Michael Steele

Seeing Michael Steele out everywhere, vying to be the face of the Republican Party is just plain weird. Before Howard Dean, how many national chairs can people name?

The prominence of the national party chair for the party without the Presidency now looks to be a permanent feature of the American Electoral system, and is a consequence of the nationalization of the two parties. Only a system where the parties are ideologically cohesive could lead to a situation where the national chair mattered. In previous decades regional and ideological differences within the parties prevented this sort of thing from happening.

I also don't think it's an accident that Steele was an elected official before this. It seems likely that party chairs in the future will be minor celebrities who've run for office themselves, as opposed to the party functionaries who held the posts in the past.