"He was interested in portraying an image of someone who was off-color, a little darker," says Meghann Siwinski, press secretary to first lady Kendel S. Ehrlich. "Over the years people laughed it off, 'Oh, that's Joe.' The off-color humor, the whole Prince-of-Darkness thing, if you will. . . . I think he would prefer to be thought of as somebody who embodies that more than he really does.
"For all of his unconventional ways, his dress, his hobbies, some of the language he uses in his writing," Siwinski adds, "he really is a big old softy."
Joe Steffen, right, with Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, before Steffen got fired because of his postings on the Free Republic Web site.
(WMAR-TV2 via AP)
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Says Cross, the speechwriter: "He likes to be the button-pusher, he likes to be the person who stirs things up. . . . I think part of him likes to cultivate an image of doing things that are shadowy, on the edge, but I've never actually seen where the reality matches the carefully cultivated and contrived image."
Jill Homan, a former congressional press secretary for Ehrlich now in graduate school, says she recognizes NCPAC's self-description in the online user profile -- social Darwinist, Jack and Coke, Prince of Darkness, etc. "To me, that's quintessential Joe," she says. "His commitment to the libertarian side of the party. . . . His frankness. He doesn't feel he has to think or say one thing to please certain constituencies. . . . He's a funny individual. There's a little bit of an element of tongue-in-cheek."
A Nickname Comes to Light
So why did Ehrlich dub Steffen the Prince of Darkness?
The governor is standing in the ornate reception room in the State House.
"It was a joke around our congressional staff," he says. "It was Joe. He's a unique character. He's a very unique character. He never turned his light on in his office."
Ehrlich's face gets animated as he thinks back. "He always worked in the dark! So it made sense. He never turned on the light! He hates light! I've never seen anybody -- he's like a bat. He's like Batman! Very weird. He stayed in the dark purposely."
Prince of Darkness.
Some of the people the Prince of Darkness boasted he worked for say they don't remember him very well.
"He might have had some slight paid position," says Linda Chavez.
"The name's familiar to me, but I'll be damned if I can remember where in the world," says Virginia State Sen. John Chichester. "There was a guy who used to pick me up at the airport."
"I have no recollection of this character whatsoever," says Roger Stone, the conservative consultant whom NCPAC claimed to have known.
Jervis Finney, the governor's chief counsel, said recently, "Joe Steffen may have felt he had a little more power than he ever did."
Yet until the end Steffen was well connected, keeping in e-mail contact with the governor's communications director, the chief of staff and his deputies, the appointments secretary and first lady Kendel Ehrlich.
As the scandal broke last month, just before the Prince of Darkness was forced into exile, he e-mailed friends not to worry about him.
He wrote to Cross, "A not-to-be-named individual in the Admin told me if worse comes to worse, I should A) write a book -- and really spill it, or B) Take my persecution to any number of rightwing groups and try to milk speaking engagements."
NCPAC posted: "Hell, this might even burnish my reputation."
Now the political storm swirls over Annapolis. The legislative session has devolved into a group temper tantrum. Democrats and Republicans don't even pretend to get along. Scores of state workers fired by the administration are looking for work -- and the jobs of their replacements are under attack in the General Assembly. There's talk of subpoenas.
And the Prince of Darkness is out there somewhere, ever elusive, perhaps rocking out.
Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report.
