We at VDARE.com have long been deeply unimpressed with Michael Barone, whose space consumption in MSM opinion slots is matched by the crushing inaccuracy of his pet forecasts.

However, a founder of the invaluable Almanac Of American Politics
has to be expected to have some knowledge of facts, and we salute him for Republican Chairman Michael Steele Owes His Victory to Puerto Rico, Other Territories U.S. News and World Report Saturday February 14 2009

This strange article reports that Michael Steele

owes his victory…to the territories: the 15 votes cast for him from Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa put him over the top against South Carolina Republican Chairman Katon Dawson.

Barone coyly observes

The delegates from the territories, or many of them, have something in common with Steele, as a “person of color,”

He then goes on to celebrate the career of ultra leftist San Francisco Congressman Phil Burton, a notorious political thug who apparently utilized his control over similar Pacific Island rotten boroughs to amplify his influence in Democratic affairs in the 1970s. The implication is that Barone hopes Steele will similarly undemocratically impose an ideological agenda on the GOP.

The Politico article which Barone cites for the news gets to the real point:

Island bloc expects Steele payback By Ben Smith & Alexander Burns 2/9/09

The residents of the five territories, from Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea to the tiny Northern Marianas in the Pacific Ocean, provided Steele with a bloc of 15 votes - one more than his margin of victory - when they swung into his camp late in the balloting last week.

They had reason:

a leading committee member from the Virgin Islands, former shadow Senator Holland Redfield, said they expect results.

“They’ve committed themselves into putting real, hard money into the races here in the [U.S.] Virgin Islands, Guam, [American] Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Marianas,” said Redfield, a leading figure in the territorial caucus at the RNC gathering.

“This was not just given to [Steele],” he said. “It was given based on commitments..

(Needless to say, Steele spokesmen deny anything so blatant.)

Of course, campaign funds injected into these tiny communities can hardly avoid ending up in the pockets of the friends and relatives of the local Pols, even if they tried.

What a pretty picture. The new RNC Chairman, the “Consultant Candidate” (American Spectator) won because a group on RNC hacks from never-win states combined with those capable of fitting Barone’s description as “person(s) of color” purporting to represent insignificant communities which do not vote in American elections anyway. These, and those stupid enough to obey black supremacist Ken Blackwell’s unprincipled betrayal of his supporters and follow his endorsement of fellow black Steele have saddled the Republicans with a leader totally detached and alien from their core constituency.

Steele rivals Michelle Obama as the ultimate political Affirmative Action beneficiary. (See America’s Half Blood Prince, Chapter 10). But at least the Obamas attract and can deliver their ethnic group.

According to The Hill website, Michael Steele and his hand-picked team of perpetual losers are about to stage a massacre at the Republican National Committee:

RNC shakeup as Steele asks for resignations
By Reid Wilson
Posted: 02/05/09 10:28 PM [ET]

Top staffers at the Republican National Committee were told to submit their resignations today, with some being told they will not get their jobs back in what insiders call a top-to-bottom review of the entire organization…one RNC staffer who had to turn in a resignation letter today… quipped: “It is starting to feel like the Steele-your-job administration.”

This is going to be an acid test for Steele, because it turns out he is widely viewed as the candidate of a patronage-motivated clique. J.Peter Friere noted at The American Spectator blog the “rumor” that

Steele is the Consultant Candidate. His campaign, for instance, is being run by Blaise Hazelwood, former political director of the RNC, wife of Dan Hazelwood, one of the biggest voter contact mail vendors. During Bush’s term she steered nearly all RNC business to a very small cadre of firms.

What’s the Deal with Steele? AMSPECBLOG 1.29.09

(Friere also shreds Steel’s claims to be a Conservative. David Duke has collected some damning quotes too.)

But before attention shifts to watching if Steele behaves like a typical black politician with access to spoils, let us consider why Steele won, and why it is a disaster.

Steele won because a group of conservative RNC members were naïve enough to trust another Black, Ohio’s Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. When it became clear Blackwell could not win, according to The Washington Times:

Supporters of Mr. Blackwell, considered the most reliable social and religious conservative among the five contenders for chairman of the 168-member RNC, were stunned and in some cases angry that he endorsed his fellow African-American, Mr. Steele, after dropping out of the contest.

Religious conservatives constitute a bloc of about a quarter of the RNC membership…Some conservative state party chairmen had thought the logical choice for Mr. Blackwell was to endorse South Carolina Republican Chairman Katon Dawson, seen as the other leading conservative contender for national chairman.

Steele reassures GOP’s right flank Ralph Z. Hollow Sunday February 1 2009

(This is a strong contender for Most Misleading Headline of the Year.)

Why, after the humiliating Colin Powell betrayal, would experienced Republicans think a black would put principle before race? Or an Hispanic, for that matter? The only group that does that are Founding Stock Americans.

Those are not the people the Steele crowd care about. The Washington Times burbled on:

Mr. Steele’s election…marks the unequivocal end of Mr. Nixon’s domestic “Southern strategy” for an “emerging Republican majority,” as it was called at the time.

That strategy subtly appealed to growing antagonisms over forced busing, job quotas and the perception of reverse discrimination. It helped establish an image of the Republican Party in the minds of most black Americans as not friendly to their interests.

Some Republicans now say that era is decisively over…

Establishing the Republican Party in the minds of most white Americans as not friendly to their interests (and Affirmative Action America is a zero sum game) will mean low turnouts and losses in areas the GOP has no business losing. – for no gains elsewhere. It will be a disaster.

As Robert Reich and Charles Rangel have already gloated, the Obama Administration is about taking from whites and giving to minorities. The sort of flagrant injustices shamefully permitted under Bush will multiply. That is what Obama has been thinking about his entire life (Read Steve Sailer’s book!).

Whites will notice. They are likely also to notice Michael Steele Republicans don’t want to know.

Professor Robert Weissberg at MindingTheCampus.com describes how he censored a course in Constitutional History to fit the “spirit of the times.”

Let me offer a first-hand example. I once taught the basic American government lecture course and Constitution lecture covered the three-fifths compromise - the Article I, Section 2 provision that counted “other persons” (i.e., slaves and untaxed Indians - blacks are never mentioned by name ) as three-fifths of a person for purposes of House representation. I explained that Southerners wanted to treat slaves as a whole person since this would sharply boost their representation while abolitionist New Englanders proposed counting slaves as zero. Unfortunately, this three-fifths provision has now been interpreted by some black activists (including an African American colleague who stated her misinformed opinion in a public law school lecture) as “proof” of America’s racist origins. Black students have probably encountered this historical mistruth elsewhere (Jesse Jackson once endorsed it) and it does appear superficially plausible.[VDARE.com note: Condoleezza Rice is a believer, in spite of her academic credentials.]

Rather than risk being accused of covering up racism or telling lies, I dropped the topic altogether. I similarly removed all discussion of slavery so students thus never learned that the while the Constitution did not outlaw slavery, it did permit a ban on importing slaves after 1808 and this was, indeed, done - which, in turn, made those slaves already in America exceedingly costly and thus at times too valuable to risk at dangerous labor (I further skipped how the ever-plentiful Irish were instead hired for life-threatening jobs).

And, as one might become carried away in a long-delayed spring cleaning, out went most references to crime (no small accomplishment in a course covering the Supreme Court), the dubious legal use of racial gerrymandering to insure black election victories, the possible downside of affirmative action and anything else that might remotely prove an ideological fire hazard. And this clean up did not end with race-related issues.The Hidden Impact Of Political Correctness (Originals)

There are serious consequences for giving even accidental offense. Weissberg tells a tragic story about a colleague who died in 2001.

I had a distinguished colleague - Stuart Nagel - whose tale is worth telling. He taught public policy and one day explained that black businesses in Kenya were uncompetitive against Indian-run enterprises since blacks where too generous in granting credit to friends and family. He had been invited by the government of Kenya to study the situation and suggested better business training for black Kenyans. The topic was indisputably part of the course and thus totally protected by AAUP academic speech guidelines. Stuart was also extremely liberal on all racial issues.

Nevertheless, to condense a long story, an anonymous letter from irritated black students complained of Nagel’s “racism” and included the preposterous change of “workplace violence.” After a protracted and bungled internal university investigation, two federal trials (I testified at one), he was stripped of his teaching responsibilities and coerced into retirement. Interestingly, having been charged as “racist,” his departmental colleagues, save two conservatives, abandoned him. A few years later, partially as a result of this emotionally and financially draining incident ($100,000 out-of-pocket for legal fees), he committed suicide. I can only speculate that he believed that years spent being a “good liberal” (including service in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division) would insulate him from being denounced as a “racist.” Nor would he have anticipated that the university would spend the hundreds of thousands in legal fees to punish a famous tenured faculty member who “offended” two students. Nagel’s sad saga undoubtedly provided useful lessons to many others–stupidity can really be dangerous, even in a university. Better keep quiet.