Michael Steele and the Sword of Damocles

Wow, Michael Steele really fucked up in his first couple weeks as RNC Chair. First he called Rush Limbaugh "incendiary" and "ugly," and was forced into a humiliating apology less than 24 hours later. Then he threatened the 3 moderate Senate Republicans with primary challenges. Then he told GQ that abortion was an individual choice. Meanwhile, he's been remodeling his office and possibly giving sweetheart deals to contractors. Oh, and starting a hilarious hip-hop youth outreach program. Awesome.

Why is he still there? Well... It costs a lot of political capital to force out a chair. The media would pick up the "Rush Limbaugh rules the GOP" story and run with it for a week. And who would take his place? Probably Katon Dawson, of "whites-only country club" fame. Even the RNC can see how terrible the optics are on that. They have to decide whether the one-time hit would be worth it to replace Steele with a (presumably) more competent chairman.

Procedurally, there would need to be a 2/3rds vote of no confidence to force him out. That's a high hurdle, and Steele would almost certainly resign before being voted out.

538 speculates that Steele might be forced out if Tedisco loses the special election for Kirsten Gillibrand's seat. Their sources are all anonymous "multiple former high-level RNC staffers." I'm not so sure the story is true. Mainly because Tedisco's win or loss depends a lot more on Tedisco than Steele. Jim Geraghty has a good run-down of the "palace intrigue."

I think the real driver will be fundraising. As we learned on the Sopranos, the bosses will tolerate almost anything as long as you're a top earner. Today the RNC announced that it raised $5.1 million in February. That's low. In February 2008, they raised $7.2 million, while in February 2005, at a comparable point in the election cycle, they raised $12.5 million. Considering the state of the stock market, and the dimished power of the GOP, $5.1 million is not terrible, but it's not great either.

My guess is, Steele stays away from the media and concentrates on working behind the scenes. I think he's probably turned the corner, and will stick it out until 2010.
I have a small bet that Steele will leave by June, which I made a few weeks ago while the bombs were still dropping. I expect it will lose.