Steele To Launch 48-State Bus Tour

RNC chairman Michael Steele will embark on a massive bus tour later this month aimed at campaigning for dozens of GOP candidates across the country -- while simultaneously getting some face-time with members of the RNC who will hold Steele's fate in their hands come Jan.

Steele will depart Sept. 15 and maintain a grueling schedule, according to one of many draft itineraries obtained by The Hotline. That version of the following 6 weeks showed events in 116 cities across the lower 48 states. Steele has at least one event in every state, hitting at least 2 and as many as 4 cities in a day.

Steele first unveiled the bus at the party's semi-annual meeting in Kansas City, where GOP staffers paraded out a red cardboard cutout and distributed hats reading, "Fire Pelosi." The bus will kick off in 2 weeks with a rally in DC; Steele is scheduled to be on the road non-stop, without a day off, until an Oct. 30 rally in Baltimore, MD.

"It's an exciting thing to do. This harkens back to when I ran for the United States Senate. We got on a bus and we covered all of Maryland," Steele said, recalling his '06 campaign. "I'm a grassroots guy. I really believe that for our party to regain the people's trust and support, we must take the party to them."

His route, according to the early draft, will take him south through VA, NC, SC, GA and FL, then west through the South, TX and the Midwest. He will cross into the Mountain West and the Southwest before making 10 stops in CA. Steele's route then takes him north to WA, east across the Plains and the Rust Belt before making a swing through the Northeast, then traveling south to his home state.

Steele will use the tour to highlight vulnerable Dem members of Congress, stopping in Victory centers across the country to attract volunteers the party needs to win elections. The RNC counts some 306 Victory centers across the country, Steele said, many housed in county and local party headquarters. Those centers have already made nearly 8M voter contacts this year (State parties in OH and IL have touched more than 1M voters each, according to data the RNC keeps).

Critics are worried that Steele's bus tour is taking needed money away from TV ads the committee could be running, and from GOTV operations that will get voters to the polls. But Steele points out that the bus tour amounts to less than half his travel budget, and that the tour will encourage GOTV operations, rather than dissuade them.

"We don't do ads. There are other entities in town that do that. ... We are the Marines. We put the boots on the ground, and this is part of that," Steele told The Hotline on Wednesday. He said the tour is "exactly what I did in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Virginia and Hawaii," 4 states where the GOP has won major elections since Steele was chairman.

"Now they'll see [that] strategy in the other 46 states," he added. "We actually have been working here, and it's not all dog and pony show and getting on television and being a talking head."

But critics who worry about the GOP's financial situation -- the RNC began Aug. with just $5.29M in the bank and $2.2M in debt -- say Steele should be dialing for dollars or attending fundraisers rather than touring the country rallying the base.

"The chairman should be 100% focused on raising money, organizing and implementing 50 state victory plans for November," said Mike Dennehy, a former top advisor to Sen. John McCain and a former member of the RNC. "The best thing he can do is raise money and get it to the Republican candidates for their campaigns, period. That is how will rebuild his image."

But, according to Steele and RNC officials, the trip will include fundraising stops along the way, as well as online efforts to drum up financial support.

"In anticipation of the cynics out there, there's a huge fundraising component to this trip that will help sponsor the bus, that will help pay for gas," Steele said, adding that he'll be attending fundraisers for local and state parties and candidates along the way.

Some party consultants are skeptical that Steele will be welcomed by GOP candidates. But Steele is committed to campaigning with everyone who would like to stand beside him, he said.

"I'm going to be campaigning with anyone who's running as a Republican for office," Steele said.

The traveling could also help Steele himself, supporters and critics alike noted. If Steele does seek a second term as party chairman, he will need a majority of the 168 committee members to vote him in. A chairman has some levers of institutional influence to use, including money sent to the states and visits he makes personally, either to help his party's candidates or to raise money.

Dennehy called the trip a "premature re-election tour." Other critics have grumbled that Steele has spent time in recent weeks in U.S. territories like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Over the weekend, Steele will travel to 2 more territories -- Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands -- for fundraisers and appearances.

None of those 4 territories send voting members to Congress, but Steele won votes from each area's RNC delegation in '09, and their support is crucial to his re-election chances after these midterms.

Steele said he would be spending plenty of time with many of the 168 RNC members during the bus tour. While he hasn't answered questions about his future plans, Steele's move to visit them in their home states suspiciously mirrors the cross-country travel he and his rivals did while running for chairman just after the '08 elections.

"That's what this bus tour is about, actually going out and spending time with the members in their backyards," Steele said.