Michael Steele
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For other people named Michael Steele, see Michael Steele (disambiguation).
| Michael Steele | |
 | |
| | |
|---|---|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Mike Duncan |
| | |
| In office January 15, 2003 – January 17, 2007 | |
| Governor | Robert Ehrlich |
| Preceded by | Kathleen Kennedy Townsend |
| Succeeded by | Anthony G. Brown |
| | |
| Born | October 19, 1958 Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland |
| Birth name | Michael Stephen Steele (after adoption) |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Andrea Derritt Steele (m. 1985) |
| Children | Two |
| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins University (B.A.) Villanova University Georgetown University Law Center (J.D.) |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Roman Catholic[1] |
| Signature |  |
| Website | Michael Steele's blog |
In 2006, Steele made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate, losing to Democrat Ben Cardin. He then served as chairman of GOPAC, the political training organization of the Republican party, was a political commentator for Fox News and a partner at the law firm of Dewey & LeBoeuf before making his bid for RNC Chairman. He co-founded the Republican Leadership Council, a "fiscally conservative and socially inclusive" political action committee, in 1993.[4]
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[edit] Early life
Steele was born on October 15, 1958 at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George's County, Maryland[5][6] and was adopted as an infant[7] by William and Maebell Steele. William died in 1962.[8][9] Maebell, who had been born into a sharecropping family in South Carolina,[10] worked for minimum wage as a laundress to raise her children. After Michael's father died, she ignored her friends' appeals to apply for public assistance, later telling Michael 'I didn't want the government raising my children'.[10] She later married John Turner, a truck driver. Michael and his sister, Monica Turner, were raised in the Petworth neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C. which Steele has described as a small, stable and racially integrated community that insulated him from some of the problems elsewhere in the city.[10] Steele's sister later married and divorced former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson.[11]Steele attended Archbishop Carroll Roman Catholic High School in Washington, D.C., participating in the Glee Club, the National Honor Society and many of the school's drama productions. During his senior year, he was elected student council president.[12]
After graduating, Steele spent three years preparing for the Catholic priesthood at the Augustinian Friars Seminary at Villanova University,[13] teaching high school classes in world history and economics for one year at Malvern Preparatory School in Malvern, Pennsylvania.[14] He left the seminary prior to ordination.[15]
He then enrolled at the Georgetown University Law Center, attending classes at night and receiving his Juris Doctor in 1991. He failed the Maryland bar exam, but then passed the Pennsylvania bar exam.[16]
Steele was employed as a corporate securities associate at the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. From 1991 to 1997, he specialized in financial investments for Wall Street underwriters, working at Cleary's Tokyo, Japan office on major product liability litigation and at its London office on corporate matters. He left the law firm and founded the Steele Group, a business and legal consulting firm.[6]
[edit] Political development
In December 2000, he was elected chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, becoming the first African American ever to be elected chairman of any state Republican Party.[6]
[edit] Lieutenant Governor of Maryland
Steele resigned his chairmanship of the Maryland Republican Party to campaign full-time. The Baltimore Sun praised Townsend's running mate, Larson, for his experience and expertise, stating that: "state GOP chairman Michael S. Steele, brings little to the team but the color of his skin."[18]
In the September primary election, Ehrlich and Steele had no serious opposition. In the November 2002 general election, the Republican Ehrlich-Steele ticket won, 51 percent to 48 percent even though Maryland traditionally votes Democratic and had not elected a Republican Governor in almost 40 years. The Townsend-Larson campaign had been tainted by outgoing Democratic governor Parris Glendening's marital problems and backlash due to his strict enforcement of environmental regulations. During the election, Townsend was also criticized for her choice of running mate; she picked retired Admiral Charles R. Larson, a novice politician who had switched parties only a few weeks before.[citation needed]
Steele's most prominent efforts for the Ehrlich administration were reforming the state's Minority Business Enterprise program and chairing the Governor's Commission on Quality Education in Maryland. Steele garnered criticism for his failure to oppose Ehrlich's reinstitution of the death penalty, despite claims of racial inequities in the use of the death penalty, Steele's own religious beliefs and his prior anti-death penalty pronouncements.[19]
In 2005, Steele was named an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership and was awarded the Bethune-DuBois Institute Award for his continuing efforts to improve the quality education in Maryland.[20]
At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Steele gave the Republican counterpoint to Barack Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address; it was Steele's first major national exposure. In April 2005, President Bush chose him to be a member of the U.S. delegation at the investiture of Pope Benedict XVI in Vatican City.[21]
[edit] Oreo cookie incident
After a September 26, 2002 gubernatorial debate that had included the candidates for lieutenant governor, Paul Schurick, Ehrlich's communications manager, claimed that the Kathleen Kennedy Townsend campaign had handed out Oreo cookies to the audience.[22] Five days later, Steele said that one or more Oreo cookies had rolled to his feet during the debate suggesting a racist statement against him, that of being black on the outside and white on the inside like an Oreo. "Maybe it was just someone having their snack, but it was there," Steele said. "If it happened, shame on them if they are that immature and that threatened by me." More than three years after the debate, when Steele was running for the U.S. Senate, Schurick claimed "It was raining Oreos... They were thick in the air like locusts. I was there. It was very real. It wasn't subtle."[23] In a November 2005 Hannity and Colmes appearance, Steele agreed with Hannity that cookies were thrown at him during the September 2002 debate.[24] Neil Duke of the Baltimore NAACP, who moderated the debate, praised the "passionate audience" and noted that "derisive behavior" had occurred.[22] but did not see Oreo-throwing. "Were there some goofballs sitting in [the] right-hand corner section tossing cookies amongst themselves and acting like sophomores, as the legend has it?" Duke said. "I have no reason to doubt those sources; I just didn't see it."[23][25][26] The operations manager of the building where the debate was held, interviewed three years after the event by The Baltimore Sun, disputed Steele's claim and said "I was in on the cleanup, and we found no cookies or anything else abnormal. There were no Oreo cookies thrown."[23] Some eyewitnesses, including AP reporter Tom Stuckey[27] and Project 21 representative Kevin Martin,[28] have said cookies were handed out and thrown. Other eyewitnesses, however, did not corroborate that claim.[29][30][edit] 2006 campaign for U.S. Senate
Main article: United States Senate election in Maryland, 2006
When Paul Sarbanes, Maryland's longest-serving United States Senator, announced in March 2005 that he would not be a candidate for re-election in 2006, top state and national Republican officials began pressing Steele to become their party's nominee for the seat.[19] In April 2005, The Baltimore Sun announced the results of a poll it conducted, stating that Steele would run statistically neck and neck against either former NAACP head Kweisi Mfume, or Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin of Baltimore County.[31] Steele formally announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate on October 25, 2005.[32]Steele lost the general election to Cardin on November 7, 2006,[33] 44 percent to Cardin's 55 percent. Steele's former campaign finance chairman later alleged improprieties in Steele's handling of campaign funds, which Steele denied.[34]
