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Meet Reince Priebus, the RNC’s New Chairman

By Alex Altman | @aaltman82 | January 14, 2011 | +

The Republican National Committee has decided to turn the page on Michael Steele’s tumultuous chairmanship by installing Steele’s former right-hand man.

After seven rounds of balloting, Reince Priebus, chair of the Wisconsin GOP and the committee’s former general counsel, notched 97 votes of 168 votes, eclipsing the 85 needed to win by a sizable margin. He bested Michigan committeeman Saul Anuzis and Maria Cino, an operative and lobbyist whose influential backers included House Speaker John Boehner and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Priebus, 38, led wire-to-wire, but surged in the final rounds of balloting after Steele dropped his bid.

In a crowded field, Priebus was considered the front-runner for the post, and he boasted considerable support from GOP money men and strategists. That’s striking. One of the primary criteria for the new RNC chair–at least judging by the candidates’ promises to impose discipline and fiscal restraint onto an organization that seemed chaotic, profligate and unruly under Steele’s stewardship–was to pick the person whose leadership would be least like Steele’s.  And Priebus was the outgoing chairman’s former campaign manager and transition head.

He cast his candidacy as a way to restore the organization to sturdy footing. “I will run a tight ship at the RNC,” he wrote in a letter to committee members in December. “I will keep expenses low. I will put in strong and serious controls. We will raise the necessary funds to make sure we are successful. We will work to regain the confidence of our donor base and I will personally call our major donors to ask them to rejoin our efforts at the RNC.”

Those promises will be tested early. Among Priebus’ first tasks will be erasing its $20 million debt; after that, he’ll have to return the committee to its place as the nerve center of the Republican fund-raising apparatus in an era when big-donors frustrated have an increasing number of vehicles through which to funnel their largesse. “I don’t believe we can win the presidency without a highly functional RNC, and unfortunately we don’t have that today,” Priebus said in December.

A lawyer and Kenosha native who works in Milwaukee, Priebus touted his work in the blue-leaning Badger State, where Republicans won hard-fought Senate and governor’s races in November. He has earned raves from supporters for his organization and work habits, attributes he’ll need to cushion inevitable collisions between the GOP’s Tea Party, establishment and social conservative wings over the coming months. “He’s not a type A. He’s not a double-A or even triple-A. He’s a quadruple-A,” RNC Committeeman Steve King told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in 2009. “Reince also has that youthful optimistic outlook on things. He inoculates everybody with it.”

That may have helped him survive the RNC’s cutthroat electoral process, in which 168 committee members tap a putative head of the party through multiple rounds of secret balloting and innumerable private huddles during a winter summit in Maryland. But despite the RNC’s charged internal politics–Priebus once likened the vote-whipping process to “hand to hand combat”–the RNC is an organization that deals primary with fund-raising, not crafting policy. Its head is more a central banker than a message maven. If Priebus can re-tune the RNC into a smoothly functioning instrument, Priebus will likely be judged a success, or least an improvement. And as many party loyalists would likely concede, his predecessor hasn’t set a particularly high bar.

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  • apr2563

    Reince Priebus. Is that a new foreign made electric car? How much mileage does he get?

  • http://tisias.wordpress.com tisias

    Two comments:
    1) There is always post appointment optimism with the winning candidate. His success is somewhat contingent on how well the Republicans do in the house, public opinionwise of course. And many people were excited about Michael Steele, just because this new guy doesn’t have gross misconceptions about hip-hop and politics and a big credit card doesn’t guarentee a good result.

    2) The Republicans are in control of most state legislatures right now; my question is, 20 million in debt, how are they supposed to do the gerrymandering that both parties do approaching the redistricting year?

  • bobog33

    Doctor to the GOP: “I’m sorry to inform you, you have a bad case of Reince Priebus.”

  • gysgt213

    “The Republicans are in control of most state legislatures right now; my question is, 20 million in debt, how are they supposed to do the gerrymandering that both parties do approaching the redistricting year?
    .
    Cut fireman, police, outsource all remaining government services to India, sell all government buildings, streets, highways and parks to hedge funds and kick everyone off of medicaid.

  • Cliff

    That may have helped him survive the RNC’s cutthroat electoral process
    .
    So here’s my question: How did Steele survive this cutthroat electoral process?
    .
    Because the man plainly cannot manage an orange stand on the side of the road without it bursting into flames.

  • artraveler

    I can’t wait until corporate boards decide to outsource management of the largest corporations to India and replace those $100 million+ CEOs with $85,000 Indian PhDs. That would seem to be the respionsible thing to do and I would expect that the GOP would lead the way.

  • Alex Vallas

    “He bested Michigan committeeman Saul Anuzis and Maria Cino, an operative and lobbyist whose influential backers included House Speaker John Boehner and former Vice President Dick Cheney. ”
    ========================================
    That sentence is very poorly written. It reads as if Saul Anuzis was “an operative and lobbyist” and leaves Maria Cino out. It is also confusing. Were John Boehner and former VP Dick Cheney backing Saul?
    If, after reading the paragraph many times, I assume Boehner and Cheney backed Priebus. That is really scary. Boehner is the lobbyists’ best friend in Congress. Cheney should retire and stay out of politics. What he did to this country borders on criminal.

  • http://shortplaysaboutrealpeople.wordpress.com Michael Maiello

    Reince Priebus?

    Did Boba Fett even run?

  • newfreedomblog

    Let’s hope that Priebus stays away from slogans, and catchy political slogans. At least until this settles down for the Democrats.
    .
    Yes We Can
    .
    Together We Thrive
    .
    http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/johnberry_iv/C94H
    .
    The “Together We Thrive” theme was not something newly minted on fresh T-shirts on Wednesday night. No, it is a slogan brought out of the Obama campaign, Organizing for America.
    .
    In February, 2008, a blog posting announcing the “Together We Thrive” theme hit the blogosphere. Coincidence? Doesn’t seem so. Seems more like the catchy slogan just didn’t make the final cut.
    .
    But, not all slogans die. Some are re-tooled, some are dug up from the “grave” of sorts to be used in a campaign-like rally / Memorial.
    .
    Rush Limbaugh makes the case.
    .
    http://conservidive.magnify.net/video/RUSH-Obama-Delayed-Memorial-Wai

  • garylk

    Never happen. Too much anti-alien sentiment in the party. I think Salvor Hardin would have been the best fictional character to elect.

  • garylk

    Together We Thrive.
    To me, it’s just another way of saying “United we stand, divided we fall”.

  • mjwilstein

    Here’s hoping this is the last we hear from Michael Steele:
    http://gtcha.me/gVBhoM

  • GivenUp

    I don’t know, I feel we’re gonna miss the predictable and continuous source of amusement he presented.

  • http://grapemusing.blogspot.com/ grape_crush

    Found on my Twitter feed:

    “Take out the vowels in Reince Priebus’ name and you get ‘RNC PR BS.’”

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