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In print | Published March 5, 2009

It was the right-wing throwdown of a lifetime several days ago when Rush Limbaugh and Michael Steele got into a much-publicized tiff over which Republican powerhouse is the de-facto leader of the Grand Ole Party.

But as a matter of fact, it’s a very interesting question. John McCain, who led the Republicans to defeat in 2008, isn’t much of a contender, and Sarah Palin, who made some news after the election when she fired back at the press for all the wrongs it inflicted upon her, has essentially faded into the background. So the stage was set for an epic fight between Michael Steele, the GOP up-and-comer, and Rush Limbaugh, reigning conservative radio champion, to determine which man actually leads the Republican Party.

Michael Steele, 51, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, was recently elected to chair the Republican National Committee. He is a fan of bi-partisanship, the Internet, and “applying the party’s principles to the urban-suburban hip-hop setting,” whatever that means. Limbaugh, once called a “Big Fat Idiot” in the title of a New York Times bestseller by Minnesota Senator and comedian Al Franken, is the highly controversial, highly inflammatory conservative talk show host who calls soldiers against the war “phonies,” hopes Obama’s agenda “fails,” and enjoys writing songs to the tune of “Barack the Magic Negro.”

But all joking aside, the question of GOP leadership is more relevant than ever, given that the fate of the Republican Party remains so uncertain.

Despite predictions that the new president’s popularity would force Republicans to cooperate, Obama’s wish that politicians ask “not whether government is too big or too small, but whether it works” has hardly been fulfilled. The latest iteration of the bailout bill was passed in the House without a single Republican supporter, making it seem that the lesson many Republicans take from the failure of the Bush years is that they weren’t conservative enough.

Which brings us back to Steele and Limbaugh. Perhaps the only thing the two have in common is that both are uncompromisingly conservative. Bob Beckel, a political analyst at Fox News and frequent cable news sparring partner of Steele’s, wrote in Real Clear Politics, “Under that friendly persona of reasonableness lies the soul of a doctrinaire conservative. From an ardent supply-sider [sic] to a committed pro-life advocate (he came within a year of being ordained a Catholic priest), Steele is firmly on the Right.” Limbaugh’s political views, in contrast, range from far right — he believes that human-induced climate change “is just a bunch of scientists organized around a political proposition” — to off the charts: he’s been quoted saying that the soldiers accused of torture in Abu Ghraib were “having a good time … you ever heard of emotional release?”

Steele can thus be forgiven for sparking the whole controversy when he said, responding to a comment by a CNN reporter, “I’m the de facto head of the Republican Party. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer … Yes, it’s incendiary. Yes, it’s ugly.” Steele ended up having to apologize, but he made his point. Whether or not Rush Limbaugh remains the darling of conservatives, he is not the leader of the Republican Party and his approach, assuming he even has a real political approach, will take the Republican Party nowhere. As Limbaugh said in an article in the New York Times Magazine last year, “First and foremost I’m a businessman. My first goal is to attract the largest possible audience so I can charge confiscatory ad rates.”

But does this necessarily rule out Limbaugh as the GOP’s de-facto leader? Limbaugh seems to think so. He said, “I’m not in charge of the Republican Party, and I don’t want to be.” And Eric Cantor, a prominent GOP Republican, has repeatedly said that no Republican in Congress agrees with Limbaugh that Obama’s agenda should fail. So Limbaugh may well be the spiritual leader of America’s conservatives, but he certainly isn’t the ring leader of the Republican Party.

Steele, the failed Senate candidate and potential gubernatorial candidate from Maryland, may be the closest thing the Republicans have to a leader right now. But it’s unclear what he can do to improve the Party’s chances in the next election. The best choice — move the Party closer to the center — doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Republicans who matter.

Even if Steele is as conservative as his record suggests, there are important steps that Steele ought to take. The last frenzied months of the election were spent watching Sarah Palin rally crowds around the notion that there is one “Real America.”

This, in particular, is why we’re so glad that Steele believes that Republican candidates should try to nab inner-city minority votes. Just a couple of months after Palin blessedly departed the political stage, we seem to have a leader of the RNC who believes that the inhabitants of cities deserve Republican consideration, just as much as rural farmers do.

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