RNC chairman hints he’ll quit if party purse strings taken out of his hands

RNC Chairman Michael Steele, at the state GOP convention in Savannah/Associated Press

The 168-member Republican National Committee will decide today whether to impose fiscal controls on chairman Michael Steele, who hinted to Fox News that he’ll step aside if stripped of monetary authority:

“They can contemplate all they want to, but the reality is if they want a figurehead chairman you can have a figurehead chairman, but it won’t be Michael Steele,” he said.

Steele aides insist the chairman was not threatening to quit, but merely to fight over retaining his authority. But his comments reflect the persistent tension within the Republican National Committee over his chairmanship….

For now, members are expected to re-establish standards that had already been in place before they lapsed last year. Among them is a requirement that Steele have a co-signer for all expenditures above $100,000 and that a comptroller-treasurer administer funding.

Georgia members of the RNC are knee-deep in the debate, and, yes, there are persistent musings that race is a factor. Steele is the first African-American chairman of the GOP’s ruling body.

Here’s the backgrounder from Monday. Steele was the featured speaker at the state GOP convention in Savannah over the weekend.

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