements in Obamacare, "muddying the democrats' contention that the law will rein in sharply rising premiums."
7. The stimulus will create “shovel-ready jobs”: “[M]r. Obama reflects on his presidency, admitting that he let himself look too much like 'the same old tax-and-spend democrat,' realized too late that 'there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects.’"
8. Housing plan will save millions from foreclosure: Only one in four of 2.7 million homeowners seeking assistance from Obama’s mortgage relief plan succeeded in getting their payments reduced. 
9. Stimulus jobs will not be shipped overseas: Stimulus projects created thousands of jobs in China.
10. Transparency: The administration evades their own transparency rules by meeting with lobbyists away from the white house and Freedom of Information Act requests are also subjected to “secretive reviews” by the Obama administration’s political advisors.

The RNC's full outline of "broken promises," as well as links to analysis, articles and reports detailing each of the noted "truths" are available here.

Five of the GOP's biggest names come from Wisconsin

Tim Montgomerie

The Badger State may only be the 21st most conservative state in Gallup's league table but Politico records the five big name Republicans that come from Wisconsin:

1. Gov. Scott Walker is the nation’s most-talked-about governor and a hero on the right for his attempts to roll back collective bargaining rights for state workers—a plan that would also strike a severe blow at the Democratic political apparatus.
2. In Washington, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is the youthful and articulate voice of entitlement reform, the designer of the GOP blueprint for the nation’s fiscal future. In January, it was Ryan who was picked to deliver the Republican Party’s televised response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address.
3. Freshman Rep. Sean Duffy, a former prosecutor and reality TV celebrity who won former Appropriations Chairman David Obey’s House seat in November, is heralded as one of the party’s rising young stars.
4. On the Senate side, Ron Johnson, a political newcomer who felled liberal standard-bearer Sen. Russ Feingold last year, represents one of the tea party movement’s biggest success stories.
5. Wisconsin hands also hold the levers of national party power. Reince Priebus, a former Wisconsin GOP chairman, recently ousted Michael Steele to become chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Read the full piece.

It's official: Reince Priebus takes the helm at the RNC with his work cut out for him: get out of debt, raise more money than ever before, repair relationships, and help people learn how to say his name

NOT SO CHUMMY TODAY. REINCE PRIEBUS & MICHAEL STEELE ON A HAPPIER DAY.

After a lock of jockeying for votes and reported dealmaking, the RNC has selected former Wisconsin GOP chairman, Reince Priebus, as RNC chairman.

Congratulations to a man who orchestrated a GOP-dominated set of elections in Wisconsin in November.

One of his first objectives has to be to convince activists and other state party officials that he is the real deal. He has not been without some pretty pointed criticism for his affiliations and manner of getting things done. This caustic and fairly detailed post at Red State is an example of how heated the opposition can be.

But he's also received strong endorsements from Wisconsin's new Governor, Scott Walker, and the state's most visible congressman, Paul Ryan, in the video he released to promote his bid for RNC chair. 

In the end,the big story of the day was that what many have been expecting for months finally happened: Michael Steele was forced to step down. Priebus' ascent to the post, though the most important part of the day for the GOP, is almost a secondary narrative. 

Two things seem fairly clear.

First, Priebus' victory shines a light on the efficacy of high-level endorsements and expressions of support, such as those Maria Cino received from the likes John Boehner, Mary Matalin, Ed Gillespie, and even Dick Cheney.

Second, he's got a tough job on two fronts: repairing the financial and organizational mess he has inherited, and re-establishing the relevance of the RNC, which was diminished in 2010 by forceful and effective third party organizations that raised money and organized ground troops very well. 

And, of course, he'll have to get used to helping people pronounce his name after the much-circulated John Stewart video.

The "anyone but Michael Steele" debate sponsored today by the Daily Caller

Ryan Streeter

The summary read-out of today's debate between candidates for RNC chair are at The Daily Caller.

In the end, while it's entertaining to learn how many guns each owns (or doesn't own.....Steele can't get a break, as the guy with no guns), it all boils down to the dollars and the ability to target important races. Everyone was polite to Steele, but the $20 million elephant in the room (the RNC's debt) made his "I'm a glass is half full kind of guy" laughable. 

All other candidates seemed competent and capable enough. My vote goes to either Cino or Anuzis, both of whom honed in best on the kinds of capabilities that such a job needs. And when it's all said and done, it's sort of sad to say: success will be judged by getting the RNC out of debt and showing the organization is not irrelevant in the next election (no small feat, given how much outside political organizations achieved over the head of the RNC in November). 

Here's to setting the bar low and hoping to be surprised!

Ready for a change, many RNC Central Committee members want Michael Steele off the January leadership ballot

Natalie Gonnella

The Associated Press recently conducted press interviews with RNC Central Committee members, investigating their opinions on the future of the Republican party.

In feedback from 51 members, all but 12 preferred for Michael Steele to not be on the chairmanship ballot in January.  

Committee members also commented:

• "You can't keep spending the kind of money they're spending every month just to operate the RNC…I would hope he would step aside." Ada Fisher, North Carolina.
• "I just don't think Steele has performed at the level we need for the presidential cycle." – James Bopp, Indiana
• "I think the Gentry Collins letter made it impossible for Mike Steele to be re-elected," – Morton Blackwell, Virginia
• "He's a wonderful man. He's done a good job…but it would be better for him — and I want the best for him — to step down knowing he gave an honest shot and did a good job this election cycle." – Cindy Costa, South Carolina

The AP also found, that in "more than four dozen interviews [respondents expressed worry] that a badly damaged Steele could emerge from the wreckage of a knockdown, drag-out fight to head the party as it challenges President Barack Obama in 2012."

If he were to run for another term, Steele would need a majority of 85 votes to keep his current position as RNC chairman.

With a list of challengers in development, and anger growing amongst party members over Steele's performance as chair, the pressure is growing for the RNC to crown a new leader in 2011. 

RNC unraveling as Steele's top aide resigns

Ryan Streeter

RNC political director Gentry Collins has issued a letter spelling out why he is resigning from the RNC. The letter is now in circulation and available here. It is a detailed, data-driven indictment of Chairman Michael Steele's leadership. He writes:

For the 2010 election year itself, RNC cash transfers to state parties for political purposes were just $13.1 million—less than a quarter of the $56.7 million cash transfers to state parties in 2006 for political purposes. And in 2010, the RNC went $15 million into debt to fund these programs.

He continues:

In the previous two non-presidential cycles, the RNC carried over $4.8 million and $3.1 million respectively in cash reserve balances into the presidential cycles. In stark contrast, we enter the 2012 presidential cycle with 100% of the RNC’s $15 million in lines of credit tapped out, and unpaid bills likely to add millions to that debt.

Collins goes on to say that he believes the GOP could have picked up 2 additional Senate seats and 3 governorships if the RNC had its fundraising act together. He attributes the lackluster finances, in part, to the fact that RNC's fundraising costs approached 70 cents on the dollar, compared to the more historical 50 cents. Expensive, and under-performing.

The letter is clearly timed to coincide with the ramp-up to the race for a new RNC leader, which Natalie Gonnella summarized this morning on The Republican. 

What is perhaps most interesting is that finance issues Collins cites are a clear statement about where the center of party gravity is these days: NOT at the RNC.  

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that Republicans out-raised Democrats $535,600,000 to $460,700,000 among individuals in the mid-terms. And, as Tim Carney notes today, Democrats raised considerably more from PACs, especially in the Senate.

The fact that the GOP won on Nov. 2 so resoundingly, with an impressive amount in individual donations, shows how irrelevant the RNC was to the whole victory.

A look at the potential challengers to RNC Chairman, Michael Steele

Natalie Gonnella

The contingent of critics against current Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has been growing the past few months.

This weekend on Fox News Sunday, Senator Jim DeMint, expressed the need for the GOP to explore bolder new leadership options:

We need a strong national Republican organization to help organize the energy of the tea parties and the other citizen activism that we are seeing out there right now. We need to make sure that we have a lot of boots on the ground.

With Steele’s future as RNC Chair up in the air and barely two months for candidates to campaign, a long list of prospective challengers has quickly started to take shape. 

Though still speculative, a look at a few of the potential contenders:

Saul Anuzis

The only officially declared candidate, Anuzis is the former Michigan Republican Chairman. 

NBC News describes him as: “a Reagan follower with an atypical background. He grew up in Detroit as the son of a member of the UAW.  While paying his way through college at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, he himself joined a union, the Teamsters. His political interest was sparked in college during the ascension of Ronald Reagan, and in the 1980s, Anuzis went on to help build the modern Republican Party in Michigan. “

“Known in Republican circles for being one of the first party leaders to be active on Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media. True to form, he announced his campaign to unseat Steele using Twitter and an extended blog post where he outlined his strategy for helping the GOP to greater gains in the 2012 election.” (The Hill)

Maria Cino

Politico’s Ben Smith reported in late October that “multiple sources say Cino's name has come into the mix and that she's got support from [Representative John] Boehner…and, more specifically, his chief of staff, Barry Jackson”

In regards to her background, Cino “ran the 2008 convention in Minneapolis, served as a Deputy Transportation Secretary from 2005 to 2007 and is deeply involved in GOP operations.” (Politics Daily)