RNC’s Steele: Switching Health-Care Vote is ‘Ultimate Act of Cowardice’

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports: If any Democratic senator was thinking of voting “no” on final passage of health-care reform after voting “yes” in a dead-of-night procedural vote which allowed the debate to move forward, Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, put them on notice Monday that the GOP plans to tarnish them as having stood with President Obama on the vote that mattered most. Steele made his comments on a conference call with reporters. He was joined on the call by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas.  Here is Steele’s extended riff on the topic:  “The ultimate act of cowardice to me is to sit there and say ‘I voted against this before I voted for it or I voted for it before I voted against it.’ I don’t care how you come at it. What it says to me is that there is no principle involved. Don’t stand up in the well of the United States Senate with outrageous indignation about what is in the bill or what isn’t in the bill and then vote the bill out. Don’t pretend – don’t think that we’re so deaf, dumb and stupid as American citizens to fall for that particular movie. We’ve seen it. We know how it ends. It is a lot easier when there is nothing on the line for you, Mr. Senator, you know, to sit back and cast a vote against the bill. “The principled moment was this morning at 1 am. That was the principled moment. You showed us everything you need to show us about your leadership when you showed that you did not have what it takes to say ‘no’ to Harry Reid and this boondoggle. You were more afraid of Harry Reid. You were more afraid of Barack Obama then you are the people who sent you to Washington. Well, guess what? You’re going to have a lot to explain and a lot more to fear over the next year when you get back home. “Because the reality is, Dick Armey knows this, there are a lot of people beyond his organization, and beyond the RNC, who are not very happy about what they’re seeing and the kind of leadership that they’re seeing. So don’t go pretending like you did something brave, bold, or beautiful when you vote against this bill whenever it comes up because all you need is 51 to pass it. We get the joke. That’s a little Washington insider game that makes you feel all fancy free when you go back home and you can tell your people what you did. “But we know what you did. We’ve seen it. You were exposed this morning at 1:00 am. So don’t think you’re going to get away with it. Whether you are Jim Webb, Ben Nelson, or any of you. You’re called out on it. You don’t have what it takes. You’re unprincipled. And your people know you are now.” Steele’s attack on senators who switch their votes was made even though Republicans argued during the Bush years that the Democratic-controlled Senate should allow federal judges to receive an up-or-down vote on confirmation even if they wanted to personally vote against a particular judge whom President George W. Bush was nominating for the federal bench.  Armey’s participation on the RNC’s conference call with reporters was noteworthy because FreedomWorks, the organization he now heads, has been playing a key role in organizing the TEA Party protests around the country. One of the big questions facing Republicans in 2010 will be whether they can harness the anti-Washington sentiment expressed at the TEA parties or whether those activists will remain fed up with politicians of both parties. Armey, a former Republican House leader, has been outspoken about the disappointment he felt after backing Bush, a fellow Texan, for president in 2000. Although Bush cut taxes while in office, federal spending grew markedly under his watch. Asked on today’s conference call about the relationship between the TEA Party movement and the GOP, Armey told ABC News: “First of all, I’m not audacious enough to say that I’m leading the TEA Party movement. The beautiful thing about the grassroots movement in America today … is that no one can say, ‘oh, yeah, I’m leading it.’ But as a grassroots actrivist who has had disappointments with the Republican Party in office, one of the things that I am very much aware of, given my point of view, my love of individual liberty, there is no place that I can turn in politics, except to the Republican Party who have, in the past, demonstrated – for example, during the Reagan years – that they are quite capable of serving the cause of liberty and serving it well. “So when I see the Republican Party coming back to being, the Republican Party that I have known in the past, I am pleased and am optimistic. And I have a clear sense that Chairman Steele wants to lead that party back to being the champion of individual liberty and the practitioner of responsible restraint in spending in government. It has been that in the past, and it can be that in the future. The chairman has made a very serious commitment to that purpose and I intend to be supportive of it as long as the party continues to work toward those objectives that we hold so dear.” ABC News’ Lindsey Ellerson contributed to this report.