In the world of politics, there was plenty of eye-rolling and mockery at reports that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele spent lavishly on gratuitous and questionable expenditures in February.
For Republican donors and strategists, however, the revelation sparked yet another round in a lengthy debate over whether the rambunctious GOP leader really is the right fit for the party in the minority.
On Monday morning, the Daily Caller reported that the RNC spent thousands of dollars on high-end travel arrangements, swanky hotels and, most remarkably, "meals" at a lesbian-and-bondage-themed nightclub in West Hollywood. The latter expense, naturally, grabbed most of the attention and the cleverest of headlines -- prompting the RNC to simultaneously state that it would investigate the expenditures and that it wasn't Steele who went to the club. But the damage had already been done. While several GOP strategists are willing to grant Steele a pass -- under the rubric that one has to spend lavishly to raise lavish amounts of money -- several big donors and party officials are completely baffled.
"For those donors who truly believe in conservative values, this latest news about Steele has to be very disturbing," said Douglas MacKinnon, former press secretary to Majority Leader Robert Dole. "No matter which side of the aisle you find yourself,
if you are giving a political party your hard-earned money, you should have no doubts that it is going to be spent as advertised and not to provide a spoiled, egocentric, out-of-touch chairman with frivolous luxuries which are out of reach of the vast majority of the American people. Michael Steele needs to resign and let the RNC vote in a man or woman who understands that his or her needs do not come before the needs of the nation or the party.""I think it certainly suggest a certain tone deafness," confirmed Mark DeMoss, a longtime GOP donor who has decided to stop giving to committees. "I think it suggests either that you are out of touch or that you are more important than your constituents and your donors and either case is bad, whichever one you are guilty of."
The RNC, naturally, sees these concerns as a sideshow distraction with little merit -- pointing, specifically, to the reluctance of many donors (though not DeMoss) to attach their names to their quotes. The committee has raised boatloads of money, RNC Communications Director Doug Heye told the Huffington Post. And the vast majority of it has been spent carefully.
