The election will take place during the committee's winter meeting, Jan. 28-31 in Washington.
Right now, the favorite appears to be the incumbent, Mike Duncan, a mild-mannered Kentuckian who was picked for the job by President George W. Bush in 2007. He has not announced his intentions, but he's expected to jump into the race this week.
Duncan got a boost the other day when Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss won an important runoff victory in Georgia, blocking Democrats from gaining a super-majority in the Senate. The RNC invested heavily in Chambliss' campaign, and Duncan was on hand Election Night to claim credit.
Some Republicans think it's time for a new face to lead their party, especially after the drubbing the party took in the 2008 election. History, though, suggests otherwise.
The party job may well go to Duncan or another insider, since the committee tends to favor one of its own when there's no Republican president to dictate the choice. Announced candidates include Saul Anuzis and Katon Dawson, the state party chairmen from Michigan and South Carolina, respectively, and Chip Saltsman, a former Tennessee party chairman who ran Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign.
Steele is regarded as an outsider by many, if not most, national committee members. They weren't around when he was an RNC member, as Maryland's Republican Party chairman, from 2000 to 2002.
Steele has been pursuing his campaign through private talks with committee members and appearances on media outlets like Fox News Channel (he's a paid contributor) and Hugh Hewitt's talk radio show. Steele did not respond to repeated interview requests to his spokeswoman.
His critics, mainly social conservatives, are attacking his ties to party moderates. Joyce Terhes, a veteran committeewoman from Maryland, sent an e-mail to other RNC members last month expressing anger about "an anonymous mudslinging campaign" which claimed that Steele "is not as pro-life as he needs to be." Terhes noted that Steele was endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee in his 2006 Senate campaign and called him "a staunch pro-lifer."
Steele is being openly opposed by the executive director of the Republican National Committee for Life, an anti-abortion group. Colleen Parro wrote on her blog last month that Steele's involvement with the Republican Leadership Council, a moderate organization led by former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, an abortion-rights advocate, is "deeply troubling." Apparently in response to the criticism, references to Steele's co-founding of the organization were recently removed from the group's Web site. Steele has said he left the organization earlier this year.
