RNC chief of staff Ken McKay resigns

Updated 9:20 p.m.

Republican National Committee chief of staff Ken McKay has resigned in the wake of a controversy over an expenditure at a risque California nightclub, RNC communications director Doug Heye said Monday.

McKay's resignation comes one week after the Daily Caller Web site reported that the RNC's January expenditure report included nearly $2,000 spent at Voyeur in West Hollywood, a topless nightclub.

RNC officials worked to distance Chairman Michael Steele from the controversy -- insisting that not only was he not in attendance but that he had no knowledge of the reimbursement -- and promised changes in the way that people were reimbursed by the committee.

McKay's resignation appears to be the leading edge of those moves, and an attempt by Steele and the broader RNC to show donors worried about the stability of the committee that changes ares being made.

"The members of the Republican National Committee entrusted myself and every staffer to lead the loyal opposition against the destructive Obama agenda, build a stronger Republican party and win elections. This is a role I take with the utmost seriousness. With this in mind, I want to do everything in my power to ensure that the committee uses all its resources in the best possible fashion," Steele said in a statement.

But other Republicans said the committee had lost a valuable contributor.

"This is a huge loss for the Republican Party," said Curt Anderson, a consultant closely aligned with Steele, about McKay's departure. "Ken is enormously talented and has been the guy who has kept things on track, he's the guy who steered the party through very successful elections last fall."

Anderson also announced that his consulting firm -- On Message Inc. -- would sever ties from the RNC, breaking a long relationship with Steele and causing more consternation within the political chattering class about the future of the committee.

"Moving around deck chairs on the Titanic didn't make a darn bit of difference (or sense) either," e-mailed one senior Republican operative, who discussed the departure on the condition of anonymity, to avoid damaging the party. "If Ken's resignation was to signal a positive shake-up at the RNC, it will actually have the opposite effect. He was one of the few level-headed and widely respected aides at the committee."

McKay will be replaced by Mike Leavitt, a longtime party operative who had been serving as deputy chief of staff at the committee. "Mike brings a strong ability to work to manage the building and win elections across the country," Steele said.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) praised Leavitt's "great energy, commitment, and experience."

McKay was named to his post following a successful run in Rhode Island where he managed Gov. Don Carcieri's 2002 and 2006 races and served as the governor's chief of staff in the early part of the Carcieri administration.

Steele, for his part, insisted in an interview with George Stephanapoulos on "Good Morning America" this morning that he had no plans to resign his post. "I'm not staying at fancy hotels," Steele said in response to a question about the committee's expenditures.

In that same interview Steele stoked a bit of controversy over his comments on the role race has played in how his performance is being analyzed.

Asked by Stephanapoulos whether being an African American gave him a "slimmer margin of error" than another chairman might have, Steele said:

"The honest answer is 'yes,'. It just is. Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. We all -- a lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play, and that's just the reality of it. But you take that as part of the nature of it."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called Steele's comment on race "silly", adding: "I think Michael Steele's problem isn't the race card, it's the credit card."