Michael Steele *and* Ten Buck Fridays

Yes, kiddies, these two things go together. Read on and I shall explain.

Michael Steele, you are surely aware, is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC). This is a political fundraising organization of some repute I’m told.

Ten Buck Fridays (TBF) is a brilliant new grassroots fundraising idea that has sprouted up in the conservative blogosphere. Maggie’s Notebook is as good a place as any to learn about it, and begin participating. TBF is an absolutely crystalline expression of the direct action politics made possible by the Internet. The basic idea is quintessentially American – nominate and vote for candidates on merit, then make direct contributions without “expert” middle-men (or is it middle-people now?).

Now, you may have heard Mr. Steele is embroiled in something of a controversy over his recent remarks that (paraphrasing) “Afghanistan is Obama’s War.” Allow me to come to Mr. Steele’s defense on this one specific point. He’s right.

1) Barack Hussein Obama the candidate explicitly stated Afghanistan was the “good” war in contrast to Iraq. You can take this on face value. I choose to interpret it was a cynical political ploy to avoid looking like just another Dem soft on defense. Let’s continue.

2) Barack Hussein Obama the President fired George Bush’s general and gave the Afghanistan campaign to his own hand-picked general. Or so we’re told. The name of the former is meaningless now. The name of the latter is the recently disgraced Stanley McChrystal.

3) When his hand-picked general asked for 80 thousand additional troops to replicate the Iraq “surge” strategy in Afghanistan, President Barack Hussein Obama dithered nigh on 3 months before exercising his constitutionally mandated responsibility to make a decision. You can accept on face value he was weighing the military and geo-political tradeoffs. I choose to interpret he was cynically weighing the domestic political tradeoffs.

4) President Barack Hussein Obama eventually gave his hand-picked general 30 thousand troops, with a ridiculous withdrawal timeline bundled in, to implement the Iraq “surge” strategy.

Yeah, as far as I’m concerned, that makes what’s happening now in Afghanistan Barack Hussein Obama’s war. With luck, Gen. David Petreaus will figure out how to bail his ass out.

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But I digress. I’m really no fan of Michael Steele. I mean, he’s a Maryland Republican for Chrissake. I just hate to hang a well-meaning guy out to dry for completely the wrong reason.

No, Michael Steele’s problem is bad timing. He took the wrong job at the wrong time. As I pointed out in my (rather lengthy in retrospect) April 6 post – “We don’t need no stinkin’ RNC.” The fact is, centralized collection points to aggregate political donations are just so – well - industrial age.

Which brings me to my now favorite Facebook page - Ten Buck Fridays. This program represents the vanguard of political contribution models for the information age. And I intend to participate enthusiastically. Over the years I’ve given thousands of bucks, in meager increments, to an alphabet soup of GOP organizations; RNC, NRCC, NRSC, god knows what else. This year is different.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no intention of getting on Facebook. At least not until it ceases to be common knowledge their security architecture sucks. Plus it’s not in my nature to share every lurid detail of my daily life with the entire effin’ planet.

But I will trust the judgment of my fellow patriots across the nation and give my meager contributions directly to the principled conservative candidates they identify for me under the Ten Buck Fridays program. And Sharron Angle because defeating Dingy Harry Reid is symbolically important. And Keith Fimian because defeating Gerry Connolly is personal. These contributions will be under my real name, using my real credit card, with the notation “Ten Buck Fridays.” I leave it to future researchers, or current David Plouffe trolls, to connect the dots.