by Lee Stranahan
Here's what is obvious - the Republicans have had their hand forced by outside circumstances and Steele is one result of that. The vote was an acknowledgment of what everyone knows; the GOP isn't going win elections or be a national party doing the things that they have been doing.
The Republican party - like America - isn't static. They were the party of Lincoln then Teddy Roosevelt then Eisenhower and Nixon and Reagan and now Bush. That's a wide swath of popularity and some major divergences in ideology, too.
Acting as though they are now and forever the party of Bush alone is a form of denial. It won't help win elections in the future. This is why the how and what of Republican change are worth watching and evaluating honestly and with as little bias as one can muster.
There's a difference between a cynical move and a practical move. There may be some Republicans who want to keep the party the same one Rove / Bush / Cheney led. They are fools and they lost yesterday. They were defeated by a group who realize that the GOP needs to reinvent itself. Nobody knows what form it will take yet but we'd be fools to allow ourselves to just pretend it's not happening.