RNC Member Pushes "Anyone But Steele" Strategy

Oregon National Committeeman Solomon Yue has an interesting strategy to promote his 'anyone-but-Steele' approach in the vote for RNC chair.

Oregon National Committeeman Solomon Yue has an interesting strategy to promote his 'anyone-but-Steele' approach to the vote for RNC chairman next week: vote for the candidate with the lowest number of endorsements.

Yue has been working on a campaign to ensure RNC members aren't wooed by Steele if their preferred candidates drop off the ballot, as first reported by National Review Online's Brian Bolduc.

Instead of voting for a candidate that he prefers, Yue has committed himself to voting for the weakest opponent to Steele, whoever that might be. This, he tells FrumForum, will allow him to gain credibility with that candidate, and be able to encourage his or her supporters to move on to non-Steele opponents.

Yue believes that no candidate has the votes to win on the first ballot. "Since this is so, I could do more good by uniting supporters of all the challengers [to Steele], and earn credibility with the lowest vote getters, use this credibility to persuade those supporters to join me and move on to support other challengers. So, that's the strategy," Yue told FrumForum.

Yue supposes that either Saul Anuzis or Maria Cino will get his vote by this criteria, and continues to sound the alarm that Steele has a strong base of support. "Don't believe reports that say his support has dropped to 25 or 30 votes. He has at least 40 votes, according to the RNC members that I speak with," Yue said to FrumForum.

Meanwhile the National Republican Conservative Caucus, of which Yue is a vocal member, continues to be split amongst non-Steele candidates - but with the largest amount of support by far going to Reince Priebus, the Wisconsin state chair and former RNC general counsel. Priebus has the support of Jim Bopp, the Indiana National Committeeman, the chair of the caucus, and one of its best known members.

Of the twenty-five member conservative caucus, Priebus has eight declared supporters; former RNC co-chair Ann Wagner has three; while former RNC convention chair Maria Cino and Michigan National Committeeman both have one.

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