For Political Junkie's

If you are a political junkie then you were probably following the Republican National Committee Chairman elections today. While there were several candidates in the race the two men primarily battling it out were Dawson, current chair of the South Carolina Republican party, and Steele, the African-American former lt. governor of Md. (under Erlich). On the 6th ballot Steele recieved the requisite number of votes and is now the new RNC chair.

So why does this matter? With the current disarray of the Republican party, they will be looking too the RNC chair (and Rush Limbaugh) to provide direction going forwards, and in this election Steele was pushing himself (and in comparision to the opposition he is) as the voice of change. The reality though is he is not a moderate. In my opinion the Republican party is once again engaging in symbolic diversity, and putting an African - American in a prominent position, without actually changing policies, thoughts or deedes.

Some other things of interest from this week: As expected Blagojevich was impeached and thrown out by the Illinois house. This was expected, unfortunately he alread appointed Burris to the Senate seat, making that seat a much harder hold for Democrats in a few years, then it owuld have been otherwise.

President Obama's economic stimulus package passed the house with no Republican votes. Pay attention to the spin, as this was the first test of President Obama's attempts at biparisanship. If the spin titlts towards Democrats ramming the bill through Congress, that would be a big boost to Republicans as they start preparing for midterm elections in 2010.