Party chairmen bestow jobs and millions of dollars worth of consulting contracts for fundraising, advertising and strategic advice.
Steele has the active support of some talented consultants, including Curt Anderson, whose firm produced imaginative TV ads for Steele's 2006 race for Maryland's U.S. Senate seat. Opponents whisper that Steele would turn national Republican headquarters into a gravy train for his consultants, so he issued an ethics plan and promised to create a system of merit-based contracting.
To rebut those who see him as little more than an appealing TV face, he's calling himself "a big techno-wonk" and has set out a detailed plan to help the party close a dangerous digital gap with the Democrats.
Only 168 men and women are eligible to vote, but scrutiny of the candidates is approaching presidential-campaign levels, and intensive media attention is going a long way toward filling the post-November election void.
Stuart Rothenberg, an independent analyst, agreed with others that the race is still wide open. He described Steele as "unpredictable" and wrote that, despite his "strong TV presence ... even some of his friends say that he can be a loose cannon."
Along with his rivals, Steele has had to deal with some missteps.
At a public forum with dozens of RNC members present, the candidates were asked how many guns they own. Steele was the only one who answered "none."
Lest he appear to have disarmed himself before his pro-gun party (though his pro-gun views are not in doubt), he managed to work in a visit to a New Mexico gun range. A photo of that campaign stop, posted on his Web site, shows Steele cradling what appears to be an assault rifle.
To bolster his contention that he can help Republicans claw their way out of their current predicament, he touts his achievement as the first African-American to hold statewide office in Maryland. Exactly how he got there, though, might confuse those from places where lieutenant governors are elected separately from the governor, unlike in Maryland, where they run as a ticket.
"In a state where Democrats hold more than a 2-to-1 advantage over Republicans, I was elected lieutenant governor," Steele boasted in a video for RNC members, neglecting to mention Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who picked him and led the 2002 Republican team.
