The Rest of the Story

As the Director of Public Relations and Communications for the Iowa Family Policy Center, and IFPC Action, I was hesitant when I got the call from Liz Sidoti with the Associated Press wanting a comment from Chuck Hurley on RNC Chairman Michael Steele. Based on his past performance, and his association with groups like the pro-choice Republican “Leadership” Council, there are plenty of reasons for groups like ours to be skeptical of Steele.

Instead, in typical peacemaker fashion, Chuck extended an olive branch wrapped in a challenge for Chairman Steele in his answers to Sidoti’s questions. The AP article first ran on March 10th. Unfortunately, through the editing process, the challenge was stripped from the olive branch, and Chuck’s quote became the conclusion of an entirely positive article. It read “’there's probably a mix of hope and optimism that a fresh face and somebody of African-American descent will be a good thing,’ said Chuck Hurley, the head of the Iowa Family Policy Center and a delegate to the GOP convention last year. Still, he added: ‘It's kind of a wait-and-see attitude with most people.’”

While the text attributed to Chuck was indeed a direct quote, it was not however a complete quote. I was sitting next to Chuck during the interview and heard him say, “While there's probably a mix of hope and optimism that a fresh face and somebody of African-American descent will be a good thing, there is some lingering hesitation among Christian and social conservatives because of his past associations with pro-abortion and pro-homosexual groups. I hope that as Chairman, Mr. Steele will expend at least as much energy reaching out to those of us who are in agreement with his party’s platform as he has to those who do not. Right now, it’s kind of a wait-and-see attitude with most people.”

Now, it would seem as though Chairman Steele has wiped away any lingering optimism among Christian and social conservatives. According to a Politico blog and a GQ blog post that ran the very next day, the wait is over. By his own words, Chairman Steel is not pro-life. He also equated deviant sexual choices with immutable characteristics like race. Perhaps he ought to go out of his way to meet some of the thousands of ex-“gay” individuals who no longer engage in homosexual activities.

This morning, The Iowa Republican ran an article by Emily Geiger that aptly addressed Steel’s continued actions which are likely to collapse “the big tent.” She quickly and clerly pointed out some of the reasons Michael Steele is having trouble establishing credibity wth Christians and social conservatives.

Much like the partial quote that was creatively carved from Chuck’s comments for publication in an AP article, Michael Steele was careful to omit the portions of his personal worldview that didn’t compliment the story he was writing for members of the RNC when he ran for chair. In the famous words of Paul Harvey, “now we know the rest of the story.”