Washington — Washington - The most heated political campaign at the moment may be the one for Republican national chairman, but it's no ordinary contest.
How could it be, when one of the biggest campaign events is supposedly a Christmas party at Vice President Dick Cheney's official residence? When it takes only 85 votes to win? Or that, with the election just over a month away, the field of candidates is still murky?
At least a half-dozen Republicans have been eyeing the job, which pays about $200,000 a year. Setbacks suffered by the party in the last two national elections make the position unusually attractive, since history strongly favors a Republican rebound in 2010.
Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele is among the front-runners, in part because he's a bigger celebrity than others who have announced. But he's gotten caught in the party's never-ending abortion wars and may have been hurt in the process.
Steele, who ran for the Senate in 2006 as a fiscal conservative opposed to abortion rights, is aggressively promoting himself as a media-savvy voice who can help his party win the daily communications battle against the Democrats. That could be a significant advantage,, since the Republicans are about to be without a national spokesman for the first time in a long while.
Republicans "will not have success without a party chairman who is very skilled at dealing with the media," contends Steele's campaign Web site,steeleforchairman.com.
Strangely or not, an articulate spokesman may not be what the electorate - the 168 men and women on the Republican National Committee - wants most in a new party leader. The ability to score points on TV is just one of several qualifications the next chairman will need, and not necessarily the one that will matter most to committee members.
"This is a multimillion-dollar business," said Scott Reed, who ran Haley Barbour's successful campaign for national chairman after the 1992 election, the last time the Republicans lost the White House. "It's a combination of communicating skills, comfort with donors, policy knowledge and the ability to run the building"- the party's headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington.
Privately, one RNC member compared the chairman's contest to a race for class president and explained that catering to the needs of the committeemen and women may be more important than having a vision for the party.
