Ken Mehlman has stepped down as RNC chairman

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, addresses the RNC state chairmen's meeting in Colorado Springs, Colo., in this May file photo. Mehlman will step down from his post when his two-year term ends in January, GOP officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman is stepping down from his post. This is on CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman announced he is going to step down at the end of the year.

The White House is already searching for a replacement or replacements to lead the party into the 2008 presidential campaign cycle, sources tell CNN.

Two sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mehlman has made clear to close associates for some time he was likely to leave after the 2006 elections -- and that there is no dissatisfaction with his performance in the midterm cycle.

One name that has come up as a possible replacement is outgoing Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who just lost a U.S. Senate race.

One of the sources, though, said a more likely scenario is for Steele to join the Bush administration in another capacity after the first of the year when a few members of the Bush Cabinet and other senior officials are expected to leave.

One scenario under discussion, should Mehlman leave, according to two of the sources, is to split the RNC leadership duties, a model both parties have used at times in the past.

Under this approach, a party operative would be brought in to run day-to-day affairs, and a prominent Republican, most likely a former officeholder, would be named general chairman.

The name most talked about to run the day-to-day operation in such an approach is Maria Cino, a veteran Republican strategist who currently serves as deputy transportation secretary.

Here's another casualty in the aftermath of the Republican Party's disastrous loss to the Democrats in the midterm elections. Ken Mehlman was a protege of Karl Rove. He believed, along with Rove, that the Republicans could create that permanent Republican majority in both Congress and the White House. He believed in the campaign of divisive, partisan politics. And what is even more amazing is how Mehlman believed that he could continue this campaign of divisive politics even when the country was starting to sour on the Bush administration. Remember this a May 22, 2006 article in the Washington Post:

A top adviser said Rove and White House political director Sara M. Taylor are advising candidates not to duck the issue of Iraq but rather to make it a centerpiece of their campaigns.

The Rove-Taylor view is that one-third of Americans agree with liberal Democrats calling for immediate withdrawal and another third support staying the course. The middle third wants a new strategy, but would be leery of pulling out and leaving behind a volatile Iraq, a position strategists believe leaves those voters open to persuasion.

"Look, we're in a sour time -- I readily admit it," Rove said in a speech last week. "I mean, being in the middle of a war where people turn on their television sets and see brave men and women dying is not something that makes people happy and optimistic and upbeat." But, he added, "Ultimately, the American people are a center-right country who, presented with a center-right party with center-right candidates, will vote center-right."

Perhaps the most important element of the emerging strategy will be to "move from a referendum to a choice," as Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman put it. Instead of a verdict on Bush, Republicans want to frame the election as a contest with Democrats, confident that voters unhappy with the president will find the opposition even more distasteful.

"We're moving from a period where the public looks at things and says thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to a time when they have a choice between one side or the other," Mehlman said.

Thumbs in the middle--just make sure that the middle thumb is pointing rightwards.

Mehlman was also involved in the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election phone jamming scandal, where it was revealed in the criminal trial of Northeast field director for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee James Tobin had placed 115 outgoing calls to the White House political affairs office between September 17 and November 22, 2002. The White House political affairs office was headed by Ken Mehlman. The White House refuses to divulge which staffer was assigned the number that Tobin called. The Republican National Committee was also involved in paying for the legal defenses of both James Tobin, hiring the Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly for $2.5 million. This entire phone jamming scandal was enacted to shut down the Democratic phone banks that were being used in a GOTV program to help elect then-Democratic-governor Jeanne Shaheen to the U.S. Senate over Republican John Sununu. Sununu defeated Shaheen in a narrow victory. While Mehlman has not been directly implicated in this scandal, his ties to the scandal raise suspicion.

Mehlman is another tie to the GOP's "culture of corruption." Mehlman and Karl Rove represent the rot of the Republican Party under George Bush--the bitter partisanship, the divisive country, the pandering to the extreme base, no compromise, demonizing opponents, and even using criminality to gain and control absolute power and money.

Good riddance!