After two years of missteps, criticism, Steele withdraws

Republicans emerged from a 2008 electoral drubbing lacking not only a telegenic spokesman for the party but virtually any major officials who were not white, a major void after the election of the nation's first black president. Michael S. Steele seemed like the right man at the right time: an African American Republican who loved going on television.

But instead of turning into a solution for the GOP, Steele stumbled so many times in his first few months as chairman of the Republican National Committee that party officials openly considered replacing him before the first quarter of his two-year tenure had ended.

Republicans completed the dumping of Steele on Friday, voting out the party's first-ever black chairman.

His reelection defeat was widely anticipated but still an unusual moment in American politics: a party removing its chairman after winning historic victories with him at the helm. Despite the wins, his tenure may be best remembered for the RNC paying for an evening at a bondage-themed Hollywood nightclub for potential donors, Steele's feud with conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh and his declaration that the war in Afghanistan was one of "Obama's choosing."

"I hope you all appreciate the legacy we leave. Despite the noise, despite the difficulties, we won," a weary-looking Steele said Friday in a speech at National Harbor in Prince George's County as he withdrew from contention for the chairman's post.

For Steele, the defeat ends his time in a place he had long coveted: a high-profile job in national politics. The D.C. native, who was lieutenant governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007, ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2006 and decided against a run for party chairman the next year.

When Republicans elected him as chairman in January 2009, they considered Steele's charisma and eagerness to communicate to be assets in a party whose main leaders were figures such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a dry speaker.

But Steele had never before had his words so closely scrutinized. The party chairman's interviews often turned into political disasters, such as when he played down the influence of Limbaugh - leading to a public feud with the talk show host - and mused about GOP senators being challenged in primaries.

His tenure was also dramatically affected by an unexpected development: the tea party movement.

In his successful RNC campaign, Steele had pledged to reinvent the party in his image. He envisioned a Republican Party that would campaign in urban, Democratic areas all across the country, wooing young and minority voters who had overwhelmingly backed Obama in 2008.

But by the middle of 2009, Republicans had found their voice: conservative activists flooding town-hall meetings all over the country to protest President Obama's health-care reform plan. Other party officials still wanted to expand the base and reach of the party, as Steele sought to, but that quickly turned into a priority secondary to rallying the nearly all-white, mostly older tea party activists, many of whom were disaffected Republicans.

Steele quickly aligned himself with the tea party activists, but their energy and the growing dissatisfaction with Obama among Republicans and independents seemed to render much of Steele's message of change for the GOP irrelevant.