Leadership struggle between Steele and Rush

Fascinating:

DL Hughley: You know what we do, we talk like we're talking now. You have your view. I have mine. We don't need incendiary rhetoric. Like rush limbaugh, who is the de facto leader of the republican party.

Michael Steele: No, he's not.

Hughley: I will tell you what --

Steele: I'm the de facto leader of the republican party.

Hughley: I can appreciate that. But no one will actually decry down some of the things he says. Like when he comes out and says he wants the president to fail. I understand he wants liberalism to fail. I get it's not about the man. But it is still about the idea that he would rather have an idea fail so his idea will move to the forefront. And that to me is destructive.

Steele: How is that any different than what was said about George Bush during his presidency?

Hughley: You're absolutely -- let me say something. You're absolutely right.

Steele: Let's put it into context here. Rush limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush limbaugh, his whole thing is entertainment. Yes he is incendiary. Yes, it's ugly.

Hughley: He influences the party. I will tell you what, you're the first republican I have talked to, and I have talked to a lot, to say he's not the leader of his party.

When you have to proclaim that "I'm the leader of the Republican Party", then you are not. Clip around the wingnutosphere, and Rush Limbaugh's speech at CPAC is being treated with starbursts. Hugh Hewitt, for example, waxed poetic about "The Speech" which would be "talked about for years and even decades". And there's a reason they're so excited at the speech -- Rush makes conservatives feel good about themselves. He tells them that they don't need to change anything they've done in the past. From his speech:

One thing we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat them is with better policy ideas [...]

To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with us after we have politically cleaned their clocks and beaten them.

Problem is, there isn't a lot of GOP clock cleaning these days. In fact, it's sort of been the opposite. And it's clear that the American people have long since given up on Republicans. You don't get numbers like these without REALLY screwing things up. And in return, we have a GOP that is deifying Rush Limbaugh, sainting "Joe the Plumber", lusting after Sarah Palin, and cheering their "unity" at opposing the very popular president's very popular agenda.

Meanwhile, the GOP's supposed leader, Steele, alternates between ridiculous hip hop fantasies and actual nuggets of wisdom (such as pointing out that "unity" isn't the GOP's salvation, it's actually its biggest problem) -- yet it's all irrelevant because no one cares what he thinks or says.

Well, they didn't until Steele called out Rush for what he is -- "incendiary" and "ugly". Now, the backlash has begun, and Steele doesn't stand a chance in hell of surviving that battle with any shred of credibility intact. Not only has he lost the GOP's base, but he never had the establishment with him for support. He's gone out on a limb, and there's no one around willing to give him a hand.

The ball is now in Rush's court, and he's not the type to let things slide.

Limbaugh, asked to respond, said he’d save his counter-attack for his listeners.

"I’ll handle it on the radio," he wrote in an e-mail.

This struggle for the hearts and minds of the GOP is too one-sided to hold any drama, but the fireworks will still be fun regardless.