Dick Cheney is routinely touted as the most influential vice president in US history. But within the GOP these days, he has little sway—or so it would appear from his role in the race to elect a new chairman of the Republican National Committee.
In early December, Cheney made news when he waded into the contentious RNC battle. A half-dozen potential candidates were considering a challenge to current chairman Michael Steele, who has fallen out of favor with many RNC members over his handling of the party's affairs, and Cheney decided to throw his weight behind one of them: former Bush administration official Maria Cino.
Cheney headlined a December fundraiser for Cino hosted by Republican pundit Mary Matalin and also backed by Ed Gillespie, former counselor to President George W. Bush. In theory, Cheney's high-profile endorsement should have been a boon for Cino, who was challenging an incumbent but unpopular chairman. But by early January, when all the RNC candidates gathered in Washington for a debate hosted by Americans for Tax Reform, Cino was running dead last in a heat of five, according to most of the early whip counts.
Cino's poor showing in the RNC race begs the question of how much influence the former vice president still wields within his own party. According to a quick survey of debate attendees and participants, the answer is: not that much. When I asked Steele himself about Cheney's endorsement of his opponent, he laughed heartily and said, "It is what it is." He said he believed RNC members are "not easily moved by those things" and indicated that Cheney's endorsement wasn't having much of an influence on the race. .............(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/dick-cheney-rnc-chairman-endorsement
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
