RNC Chairman Steele offers new hope for GOP

RNC Chairman Michael Steele wowed DuPage Republicans Friday night with his call to return the party to its traditional tenets of fiscal conservatism.
Steele, who was the keynote speaker at the 48th annual Lincoln Day dinner, said the Republican's inability to hold to those tenets were the reasons for losses in 2006 and 2008.
“We learned one important lesson from the 2006 and 2008 elections; you can’t please everyone all the time, but you can anger everyone at the same time,” Steele said.
Steele said the GOP lawmakers who went to Washington forgot the principles of the 1994 Contract with America and “began drinking that Potomac River water” and got drunk off the perks of being in charge of the nation. Steele said the party deserved the setbacks in the previous elections, but now it’s time to rebuild and refocus on core conservative values.
"We got an old-fashioned whooping and we deserved it because we walked away from the good old-fashioned principles that defined us for 150 years," he said. "We're in the 12-step recovery program and we've got a brand new attitude. There’s a lot of fight left in this party.”
, Steele laid out his hopes for a more responsible and effective Republican Party. Steele said Republicans need to expand their base and target voters who may lean more to voting Democrat. He said the party has a duty to package traditional Republican ideals in a way that will appeal to those voters. Steele said the Republican Party can take a lesson from Howard Dean, Steele’s Democrat opposite, by adopting a 50 state strategy and target vulnerable seats in those states. Steele lauded Dean’s plan because it won Democrats seats in traditionally Republican states, like Montana, Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina.
Steele said the first challenge for Illinois Republicans is the seat of embattled Sen. Burris. With the possibility of Burris losing that seat and a special election to replace him, Steele said this is the race Republicans need to win.
Pointing out problems for the party is the first step on a long road to recovery, but the proof will be in implementing plans to restore the viability of the Republican Party.