Washington - Despite having come under repeated fire for his initial performance as national Republican chairman, Michael Steele is in no immediate danger of losing his job, according to party officials.
The former Maryland lieutenant governor has gotten tangled in a series of controversies, largely over remarks he made in news interviews, over everything from Rush Limbaugh's influence to his own views on abortion.
But even his sharpest critics and opponents of his candidacy for chairman say the Republican National Committee isn't likely to remove him before the end of his term, which runs through the 2010 elections.
Henry Barbour, a Republican committeeman from Mississippi, dismissed speculation that Steele's job might be at risk as "silliness."
"Look, he's only six weeks into this deal," said Barbour, who supported a different candidate, Katon Dawson of South Carolina, for chairman. "He got elected to a two-year term. It's that simple."
Another former Dawson supporter said that nothing that has happened so far would lead members of the Republican committee to move to oust Steele.
"I think there probably are some people, possibly including Michael, who wish that the start had been a little different. But I don't think anything has happened that would lead to as draconian a result as a vote of no confidence," said David Norcross, a veteran RNC member from New Jersey who also served as the party's general counsel.
"As long as I've been around, we've never held that kind of vote," he added. "It's really too soon to say that [Steele can't] do the job. I think that he's going to be fine."
Steele, who through his spokesman declined to respond to an interview request, has stumbled through his initial weeks on the job. His troubles stemmed in part from an effort to change the party's staid image and reach out to voters, such as fellow African-Americans, who have shunned the party and its candidates.
But Steele's execution was flawed, at best, prompting conflicts with Limbaugh, the conservative talk show king, and with his own past as an anti-abortion candidate for the Senate from Maryland in 2006.
In an interview with GQ, he seemed to suggest that he believed abortion was an individual choice, prompting outrage from anti-abortion activists and forcing him once again into damage control. He smoothed things over with social conservatives, some of whom have regarded him as suspiciously moderate all along, and issued a statement reiterating his opposition to abortion rights.
