For the third time in its history, the Republican National Committee is going to attempt to operate under a “collective leadership” -- that is, a U.S. Senator as the committee’s face and voice, with a full-time operating head handling day to day operations of the committee.
With the recent resignation of RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, the White House surprised GOPers last week by announcing that Sen. Mel Martinez (R.-Fla.) would be offered the position of “general chairman” and Kentucky’s Republican National Committeeman Mike Duncan would be the full-time national chairman. Although the 165-Member RNC can elect anyone it wants at its next meeting in January, it is almost a foregone conclusion that the GOP’s governing body will rubber-stamp the Martinez-Duncan arrangement sculpted by the Bush White House (and, presumably, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove).
The first time this was attempted was after the 1970 mid-term elections, when the Nixon White House tapped freshman Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) as national chairman. Political operative Thomas B. Evans of Delaware was brought in to run the day-to-day operations of the party. Two years later, Dole had clearly gone through a difficult time under the arrangement and the White House replaced the Dole-Evans team with one full-time leader, George H.W. Bush.
“I was viewed as too independent from the White House, so they sent Tom Evans over to keep an eye on me,” recalled Dole, who quickly added that “Tom and I became the best of friends and are today.”
But the man who went on to become senate majority leader and the 1996 Republican nominee for president also told me “It’s better when there’s a full time chairman. You need someone in charge -- one boss, one person.” Recalling his days as GOP national chairman under Richard Nixon, Dole said “I was on the road most of the time but I did spend a lot of time at the headquarters overseeing things.”
After Dole left the party helm in 1973, there was a new rule barring an elected official from serving in the chairmanship—in effect, guaranteeing that there would be a full-time chairman.
But in 1983, the Reagan White House came up with a new plan to get around that rule -- to give President Reagan’s closest political friend, Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), the new title of “general chairman” and making his fellow Nevadan Frank Fahrenkopf the RNC chairman. Last week, Laxalt told me that the arrangement “worked for us. . We never had a problem.” But the former senator, who held the title of general chairman from 1983-87, also said “[a]s long as the person who is the general chairman has a good relationship with the President, then it works.” He noted that the change was made in preparation for the 1984 Reagan re-election campaign, so that the RNC and the re-election vehicle did not step on one another “as was the case in 1972 with the RNC and the Committee to Re-elect the President [Nixon].” This arrangement, Laxalt told me,”appealed to President Ragan and there was no conflict problem as there was in ’72.”
As to whether it will work today, some RNC members are expressing doubts about the new party leadership -- in part because of the mixed reviews on its past incarnations and in part because of disappointment that the chairmanship did not go to the conservative favorite, Maryland Lieutenant Gov. and 2006 U.S. Senate nominee Michael Steele. One committeewoman who requested anonymity told me: “I’ll support the President on this one, but I sure could have supported Steele.”
Former Connecticut State GOP Chairman Dick Foley dropped by my office this afternoon and offered this reaction: “The clearer the lines of communication, the better the lines of communication. Can you imagine [the late] Lee Atwater, possibly the best and most promising chairman in modern times, working through a committee?”
