An RNC spokesman declined to comment on why Michael Steele would want to set up individual meetings with foreign diplomats. Steele courts diplomats, puzzles GOP

The Republican National Committee is trying to set up meetings between Chairman Michael Steele and foreign ambassadors to the United States, according to an e-mail obtained by POLITICO — an effort that has puzzled diplomats as well as fellow Republicans.

An RNC intern sent a message late last month to at least one ambassador on behalf of Neil Alpert, a senior finance aide, with little explanation.


“As you know, the November election is just 103 days away and the chairman would like to extend to you an invitation to sit down either at the RNC or at your embassy to discuss the upcoming 2010 midterm elections,” wrote Christopher Kelleher, a finance department intern. “With literally hundreds of congressional seats up for grabs in just under four months, Chairman Steel [sic] would love to have the opportunity to discuss the party's outlook with you.”

RNC spokesman Doug Heye declined to comment on why Steele would want to set up individual meetings with the foreign diplomats, whether he’s had any meetings with them, and if he would continue to pursue such get-togethers.

“In his role as RNC chairman, he meets with leaders in Washington and throughout the country,” Heye said.

But one European embassy official told POLITICO his embassy had received the generic-sounding message in a general inquiry in-box and indicated that he didn’t know what to make of the note.

The staffs of high-level American political figures typically go directly to an embassy’s political officer to set up meetings with an ambassador.

Steele’s outreach to foreign representatives heading into the final stretch of the midterm election cycle is exasperating senior Republicans, already fed up with the controversial chairman’s knack for bad publicity.

“They can’t give any money and they can’t vote,” former RNC Chairman Jim Nicholson said, referring to the ambassadors. “I don’t know why you’d take time to do it.”

It is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to American candidates or political parties.

Nicholson, who led the committee in the 1990s, said he never sought out foreign ambassadors during his tenure, only coming into contact with them at social events or when they requested meetings with him.

An RNC official, who confirmed the authenticity of the message, said Alpert works on tasks other than those related to fundraising and stressed that the intent with the ambassadorial meetings was not to raise money.

“As the e-mail clearly states, the briefing was about an exchange of ideas,” the official said. “There is no finance component whatsoever to any such meetings.”

Alpert didn't respond to an e-mail message requesting comment.

But for Steele’s critics, the idea that he would be looking for 'face time' with foreign ambassadors instead of trying to raise money for the party underscores the view that he’s in the job to promote himself instead of the GOP. What’s particularly galling to Republicans is that Steele’s diplomatic overtures come at a time when the party desperately needs to boost its mediocre fundraising to be competitive in the many House, Senate and gubernatorial contests this fall where Democrats seem vulnerable.

“Everyone's effort has to be focused on electing Republicans right now, and that means making sure we have the resources to turn out the vote,” said longtime party strategist Jim Dyke, who was a part of Steele's original circle of advisers at the outset of his RNC term.

Steele has long sought to cultivate foreign officials. As Maryland’s lieutenant governor, he spent more than $60,000 of state money for at least seven trips overseas including to France, Austria, South Africa and Israel. His staff at the time said the trips were trade missions.

After he left office in 2007, Steele was hired onto a global law firm, then called LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae, in part because of the relationships he had developed abroad.

“Based in the firm's Washington, D.C. office, he will focus on corporate securities, government relations and international affairs with an emphasis on Africa,” the firm announced when Steele joined, noting that as lieutenant governor he had been “deeply engaged in the state's business and economic development activities, forging key international relationships to expand Maryland's global economic interests.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine met with ambassadors in his capacity as Virginia governor but has not had any such individual meetings as leader of the party, said DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan.

Kaine was the guest of honor at a May dinner at the home of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. But the chairman also was joined there by other party leaders, including House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

Republicans sympathetic to Steele also note that past DNC chairmen Howard Dean and Terry McAuliffe had met with foreign leaders. But those meetings didn’t come in the final months before a major election and were not requested by a chairman who keeps finding ways to draw negative attention at a time when his party is poised for big gains.

In just the past month, Steele has had to backtrack from his suggesting the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, explain previously unreported party debt totaling $2 million and confront the prospect of a former senator mulling a campaign to take him on six months before the RNC election.

He still retains support among some members of the party committee — who control his fate as chairman — but the upper ranks of the GOP have largely written him off and have begun hoping he’ll only be a minor distraction in the final months before Election Day.

But the frustration with Steele is now at new levels.

Told of the chairman’s attempt to set up the ambassadorial meetings, one longtime party operative sighed deeply. “Michael Steele is focused on one outcome — that’s his own,” the operative said. “And it’s to the detriment of the RNC and the detriment of candidates and elected officials in November.”

— Laura Rozen contributed to this report.