The rebuilding of the GOP has begun, said Reihan Salam in Forbes. The party chose Michael Steele, the African-American former lieutenant governor of Maryland, as its new chairman. Steele, as a Senate candidate, “reached out to voters who'd normally never give Republicans a hearing,” and he’s a pragmatist who’ll tell Republicans where they’ve “gone wrong.”
Steele’s selection is “historic,” said Bonnie Erbe in U.S. News & World Report. But he won’t broaden his party’s appeal the way Barack Obama did. Steele’s promise to restore small-government conservatism will please “ultra-conservative Southerners and Rocky Mountain Westerners,” but it’ll take far more to win back power in Washington.
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