WASHINGTON — The debate held Monday among the candidates for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee was like an egg cream — the literal meaning isn’t the same as its contents. With one exception, current RNC Chairman Michael Steele and his challengers — former Michigan GOP Chair Saul Anuzis, former Bush administration official Maria Cino, Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Reince Priebus, and former Missouri Republican Party Chairwoman Ann Wagner — avoided debating each other. “I’m not running against anybody,” said Priebus, in the opening of his closing statement, who was a backer of Steele in 2009 before announcing his own candidacy in early December.

Instead, the debate hosted by Tucker Carlson and Grover Norquist at the National Press Club in Washington resembled a job interview. Candidates listed what “skills” they have for the position, how their past experiences would help them lead the RNC and how they would do the job (all interspersed with the occasional awkward joke). Their interlocutors repeatedly asked them to answer questions “specifically,” which they generally did not.

Though Norquist reminded the audience that there was “no job description,” being a party chair is really about one thing — raising money. The candidates all said how they could raise money to defeat President Obama in 2012. Priebus said he would spend “five or six” hours on the phone everyday with major donors, saying that the RNC needed to raise $400 million to defeat the president. “It’s all about fundraising,” said Anuzis in his opening.

“We don’t do policy, we do politics,” said Chairman Steele. “You don’t get to dictate the terms of policy to the (House) speaker, or the minority leader. If you get it wrong, You’ll be reminded, ‘you don’t do policy,’” he ended, drawing the loudest applause from the crowd for the chairman,

Steele, the center of debate, knows whereof he speaks. Soon after he was elected as RNC chairman, he said — in comments that were anathema to most Republicans — that abortion was an “individual choice” to be decided by the states in a May 2009 interview with GQ. In the debate, Steele — who is often animated on cable news shows — appeared subdued. According to a Politico report this morning, Steele does not have the votes from the 168-member RNC to stay on for a second term.

In the one exception to the lack of debate in the debate, Steele defended his record as RNC chairman when Wagner attacked his lack of funding for GOTV operations along the lines of a memo by former Steele aide — and former RNC candidate himself before dropping out — Gentry Collins. “We didn’t have 72-hour program — we had a 12-month program. We won 64 house seats, 21 state legislatures flipped.” He maintained that the program was done differently. “We won in all fifty states this year. And that’s the goal, winning. Find me a state that didn’t have a winning election.”

Despite the Republicans’ success in the midterm elections, the RNC is $15 million in debt; reports indicate that it has already spent lavishly for its 2012 convention in Tampa; and it has had to delay payment to convention vendors. Steele meekly suggested at the outset that the debt might be “refinanced” and the party would have to “hunker down, get the money right, get the dollars right.”

The race for RNC chair is of course, not an open election — 168 members choose the chairman in a race that often has multiple ballots — but Priebus appears to be the front-runner, according to vote counts. He also acted like it. He repeatedly spoke of the need to work with the conservative movement and the tea party. He also talked like a tea partier, sounding the alarm of American decline. “We are about to fall off a fiscal cliff,” he said in his opening. “We need to save our country, and in turn to save our party, and take back the White House,” he said, often repeating the need to “save our country” more than any other candidate.

Priebus also had huge success in normally-blue Wisconsin in 2010. Plastics magnate Ron Johnson won his first election, defeating Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold by painting him as a Washington insider. Longtime House Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-Wisc.) retired and his seat was taken by Republican Sean Duffy, who was previously a cast member on MTV’s “The Real World.” Wisconsin’s Republicans took over the governorship, both legislatures and picked up an additional U.S. House seat.

Ultimately, the RNC chairmanship race is shaping up a lot like the Republican narrative of the 2010 elections — Priebus, talking the language of the tea party, looks poised to defeat the fiscally-irresponsible incumbent Michael Steele on January 14.

Sen. Norm Coleman Photo: WDCpix

Former Sen. Norm Coleman, who’s reportedly been pondering a challenge to Michael Steele as chair of the Republican National Committee, has canceled plans to attend this week’s four-day RNC confab in Kansas City. Coleman was scheduled to be at the event, but changed plans without much explanation. “His decision to stay away from the meeting could be a sign that Coleman is trying to tamp down chatter about a possible challenge to chairman Michael Steele, after his early jockeying irked some RNC members,” CNN reports.

Late last month, Politico reported that high-ranking Republicans “are buzzing about the prospect of a Chairman Coleman.” It’s not the first time the notion has been bandied about: in January 2009, after losing to Al Franken in the protracted Senate election, recount and contest, Coleman’s name came up as a potential for the top RNC job.

While Rep. Michele Bachmann addressed CPAC 2009 audiences enthusing, “Michael Steele, you be da man,” a series of scandals in the RNC, gaffes by Steele and lagging fundraising by the organization suggest that, to some GOPers at least, that may not still be the case. But as Marc Ambinder states, chaos within the RNC — which undoubtedly a change at the group’s top slot would qualify as — could harm Republicans chances of winning a majority in the House of Representatives this fall. Perhaps that’s reason enough for Coleman to bag his trip to Kansas City?

Though it’s probably true that despite his multiple gaffes, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele cannot be fired since it would take a two-thirds vote of the committee, not to mention that a relatively swift ouster would likely lead the party into an unwanted discussion of the GOP and race relations. Nevertheless, Republicans are quietly gathering to run for the spot.

One name that comes up is former Sen. Norm Coleman. On Thursday, POLITICO broke the news, citing multiple mostly anonymous GOP sources:

Still, many top-level Republicans already are buzzing about the prospect of Chairman Coleman.

A senior party operative familiar with the situation said more people were reaching out to Coleman than vice versa: “A majority of the conversations are people talking to Norm about it.”

Former Rep. Vin Weber, a fellow Minnesota Republican, said Coleman hadn’t talked to him about the — but added: “I’ve had lots and lots of people talk to me about his being the chairman.”

Coleman has been in the news more recently, for his role as CEO of American Action Network, a center-right self-described “action-tank” that is running ads in competitive 2010 races and for a report released by a Minnesota conservative group that says felons voted in the 2008 election that Coleman lost by 312 votes. (State and local officials said that the illegal voting was far smaller than the report indicates.)

The RNC this week failed to report over $7 million in debt to the FEC, which could trigger huge fines. The RNC treasurer accused Steele for the discrepancy. Even so, much of the RNC positioning likely depends on the outcome of the 2010 elections.

It has been almost three years since U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, a Democrat from New York, last introduced his bill to bring back the draft. Rangel’s effort has been less pro-draft than anti-war; his gambit is that conscription, or even talk of it, would act as a brake on United States military adventures.

Rangel’s list of current bills doesn’t show any legislation regarding the draft. (A call to his office to confirm that hasn’t yet been returned). An online search for any bills in Congress concerning “conscription” or a “military draft” comes up empty.

Bill Galvin, counseling coordinator at the Center on Conscience and War in Washington, D.C., tells the Minnesota Independent he hasn’t heard of any recent legislation regarding the military draft.

But you wouldn’t know that from the RNC’s mailing. The “survey,” RNC Chairman Michael Steele writes in a cover letter, “is your opportunity to let Republican leaders … know where you stand on the policies and programs being proposed by Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress.” It isn’t long before he gets to the sales pitch: “I’m asking you to include a contribution to the Republican National Committee …”

The Central Committee on Conscientious Objection appears to agree with the RNC assessment that the draft could come back: “It’s not a matter of ‘IF’ the draft will return … It’s a matter of ‘WHEN.’”

But the newly confirmed director of the Selective Service System, Larry Romo, told Congress he hopes there is no need for a draft. Still, he plans to ramp up compliance with military registration systems through marketing programs and direct-mail — the vehicle the RNC uses for its “survey.”

The military draft is an interesting issue for the Republicans to try to raise cash with. The politically independent base that the party needs to enlist for electoral battles to come in 2010 and 2012 may be of two minds. Former Gov. Jesse Ventura recently said he favors the return of the draft, while U.S. Rep. Ron Paul seemed to suggest he’d lead a Libertarian resistance movement in remarks he made in Minnesota after the 2008 Republican National Convention.

Photo: WDCPix

President Obama is still lacing up his gloves in preparation for a speech on health care tonight during which reformers hope he comes out swinging. But he’s taking jabs from the right even before he gets into the ring.

The right is trying to soften up Obama (or his national TV audience) by hitting both above and below the belt.

The conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) tries to preempt Obama’s holding up of Mayo Clinic as a model with a well-timed “report” about the Minnesota facility released yesterday: “Reforms that attempt to replicate high-quality practices — such as comparative effectiveness research and paying for value — may not automatically result in lower costs.” But AEI undercuts its quibbles with caveats and qualifiers that acknowledge how difficult and complicated it is to analyze cost and value of medical care at any scale.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele’s preemptive attack is more bare-knuckled: Whatever Obama says on health care reform, “we will continue to hit him on it.”

And Republican congressional leaders are letting loose with their own midday “pre-buttal.”

(WDCpix)

Michael Steele, chair of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement late Tuesday that he’s “deeply disappointed” about the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling on the state’s U.S. Senate race and Norm Coleman’s concession. Echoing the local GOP, he went on to state that in the contested election, Minnesota didn’t adhere to two principles that are at “the core of our democracy”:

“I am deeply disappointed in the decision made by the state Supreme Court, and I share the frustration of Minnesota’s voters. At the core of our democracy lies two concrete principles: No valid vote should go uncounted and all votes should be treated equally. Sadly, those principles were not adhered to during this election. While I would have proudly stood behind Norm Coleman had he chosen to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, I know that his decision to withdraw from this race was not an easy one, but one that he felt was the best decision for the people of Minnesota. For the last six years, Norm represented the people of Minnesota with distinction, earning a much deserved reputation as one of the hardest-working members of Congress. I, on behalf of all Republicans, thank him for his service and will miss his leadership in Washington.”

Michael Steele (WDCpix)

Here’s more evidence that the GOP is still struggling to find fitting metaphors to talk about itself. The party was likened to a miffed Eminem by Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the College Republicans’ national confab over the weekend, while at another of the convention’s sessions, RNC chair Michael Steele was coming up with imagery of his own. Steele told the audience that “no one knows what the hell it means” when the GOP refers to itself as a “big tent.”

So he offered another analogy: The GOP is a hat.

Some people wear a hat frontwards, others cocked to the left, he explained. Some wear it backwards, he added, echoing a past statement, “because that’s how they roll.” But “the strength of the party is in this: … the fact that you’re willing to put the damn thing on… The problem we’ve had as a party is: too many of our friends, neighbors, colleagues are taking the hat off, because we’ve decided we don’t like the way they wear it… The GOP is not about how you wear the hat, but the fact that you want to wear the hat.”

A tent large enough to fit all kinds of people seems a more compelling idea than a hat that can be worn as personal preference dictates. But maybe the new metaphor has less to do with how the cap fits than with how the old metaphor doesn’t.

When longtime Republican Sen. Arlen Specter left the party to become a Democrat in late April he used the metaphor: “Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right.” And many news outlets picked up the lingo. The San Francisco Chronicle said the “‘big tent’ shrinks“; The Week ran a cartoon showing an elephant-shaped tent flying a “Conservatives only” flag; and The Hill wrote that the “giant swishing sound you’re hearing is the GOP’s ‘big tent’ being folded up and packed away.”

Hats off to the new branding.

Watch it:

Franken wants the state’s highest court to affirm the ruling by a three-judge panel that he won the U.S. Senate contest by 312 votes and order that he be issued an election certificate immediately.

“For over four months, the citizens of Minnesota have been represented by only one United States Senator, and the effects of this delay are increasingly significant,” the brief reads.

The issuance of the certificate is key because it would almost certainly allow Franken to take his post in Washington, D.C., while any appeals to the federal courts play out. Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty has equivocated on whether he would sign an election certificate once the state-court process is completed. He told Minnesota Public Radio last month that he would scrutinize the Supreme Court’s ruling and the strength of Coleman’s case before making a decision.

Coleman’s appeal calls on the state’s highest court to remand the case back to the three-judge panel to deal with purported errors in its initial ruling. The former senator’s brief focuses primarily on varying standards utilized by local election officials in determining which absentee ballots would be counted. It argues that the disparate treatment of ballots is a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Coleman wants at least 1,359 rejected absentee ballots added to the tally. His appeal also argues that 132 ballots that were lost should not be counted and that some ballots were wrongly counted twice.

Franken’s brief concedes that some mistakes were made by local election officials in determining whether to reject an absentee ballot. “There is, however, no evidence that such errors were deliberate or intentional or that they determined the outcome of the 2008 senatorial election,” the brief reads.

The brief also emphasizes the thoroughness of the legal proceedings before the three-judge panel, noting that it heard from 142 witnesses, examined nearly 2,000 exhibits and considered roughly 20,000 pages of legal documents.

“It was their burden to show that Norm Coleman won a majority of the votes,” said Marc Elias, Franken’s lead recount attorney, on a conference call with reporters this afternoon. “He failed to meet that burden and I would say he failed to meet it by a wide margin.”

Elias expressed confidence that Franken will be seated once the state Supreme Court rules. He dismissed recent comments by Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele expressing enthusiastic support for Coleman to continue the legal fight in federal courts. “I don’t follow closely what he has to say about the law in Minnesota,” Elias said of Steele.

Oral arguments before the state Supreme Court are slated for June 1. Only five judges will hear the case. Justices Eric Magnuson and G. Barry Anderson have recused themselves because they served on the State Canvassing Board that certified Franken the victor.

(WDCpix)

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has Norm Coleman’s back. When asked by Hotline On Call recently whether he thinks Coleman should concede the U.S. Senate contest, Steele’s response was emphatic: “No, hell no.”

The RNC chairman went on to vow to take the fight to the federal courts if necessary. “Whatever the outcome, it’s going to get bumped to the next level,” he told a Hotline reporter after Saturday night’s White House Correspondent’s Dinner. “This does not end until there’s a final ruling that speaks to whether or not those votes that have not been counted should be counted. And Norm Coleman will not, will not jump out of this race before that.”

It’s merely the latest indication that the Republican leadership in Washington will do whatever it takes to keep Al Franken from being seated — and therefore give President Obama a veto-proof majority in the Senate — for as long as possible.

***UPDATE***

The Democratic National Committee issued a statement in response to Steele’s comments:

“Michael Steele’s comments this weekend regarding the Minnesota Senate election have completely erased any thought that Norm Coleman’s continued legal fight is about anything more than pure politics,” said DNC spokesman Frank Benenati. “If there was anyone left who actually believed that Norm Coleman, Tim Pawlenty, and the national Republicans actually cared about the true winner of this race rather than obstructing the seating of another Democratic Senator, Michael Steele’s comments this weekend should have disabused them of that notion.”

Photo: MPR Polinaut

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is no longer swimming at the deep end with the Republican Party’s top 10 ‘influencers,” says The Fix. But he had another visit from the person in the fish suit during his radio show today — a sure sign it’s time to declare a winner in last week’s caption contest.

The Washington Post blog The Fix posts a monthly ranking of top Republicans, but Minnesota’s governor — a fixture on the list — wasn’t named this month.

Pawlenty and Rush Limbaugh fell off the chart in favor of Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele and Utah Gov. John Huntsman.

Pawlenty may have hurt his chances by not following The Fix blogger Chris Cillizza’s instructions last month to hurry up and decide whether he’s running for re-election or president. 

Maybe the sauciness of his quips to the media tomorrow during his 3 a.m. fishing expedition on White Bear Lake will give some indication of his plans.

At last year’s fishing opener, his bawdy wisecrack about not having sex with his wife caused ripples of speculation about how such talk would affect his chances to become Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential pick.  

And speaking of White Bear Lake and fish and making decisions, here’s a winner in last week’s caption contest. (The photo was from Pawlenty’s appearance at the White Bear Lake Chamber of Commerce.)  

Photo: Tom Scheck, MPR Polinaut

While philosophically opposed to the Obama Administration’s TARP bailout, Gov. Pawlenty could not say no to the recently announced CARP stimulus package.

A box of MnIndy-brand fish sticks goes out to reader Bob Moffitt for that one. Thanks to all who submitted captions – they were funny.