Michael Steele: GOP Needs More Diverse Messengers

Discussing the path forward for Republicans, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and African-American said the GOP needed more diverse messengers, including those who looked more like him.

“We need messengers who look like me,” Steele said on last Sunday’s CSPAN’s “Washington Journal.” He went on to say that “we need messengers who are Hispanic, Asian Americans, women, a cross section of folks who represent communities across the country.”

Steele said the Obama campaign in 2012 was politically “superior in terms of their ability to get their vote to the table and the voting booth.” Democrats picking up two seats in the Senate should serve as a “come-to-Jesus” moment for Republicans to “reassess and re-evaluate exactly whether they want to be a relevant political party going forward.”

After Obama got elected in 2008, Steele encouraged Republicans to do what former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean did for Democrats and adopt a 50-state strategy. Those in the Republican establishment like Karl Rove scoffed at that strategy then, but have come around after the Obama campaign ran circles around Mitt Romney’s campaign’s ground game. Rove even admitted Republicans needed to adopt Dean’s 50-state strategy last week. 

Steele said the GOP’s failure on the ground in 2012 represented the “old mindset that I believe that they’ve been stuck in.”

Though Steele did lead the RNC to historic midterm wins in 2010, many conservatives did not trust some of his more liberal tendencies. After Mitt Romney’s loss, conservatives have acknowledged Republicans need more diverse messengers but have noted they need to be conservative as well.