| Page 3 of 5 < > |
A Political Natural, Railing Against Politics
Michael S. Steele is running on the theme that "Washington has no clue of what's going on in your life."
(By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
After leaving the church as a career, Steele chose the law. He was a paralegal, a law student at Georgetown and then a lawyer from 1991 to 1998, working for a D.C. law office and then for the Mills Corp., the real estate giant.
During that time, though, Steele was laying the seeds for another career.
He and his family -- it now includes his wife, Andrea, and two teenage sons -- had moved to Largo. There, he began his long association with a group that had become the political equivalent of the Washington Generals, eternal doormats for basketball's Harlem Globetrotters.
"This guy says to me that he's here to build the Republican Party in Prince George's County," said Sydney Moore, a businessman active in county politics, recalling what Steele told him in the 1980s. "And I said, 'Wow!' "
A Political Rise in an Unlikely Place
The Prince George's GOP was -- and still is -- one of the most beleaguered party organizations in a state that hadn't had a Republican governor since 1969.
Into this picture came Steele, the former seminarian, comfortable with the law and with a microphone. He has said he sometimes felt isolated in the early years because he was one of only a few African Americans in the local party. Others remember meeting someone who was deeply loyal, affable and dynamite when talking to people one-on-one. Someone who was ready to pay his dues.
"He would do the telephone banks. He would do the stuffing. He would put on the labels," recalled Audrey E. Scott, a former County Council member and now Maryland's secretary of planning. "I mean, he was a worker."
And a talker. Steele became party chairman in Prince George's in 1994 and soon became one of the loudest voices in a fight over the county's property-tax cap. Some wanted to lift the cap; Steele and others fought to keep it and won.
There were setbacks: In 1998, Steele ran for comptroller and finished third in the GOP primary. Two years later, though, he ascended to the chairmanship of the state GOP. Thereafter came a major victory, as a redistricting plan from then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) was defeated in court.
"Republicans never win anything" in Maryland, said Christopher West, a Baltimore lawyer who lost to Steele in the race for party chairman. "So it was a very big deal."
Soon, Steele was a very big deal himself. Then-Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) picked him as a running mate in the 2002 governor's race. When they won, beating an all-white Democratic ticket, Steele became the first African American to win statewide office in Maryland.
His victory also meant that, for the first time in several years, Steele's financial situation was secure.
