Whether anyone likes it or not, current Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele is running for a second term. Steele, who earlier this week declared “my style is more grass-roots oriented, I’m much more of a street guy,” prompted Jon Stewart to take Steele to the only street where Stewart thinks Steele belongs: Sesame Street. What follows is a hilarious interview with Steele’s puppet explaining why he’s running for the position again, mainly because “that’s how we do it on the street, lunch meat, when a fight comes up, we bibble down!”

Politico is reporting that Michael Steele will be making a major announcement on Monday morning about whether or not he will run for re-election as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The national Tea Party Nation group is planning to send a letter to Sarah Palin asking the former governor of Alaska and John McCain sidekick to run for chair of the Republican National Committee.

Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips says in his letter to Palin that without her at the helm of the RNC, the party will fall back into “establishment” hands.

The Washington Post‘s Chris Cillizza is reporting that a memo sent to vendors on Tuesday says the Republican National Committee “is facing a ‘cashflow challenge’ and that many of those who provided political services to it during the 2010 election would not be paid this week as originally planned.”

RNC Chief Administrative Officer Boyd Rutherford is quoted as telling Derek Flowers, a member of the RNC’s political team by email “We will not be able to pay off the vendors this week.”

RNC Chairman Michael Steele‘s tenure has been one of the more controversial in recent memory, and a new AP report shows many RNC insiders are hoping his embattled reign is nearing its end. Interviewing 51 committee members, the AP found 39 were hoping Steele would not run for reelection in January, and even some of his closest allies feel this is the sunset of his time at the head of the Republican Party.

After tonight, a few politicians will have new jobs, while others will find themselves unemployed. But what about Michael Steele, whose position as RNC Chairman isn’t technically up for grabs this evening? That’s the question Neil Cavuto asked Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour today. Instead of giving a straight answer, Barbour instead told a story, one that highlighted the financial hardships his Party has endured under Steele. Cavuto’s highly analytic mind was able to read between the lines: “It seems to be your way of saying, ‘Maybe not Michael Steele.’ “

Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin has influence. If you doubt this, look no further than former Bush adviser Ed Gillespie‘s appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation today. In responding to charges that he’s helping to “steal our democracy,” Gillespie resurrected the former Alaska governor’s most infamous malapropism, stating that several newspapers had “refudiated” the claim. Was it a mistake, or the start of a campaign to vindicate Palin by rewriting linguistic history? You be the judge. (h/t Think Progress)

The DNC has released a new attack ad that one might describe as being almost Rovian. The ad accuses Karl Rove and former RNC head Ed Gillespie (Rachel Maddow thinks he’s still running the RNC) of “stealing our democracy.”

Lawrence O’Donnell impressed to me last week how TV hosting was never part of his plan – he “parachuted” in, and “quite accidentally ended up on this side of the TV business.”

Maybe that’s what makes him the perfect person for the job, evidenced by his fantastic, emotional apology to Michael Steele last night.

It seems that the relationship between the Republican Party and the Tea Party becomes more elusive every day. Some conservatives like Karl Rove and Ross Douthat seem to have trouble fitting the populist wing underneath their Big Tent. However, RNC Chairman Michael Steele sought to settle the score at a Las Vegas rally, saying that the GOP and the Tea Party are “locked hand in hand.”

It’s been a rough year for Michael Steele. In the past few months alone, the RNC chairman has taken on quite a bit of heat over everything from sojourns to bondage clubs to blaming President Obama for a war that started just about seven years before he entered office. Still though, little of this criticism has been as harsh and, more importantly, dismissive as the tongue lashing he received from chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ed Rollins on Face the Nation this weekend. Something tells me that Steele would rather have a dozen clips of Jon Stewart’s wacky puppet than one more of these.

Who needs SNL. The RNC, always a reliable source of distracting content online, has just posted this little gem inspired by the world’s favorite job-quitter Steven Slater.

This particular ad depicts the rush of Democrats up for election this November off Air Force One to get away from the poll sinker that is President Obama. You guessed it, they use an inflatable slide.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele started July dealing with a video of him knocking the merits of the War in Afghanistan, and since then he’s laid low (even an August fundraiser has been moved to September).

But why was he trying to set up meetings with foreign diplomats?

Deep in the heart of the Shirley Sherrod scandal, the RNC made the eyecatching announcement last week that it would host a fundraiser in Beverly Hills headlined by Andrew Breitbart and Chairman Michael Steele. Today, donors received a letter announcing that the event, sceduled for August 12-14, would be rescheduled for September.

One of the staples of the Michael Steele RNC era is his insistence on innovative, light-hearted attack websites against the Obama administration, most of which have resulted in widespread laughter for all the wrong reasons. So while it’s no surprise that Steele has announced yet another attack website on the blog formerly known as “What Up?,” what is a surprise is that, this time, hilarious for precisely the reasons Steele and co want it to be.

In article published this morning, ABC reports on the severance package paid to former RNC Chief of Staff Kenneth K. McKay IV, the top staffer who was let go in the wake of the bondage-themed nightclub scandal from a few months ago. McKay has signed an extensive confidentiality agreement and been paid more than $100,000 of what ABC sources inside the party call “hush money.”

Republicans in the House deserve a lot of credit for trying something new. In a further bid to be seen as the party of the people, they announced yesterday that they had created a website called America’s Speaking Out where users can give their opinions on issues that they think Republicans should tackle in their quest to regain control this November. Unfortunately, while the idea is clever and well-intentioned, it’s also a little bit naive. As anyone who has ever been in a message board ever will tell you, the internet is full of crazy people.

Chris Matthews is in awe of how much influence Rush Limbaugh has on the Republican Party. From Michael Steele to John Boehner, Matthews has been searching far and wide for a Republican who will disagree with the talk radio titan on anything from Barack Obama‘s monarchist tendencies to the claim that Times Square bomber Faisel Shahzad is a registered Democrat. He found one in former New York government George Pataki, but flanked by Media Matters President Eric Burns and David Corn of Mother Jones, he’s launching a campaign to drag them all out of the woodwork.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele visited Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC earlier today, a month removed from the Voyeur club scandal and four months removed from the RNC’s Hawaii planning meeting. Condemning the RNC for “having luaus” while “we were digging our way out of the snow banks” and getting mostly laughter as a response, Mitchell brought up Voyeur, to which Steele responded: “You mean to tell me not one employee of your organization has done something that the management has not been proud of?” Too soon?

Florida Governor Charlie Crist is officially running for Senate as an independent. The now former Republican primary candidate announced his decision this afternoon after keeping his state and his party waiting on his decision for most of the week. Today would be the last day for him to switch party identification on the ballot.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele made an admission, this week, that was both stunning and obvious. Speaking to a group of DePaul University students, Steele was asked why a black person should vote for a Republican. In responding, Steele put on the record the political equivalent of a Republican reverse-Sasquatch, something everyone knows is real, but pretends is a myth: The Southern strategy.

With every new RNC ad released, it becomes clearer that Michael Steele’s forte as chairman is finding uniquely talented propagandists and putting together some of the most impressive attack ads in the party’s history. The RNC’s new ad, “The Tax Man Cometh,” does not disappoint.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele gave his highly-anticipated Southern Republican Leadership Conference speech today. He delivered on an expected and much sought-after apology, but for most of his statement he chose to stick to a message of hard work, success, and a shared definition of prosperity slowly dwindling in a time of nearly-complete Democratic government.

Everyone from fellow Republicans to porn stars are weighing in on RNC Chairman Michael Steele this week.

In the wake of Steele’s comments about having a “slimmer margin” of error because he’s African American, a former RNC Chairman defended Steele by calling himself a “fat redneck.”

The ever-expanding chorus of public figures calling for RNC chair Michael Steele‘s resignation since last week’s sexy nightclub scandal now includes CNN analyst and loyal Republican advisor Alex Castellanos. Castellanos, who did not define his relationship with the RNC beyond “I try to help whenever I can,” refused to openly demand a resignation, but made it clear that if Steele’s trangressions meant income loss for the party, the chairman had to go.