Ben Smith slimes the Republican Party...

Ben Smith takes a cheap shot at the Republican Party...and not a very accurate cheap shot since David Duke started life as a Democrat in 1975 and ran for President in 1988 also as a Democrat. After losing then switched to the Republican Party so Ben Smith's article could easily have read "Steele's appeal (but not to the Democrat Party)"

;Ben Smith's Blog: Steele's appeal (but not to David Duke) - Politico.com

Steele's appeal (but not to David Duke)

Nate Silver looks back at the results of Michael Steele's losing 2006 Senate race, and suggests he was a strong candidate because he did better than you might expect for a Maryland Republican, breaking 44 percent of the vote in a terrible GOP year.

There's certainly something to that: Steele ran as an independent outsider with a memorable ad campaign. But he also benefitted from an old dynamic familiar to anyone who follows urban politics, in which a racially divisive Democratic primary gave the Republicans a shot with the losing side, in this case Maryland's large black minority, a dynamic in which Steele's race was a big help. There's no parallel for that in national politics.

One immediate consequence of Steele's ascent, though: Real hysteria on the racist fringe of the Republican Party, where David Duke (still around!) branded Steele a "black racist" and his fellow Republicans "traitors."

There is a serious question of whether this could push real committed racists, a small, but real and voting, minority, away from the GOP. Hard to see them returning to what's now the party of Barack Obama.