GOP Elects First Black National Party Chairman

The Republican Party chose the first black national chairman in its history Friday, just shy ofthree months after the nation elected a Democrat as the first African-American president. Thechoice marked no less than "the dawn of a new party," declared the new GOP chairman, formerMaryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.
     
Republicans chose Steele over four other candidates, including former President George W.Bush's hand-picked GOP chief, who bowed out declaring, "Obviously the winds of change are blowing."
     
Steele takes the helm of a beleaguered Republican Party that is trying to recover aftercrushing defeats in November's national elections that gave Democrats control of Congress putBarack Obama in the White House.
     
GOP delegates erupted in cheers and applause when his victory was announced, but it took sixballots to get there. He'll serve a two-year term.
     
Steele, an attorney, is a conservative, but he was considered the most moderate of the fivecandidates running.
     
He was also considered an outsider because he's not a member of the Republican NationalCommittee. But the 168-member RNC clearly signaled it wanted a change after eight years of Bushlargely dictating its every move as the party's standard-bearer.
     
Steele became the first black candidate elected to statewide office in Maryland in 2003, andhe made an unsuccessful Senate run in 2006. Currently, he serves as chairman of GOPAC, anorganization that recruits and trains Republican political candidates, and in that role he has beena frequent presence on the talk show circuit.
     
He vowed to expand the reach of the party by competing for every group, everywhere.
     
"We're going to say to friend and foe alike: 'We want you to be a part of us, we want you towith be with us.' And for those who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over," Steele said.
     
"There is not one inch of ground that we're going to cede to anybody," he added.
  
"This is the dawn of a new party moving in a new direction with strength and conviction."
     
His job is to spark a revival for the GOP as it takes on an empowered Democratic Party underthe country's first black president in midterm elections next fall and beyond.
    
He replaces Mike Duncan, who abandoned his re-election bid in the face of dwindling supportmidway through Friday's voting.
     
Two others who trailed farther back in the voting eventually followed suit, former OhioSecretary of State Ken Blackwell and Michigan GOP chairman Saul Anuzis.
     
In the sixth and final round of voting, Steele went head-to-head with his only remainingopponent, South Carolina GOP chief Katon Dawson. Steele clinched the election with 91 votes; amajority of 85 committee members was needed.
     
Just eight years after Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress, the GOPfinds itself out of power, without a standard-bearer and trying to figure out how to rebound whileits foe seems to grow ever stronger.
     
The Democratic Party boasts a broadened coalition of voters - including Hispanics and youngpeople - who swung behind Obama's call for change. At the same time, the slice of voters who callthemselves Republican has narrowed. The GOP also has watched as Democrats have dominated bothcoasts while making inroads into the West and South, leaving Republicans with a shrunken base.
     
Despite the run of GOP losses, Duncan had argued that he should be re-elected because of hisexperience; his five challengers called for change and said they represented it.
     
As he left the race, Duncan thanked Bush and said of his two-year tenure: "It truly has beenthe highlight of my life."
     
Another candidate, former Tennessee GOP Chairman Chip Saltsman, withdrew from the race on theeve of voting and with no explanation, saying only in a letter to RNC members, "I have decided towithdraw my candidacy."
     
Saltsman, who ran former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's failed presidential campaign lastyear, saw his bid falter in December after he drew controversy for mailing to committee members aCD that included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin andsung to the music of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."