We were watching Bill Maher the other night and enjoying the slugfest between the former RNC chair, Michael Steele, and Ed Schultz, a sturdy liberal radio/tv talker. It was a sweet, sweet performance:
It made me marvel to see Michael Steele think he was going to be taken seriously, when he had done so much to screw up the RNC’s finances during his tenure there. I’m not sure if he was to blame for their financial problems, or if the Republican base simply refused to entrust their money to a black man (sadly, not that hard to imagine).
So that other guy with the funny name took it on, and he’s apparently cleaning up the place and getting the funding machine re-jiggered.
Rats. Still, if you disemvowel him, he remains the “RNC PR BS” front man. Never gonna give that up.
When Priebus arrived at RNC headquarters after defeating Steele and others for the party’s top job, he found the following financial situation: cash on hand of little more than $350,000, with payroll of $400,000 due six days later. The overall debt stood at $24 million.
By the end of March, the party had $3.2 million cash on hand and debt of $19.8 million. Although the debt is still substantial, it is only a couple of million dollars more than the Democratic National Committee is carrying. Priebus believes that to show progress, getting the debt under $20 million was critical. Now he feels he has breathing room to manage the party’s finances more intelligently.
Steele’s neglect of major donors was well known, but the problem was even more severe than advertised. According to a party source who declined to be identified in order to share internal accounting details, the RNC’s major donor program had generally brought in $40 million to $45 million during previous two-year cycles. During Steele’s tenure, the program raised just $7 million.