Michael Steele’s $100k Joke

Last week I blogged about getting an "urgent!!!" email from RNC Chairman Michael Steele. He was faking all sorts of outrage that ABC News was going to cover the issue of health care reform including a town hall on the subject at the White House. Steele and the media arm of the Republican Party at Fox News kept calling it "unprecedented" coverage even though Fox specialized in much worse coverage when Bush tarnished the White House. As part of last week's fake outrage, Steele asked me to contribute money to help fund an ad on ABC to put out an attack ad on real health care reform.

Yesterday Michael Steele was kind enough to send me another email updating me on the status of this "urgent!!!" fundraiser. Based on that email I found out the "great" news that they had reached their fundraising goal of $100,000!!! Is he serious? Their goal to run an ad on a national TV network in prime time was $100,000? What markets were they planning on running this ad in exactly, Minot North Dakota? I'm starting to wonder if this was all some kind of joke. They sent out a pretty large email blast last week because it somehow included me and yet they only reached a $100,000 goal? Wow, either this really was a joke or perhaps the Republican Party has become a total joke.

Speaking of jokes…in this weeks email Steele misrepresents the President's goals for real health care reform. Stuffed with the usual hyperbole and straw man fallacies, the Steele update attacked the public OPTION piece of the President's plan. If Steele is going to continue sending out "urgent!!!" fundraising emails to a wide cross section of Americans, he may want to do a little better market tested research next time. New polls show overwhelming support for a public OPTION. Attacking such a popular feature might not be the best strategy when you are trying to raise money…unless the average American isn't really your prime constituency.