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You are here: Home / Politics / Will he change his name to Ravene? “Thick in the air like locusts”

Will he change his name to Ravene? “Thick in the air like locusts”

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Maryland’s Michael Steele was just elected chair of the RNC as many of you have heard. You may remember Steele’s “Scarlet R” imbroglio and the delightful ad he ran about puppies when he ran for Senator, but what I remember best is his campaign’s “recruitment of out-of-state homeless men to hand out misleading campaign literature in African-American neighborhoods” (from TPM):

On the eve of this month’s election, the mailers began landing in Prince George’s mailboxes. One was a glossy red, black and green flier — the colors that represent African American power — sporting pictures of County Executive Jack B. Johnson, his predecessor, Wayne K. Curry and past NAACP president and former U.S. Senate candidate Kweisi Mfume.

Above the pictures of the three Democrats the flier read, “Ehrlich-Steele Democrats,” and underneath it announced: “These are OUR Choices.”

None of the three candidates had endorsed the governor, and only Curry had declared his support for Steele.

There were other fliers, too. A similar “Democratic” guide with Ehrlich’s and Steele’s photo on the front appeared in Baltimore. Another distributed in Baltimore County identified the Republican candidate for county executive as a Democrat.

Of course, these stunts didn’t work so well: Steele was crushed by Ben Cardin and Ehrlich lost badly to Tommy Carcetti even after the whole serial killer hoax debacle in Baltimore.

Update: I forgot about the whole oreos story too:

According to numerous reports in the Washington Times, Steele was “pelted” with Oreo cookies, which signifies a racial slur for being black on the outside and white on the inside.

Times reporter S.A. Miller is one of the writers who referenced the incident in news articles on more than one occasion. Miller told WTOP he attended the event in 2002 and saw Steele get hit with cookies.

When pressed, Miller said he couldn’t swear in court that Steele did get hit with cookies because he didn’t actually see it happen.

On Tuesday, Steele told WTOP that he was never hit with Oreos and said the incident has been exaggerated.

I like this part especially from an Ehrlich spokesman:

“It was raining Oreos. They were thick in the air like locusts. I was there.”

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  3. 3.

    KCinDC

    Thanks. That story was my first thought when hearing the news as well, but I feared that that was only because being in DC I heard more about it than the rest of the country did.

  4. 4.

    disappointedGOPer

    Ehrlich lost badly to Tom Carcetti even after the whole serial killer hoax debacle in Baltimore.

    lolwut

  5. 5.

    robertdsc

    And here I was "hoping" the whites-only country club guy would have won. Would have been a fine capper to the GOP’s flameout.

  6. 6.

    KCinDC

    How is the Redstate Strike Farce going to respond to the election of an RNC head who’s embarrassed to be a Republican? Surely there must be some new product to send him en masse from Amazon.

  9. 9.

    Dave

    Actually, I think Steele is on to something with this puppy angle. God knows the GOP won’t win any points on their ideas.

  10. 10.

    TheHatOnMyCat

    This great country is still a shining city on a hill, but most importantly, the light in that city is each one of us. I have coupled that idea with my study of the Republican party and note that the Republican party is the political home of African Americans. That makes this Party the perfect fit for me.

    Michael Steele.

    On behalf of my Republican friends, I for one welcome our new delusional and insane overlords. I wish them all the best of everything.

    Really. Seriously.

  11. 11.

    GSD

    There are already rumors swirling about that Michael Steele’s wife was caught on tape saying how much she hated whitey.

    -GSD

  12. 12.

    Civilized Crank

    Carcetti=O’Malley

    Though Carcetti is really a composite of every Baltimore mayor for the last 20-30 years. Yet somehow they keep getting elected to Annapolis…

  13. 13.

    TheHatOnMyCat

    We need to lay out a clear vision for the safety and security of this country and continued economic prosperity. We have the right candidates running for president and we have the right candidates running at the grassroots level who can provide that leadership.

    Michael Steele. No, really, I am not making this up.

  14. 14.

    Punchy

    Mississippi, TN, and Arkansas just opened up voter-registration party change form booths in myriad trailer parks due to overwhelming demand.

  16. 16.

    Media Browski

    Having seen Michael Steele’s electoral mojo in awesome 3-D action here in Maryland, I’m excited to see the new ideas and fresh perspective he brings to the RNC.

    No, I’m not high.

  19. 19.

    BethanyAnne

    From Kos, because it’s full of win:
    "So yet again, the black man kept Dawson down."

    /snicker

  20. 20.

    TheHatOnMyCat

    Q: What should be done about the enormous federal budget deficit? A: The plain truth is we are spending more than we have in the bank. We’ve all heard it said that we are mortgaging our children’s future. We are now mortgaging our grandchildren and great grandchildren’s future. When a "bridge to nowhere" receives millions of dollars in funding, we know Washington has lost touch with reality; and until Congress places real priorities on spending, deficits will always be a pressing concern.

    Michael Steele. The man is a veritable fountain of great ideas for our future. I mean it.

  22. 22.

    Scruffy McSnufflepuss

    Is O’Malley really that bad?

    I live pretty far from Maryland these days, but my sister and cousins used to live in Baltimore when he was mayor, and they always spoke rather highly of him. What happened?

  23. 23.

    lysias

    I guess the overnight polling about the Republicans all voting against the stimulus and standing with Limbaugh must have been disastrous.

  24. 24.

    jrg

    Move over Jindal, Steele is the new Republican Obama. Sheesh – I can’t help but think that the GOP is one big cargo cult.

  25. 25.

    liberal

    I’ve lived in MD since 1999, and Michael Steele is thoroughly mediocre. His only living for quite a few years now, as far as I can tell, has been as a hack paid for out of GOP funds.

    This is a wonderful development, assuming that putting incompetents in such leadership positions can have deleterious effects.

  26. 26.

    sgwhiteinfla

    Tweety just announced on Hardball that he voted for Michael Steele when he ran for the Senate. Yeah that Chris Matthews he is one helluva librul I tell ya!

  27. 27.

    liberal

    …but what I remember best is his campaign’s “recruitment of out-of-state homeless men to hand out misleading campaign literature in African-American neighborhoods”…

    Yeah…in a world that was even half sane, their political careers would have been over after that.

  30. 30.

    Keith

    The cookies were angry that day, my friends…like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. I know because I was there.

  31. 31.

    TheFountainHead

    Having lived in Baltimore for a few years a while back, I can say that Steele is about as interesting and intellectually gifted as a cold bowl of oatmeal. And that’s about all I can say about him.

  32. 32.

    TheHatOnMyCat

    Steele rejected the notion that the election of a black, Democratic president had closed the door on the “taken for granted” argument. “Don’t go down that road,” said Steele. “You can always make that argument. Just because you’ve got a black president, it doesn’t change things for black folks. It doesn’t change unless you see the change.”

    Ummmmm hmmm.

    Michael Steele. Blacker than Barack. Honestly, he is.

  35. 35.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    Wikipedia entry

    Steele’s mother was a widowed laundress who, he stated, worked for minimum wage rather than accept public assistance. Steele grew up in a Democratic household. However, as a young man he switched to the Republican Party.

    Man, talk about a Rebel Without a Cause.

  36. 36.

    TheHatOnMyCat

    So the right candidates for president was the sorry pack of GOP not-very-hopefuls who couldn’t get it together?

    Yes, the same pack of sorry losers who, even with the cheerleading of Rush Limbaugh, couldn’t even defeat John Fucking McCain, the guy the world had left for dead by the side of the campaign road just six months earlier.

  38. 38.

    gypsy howell

    Too bad Steve Gilliard isn’t around for this. I’d be laughing my ass off right about now…

  39. 39.

    Zifnab

    Steele’s mother was a widowed laundress who, he stated, worked for minimum wage rather than accept public assistance.

    $5 says Steele would happily abolish the minimum wage given half a chance.

  40. 40.

    The Silent Fiddle of Nero

    Yes, the same pack of sorry losers who, even with the cheerleading of Rush Limbaugh, couldn’t even defeat John Fucking McCain, the guy the world had left for dead by the side of the campaign road just six months earlier.

    So, the current RNC is in trouble then, huh?

  41. 41.

    Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist

    @TheHatOnMyCat: Yes, the same pack of sorry losers who, even with the cheerleading of Rush Limbaugh, couldn’t even defeat John Fucking McCain…

    Wasn’t OxyRush ordering everybody to vote for Hillary in the primaries?

    That was one of my favorite things about the whole sorry process.

  42. 42.

    TheHatOnMyCat

    the current RNC is in trouble then, huh?

    Aw, naww. They are starting a New Republican Revolution!

    It’s All Tax Cuts All The Time. Cut taxes, cut spending, cut services, cut the size of government. Cut, cut, cut.

  44. 44.

    Gunner

    And what did Erick Ericskon, the mastermind behind Operation Leper and the Red State Strike Force, the man with the finger on the pulse of both the GOP’s grass root movement and its heavy hitters, have to say about the RNC election this past Monday?

    "There are two men at the top of the list for RNC chairman: Mike Duncan and Katon Dawson. One of them will be the next chairman."

    Good call, Erick. I swear to god, if that guy said the sun was going to rise in the east tomorrow morning, I’d bet a thousand bucks that the poles were going to switch overnight.

  45. 45.

    Faux News

    I have coupled that idea with my study of the Republican party and note that the Republican party is the political home of African Americans. That makes this Party the perfect fit for me.

    HatOnMyCat:

    As a MD resident since 1998 (hey Liberal!) I can say that the election of 2008 absolutely confirmed Steele’s above statement not only in just Maryland but in the whole United States. I think McCain/Palin easily got about 85% to 90% of the Black vote in MD and in the USA. Right?

    Liberal:

    I’ve lived in MD since 1999, and Michael Steele is thoroughly mediocre. His only living for quite a few years now, as far as I can tell, has been as a hack paid for out of GOP funds.

    Absolutely correct. Steele has been sucking off the RNC tit since his blow out in 11/06 of which some Moran on Red State said "this one really hurt. I thought Steele would easily win". Calling Steele mediocre is too kind really

  46. 46.

    sgwhiteinfla

    BTW

    Greg Sargent is reporting that the House Dems are claiming (sounds convuluted huh) that the alternative plan the Rethugs put forth the other day that was supposed to cost half of the Dems’ plan and create double the jobs……raises taxes on millions of Americans.

    DOH!

  47. 47.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    @Zifnab

    Based on this snippet, I’d say "you are correct, sir!"

    Sept 6, 2006

    Earlier this year, the Ehrlich-Steele administration vetoed the measly $1 dollar per hour increase offered by the Democrats in the Maryland legislature. Republicans led by Steele decried the move away from the federally mandated $5.15 an hour to $6.15 as an outrage and unnecessary. Steele went as far as going onto the pages of The Wall Street Journal to make his case, oddly stating “the idea of the minimum wage is almost a fallacy.”

    But he knew that wouldn’t fly in an election so,

    On Aug. 24, Steele summoned the support of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons to call for increasing the minimum wage. This policy is another example of how Steele will do absolutely anything to win this fall.

  49. 49.

    Svensker

    “It was raining Oreos. They were thick in the air like locusts my head. I was there.”

    fixt

  50. 50.

    demkat620

    You gotta wonder how many heads exploded over this in SC, GA, MS, and AL.
    Zifnab’s right, the crackers got no home now.

    2008: Best. Election. Ever.

  53. 53.

    JenJen

    A round of mighty Oreo hailstorm o’ Hellfire for the house, I say!

    Thanks, DougJ. I’d almost forgotten about that, blinded in my "Goooooooo, Ken Blackwell!" haze.

  54. 54.

    JGabriel

    I’m sure Steele will do just as much for black relations in the Republican party as Ken Mehlman did for gay outreach. It’s all win.

    .

  55. 55.

    John Cole

    “It was raining Oreos. They were thick in the air like locusts my head. I was there.”

    I can’t be the only one thinking of WKRP in Cincinnati’s turkey drop episode.

  56. 56.

    ThymeZoneThePlumber

    "If (Obama) wins, he’s a media creation. He’s a brand. America doesn’t need a president who’s a brand. America needs a president who can lead."

    Michael Steele.

    Michael Steele, says that the media coverage of the Obama campaign is "a joke" and calls it an example of "white liberal guilt."

    More Steele.

    The Republicans surely have found their Man of Steele.

    Now, let’s get the cape on this crazy fuck and get him out there.

  58. 58.

    Reverend Dennis

    Courtesy of Judd Legum, Five Intreresting Facts About Michael Steele:
    1. Steele compared stem cell research to Nazi experiments during the Holocaust.

    2. Steele bused in homeless African Americans from Philadelphia to distribute literature in inner-city Baltimore that featured a “Sample Democratic Ballot” with votes for Steele and former Gov. Bob Ehrlich, along with photos of prominent black Democrats.

    3. Steele once described that “R” next to his name as a “scarlet letter,” complaining that being a Republican was hurting his electoral chances.

    4. Steele was endorsed by Mike Tyson during his run for Senate. When Tyson, who used to be married to Steele’s half sister, pleaded no contest to assault in Montgomery County in 1998, Steele was on hand to support him.

    5. Steele defended former Gov. Bob Ehrlich’s decision to hold a $100,000 fundraiser at a country club that did not allow non-white members, saying that the club’s membership’s policies were “not an issue” because “I don’t play golf.”

  59. 59.

    ThymeZoneThePlumber

    I guess I should make sure I’m strapped in tight?

    I find that image to be very stimulating …. but yes, the next couple of years should be fascinating. I expect Dems to gain seats in 2010.

    I think the GOP is going to implode and become a traveling medicine show using a mule-drawn wagon.

  60. 60.

    Swervus

    Dudes, this is bad. Like Alan Keyes for senate bad.

    The Republicans are SO bad with people other than rich, white, evangelical Christian gun owners that the only solution they have to trying to curb Obama’s popularity is to nominate a black guy, qualified or no.

    "See, we are like TOTALLY COOL with black people!"

    I am getting a really strong vision of Steve Carrol’s character on "The Office" and his comic attempts to deal with the fact that he can’t handle people not exactly like himself. Now times that by about eleventy billion and you have the modern Republican Party (read: PARTY OF THE CONFEDERACY)

  61. 61.

    lysias

    I wonder if Steele knew how Ehrlich’s MD government was spying on all those activist groups in the state.

  62. 62.

    Civilized Crank

    I’m not attributing all of Baltimore’s ills to O’Malley (who by most accounts seems like a decent guy). However he did absolutely nothing to make things better in the city while sucking the majority of the state’s funding. And many things (like the school system and the murder rate) got worse on his watch. There was absolutely nothing on his record to justify him as Governor other than him being a Dem in an overwhelming Dem state (the state party was livid that Ehrlich beat KKT, breaking something like 30+ of hegemony, and the Dems in control of the state assembly did everything to obstruct Ehrlich’s efforts to reign in the budget that Glendenning had exploded [case in point: they did everything to kills slots while Ehrlich was in office and then moved on it almost immediately after O’Malley won in 2006])

  64. 64.

    Krista

    I can’t be the only one thinking of WKRP in Cincinnati’s turkey drop episode.

    As God was his witness, he swore that non-existent Oreos could fly.

  67. 67.

    SGEW

    . . . Obama is bringing back Samantha Power.
    Is that a slap in the face?

    I just realized what "slap in the face" really means: it’s a direct translation of "change I can believe in." It seems like every time someone gets "slapped in the face" the world is a little bit better.

  68. 68.

    The Silent Fiddle of Nero

    I find that image to be very stimulating …. but yes, the next couple of years should be fascinating. I expect Dems to gain seats in 2010.

    I think the GOP is going to implode and become a traveling medicine show using a mule-drawn wagon.

    Oh, thank you! :) Although that wasn’t my purpose for writing it.

    I hope you’re correct on the traveling medicine show. That does sound fascinating.

  70. 70.

    Conservatively Liberal

    I can’t be the only one thinking of WKRP in Cincinnati’s turkey drop episode.

    The only thing funnier would be if the story said that the cookies were still in their packages. Or the packages were still in cases.

    Good call, Erick. I swear to god, if that guy said the sun was going to rise in the east tomorrow morning, I’d bet a thousand bucks that the poles were going to switch overnight.

    I would look to the north and have a mirror that I could use to look to the south at the same time.

  71. 71.

    Glocksman

    @BethanyAnne:

    From Kos, because it’s full of win:
    "So yet again, the black man kept Dawson down."

    I laughed because one of my supervisors at work is a former Marine named Stacy Dawson.

    Not only is Stacy a guy, but he’s big, black, and a genuinely nice person.

    IOW, he’s almost everything that Michael Steele is not.

  72. 72.

    Glocksman

    @Conservatively Liberal:

    Ironically enough, I had the ‘pleasure’ of hearing Erick peddle his delusions on XM radio’s politics channel during the election season.

    I distinctly remember thinking ‘who in the fuck is this idiot?’ several times before I actually heard the show’s host thank ‘Erick Erickson of RedState.com’ for appearing on the show.

    That woman must have had the patience of a saint.
    I wonder if she’s single. :)

  73. 73.

    brian griffin

    I keep thinking of Ta-Nehisi’s comment (which I can’t find right now so I’ll paraphrase), describing the old racists who were always so worried about black men marrying white women. ‘they’ll be marrying our women… and then they’re gonna take over this country!"

    TNC pointed out it’s a total non-sequitur and he thought it never made any sense. but then he realized ‘hey, turns out those guys were right along"

    I have a feeling their heads are gonna implode after today.

  74. 74.

    Nellcote

    Steele still claims the oreo story is true when he finds it convenient to do so.

    And isn’t he the "drill, baby, drill" guy from the gop con?

  75. 75.

    Chum

    All over the rightblogosphere they’re gettin’ their black on. It’s like laughing in church. The stomach it hurts.

  77. 77.

    Gary G

    "But he ran a good campaign"

    During the election of ’06, every republican pundit and his talking head said that Steele would upset Ben Cardin for the senate the day before the election.

    Ben Cardin had been my congressman and he is the quintessential bureaucrat, never taking chances, never making mistakes. I knew he was a shoe in.

    The day after Cardin won all the same republican pundits and their talking heads made the statement about Steele "but he ran a good campaign". He lost by 10 percent! To this day, my brother and I will always say that expression, "but he ran a good campaign" whenever we hear the name of Steele. We of course mean it in the ironic way. He didn’t run a good campaign. He lost by 10 percent.

  78. 78.

    jTh

    @TheHatOnMyCat

    It’s All Tax Cuts All The Time. Cut taxes, cut spending, cut services, cut the size of government. Cut, cut, cut.

    Aha! Our vision for America: Death by a Thousand Cuts!

    Now there’s some change that we can believe in!

    (Conservatism cannot fail. It can only be failed (by inadequate branding).)

    (Or truth in advertising, whichever comes first.)

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