Steele's New Enforcer

RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay has resigned and will be replaced by Deputy Chief of Staff Mike Leavitt. In choosing Leavitt, Steele has promoted someone who has a proven record and knows how to win.

This afternoon, in the wake of the Republican National Committee’s Voyeur nightclub scandal, RNC Chief of Staff Ken McKay resigned. McKay will be replaced by Deputy Chief of Staff Mike Leavitt.

Leavitt knows how to win. He most recently coordinated the Republican National Committee’s campaign to elect Bob McDonnell in Virginia, in which McDonnell beat his opponent by more than seventeen points in a state that had not been Republican since 2001.

"Mike Leavitt worked closely with me and my campaign in Virginia where he led an extremely successful Victory operation. Mike will bring great energy, commitment, and experience to the job of chief of staff at the RNC.  I applaud Chairman Steele for his choice," Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell told FrumForum via the RNC.

Leavitt knows how to work in tough, swing states; he was once the Executive Director of the Maine GOP. He knows how to think nationally; he was once John McCain’s Deputy National Political Director. He knows the staff at the RNC; he’s been a Deputy Chief of Staff there since February of last year.

With a crucial election season coming up in about seven months, Chairman Steele was right to turn the page on the embarrassing revelation that his Committee had reimbursed nearly $2,000 for expenditures at a bondage-themed nightclub in Los Angeles. “Having worked with him in the past, I know firsthand how he is beyond diligent in ensuring money is not wasted,” one high-ranking RNC staffer told FrumForum.

The political atmosphere in the country has changed dramatically in the past year, and in no place is this clearer than the differences between the RNC press release announcing McKay’s appointment in March 2009 and Chairman Steele’s letter announcing McKay’s replacement today.

Watch for the difference in rhetoric – I expect that the differing wording style will reflect a new management philosophy that Leavitt will bring to the RNC. Mike Leavitt will be even more open to engaging and meeting with Tea Party activists than his predecessor.

In March 2009, announcing McKay’s appointment:

"Ken has proven that voters in both parties gravitate to reform minded conservative governance, proving you can govern with conservative philosophy, and those principles work everywhere. Ken is not a theorist; he’s a real-life practitioner of both campaigning and governing. He has experience in managing very complex operations and making things work."

FrumForum has obtained a copy of the letter that Chairman Steele sent out to RNC members today. It reads, in part:

“We at the RNC have a sacred charge. Over 600,000 Americans have entrusted us with their money, almost 30 percent of them for the first time only recently. When they feel under siege, when the America they grew up in is fading away, when they write an unthinkable check to the IRS, the next check they write is to the RNC… These are hard-working patriots who want to save their country. And they are right to be nervous. The very foundations of our Constitutional Republic are under assault by Democrats in Washington and state capitals across the country. These are serious times and we are engaged in a pitched battle for the soul of our nation and the future for our children.”

Leavitt is undoubtedly qualified to be the Chief of Staff at the RNC. But it is important not to forget that outgoing Chief of Staff Ken McKay was also brought in at the midst of other crises at the RNC. Back then, GQ had just published an interview in which Steele had referred to abortion as an “individual choice”.

The ultimate responsibility for these recent and former embarrassments rests in the hands of Chairman Steele. In the letter Steele wrote to RNC members today, he alluded to the popular phrase, ‘the buck stops here.’ Let’s hope the gaffes and the missteps stop here as well.