RNC Chairman Michael Steele took a moment Sunday to commiserate with Tea Party-backed candidates who had recently misspoken in potentially damaging instances over the past couple weeks leading up to the midterm elections.
"Folks make mistakes," Steele said simply on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday morning when asked about statements by Sharron Angle, Ken Buck and Christine O'Donnell. "Lord knows I'm familiar with foot-in-mouth disease. I understand how that is sometimes. When you get in the heat of a battle, you've got the passion and the fire in your belly and you really wanna get out there and speak to the issues and speak to the people. You say things that don't come out correctly, you make missteps, you create misperceptions, and I think that happens a lot in campaigns."
Steele has indeed battled his foot with his mouth on more than a few occasions, but he -- as he predicted his party's candidates would do -- has managed to come out largely unscathed.
"What really matters is how the voters receive, how the voters look at those candidates, and despite those foible and those flaws, if you will, of the misspoken word, people understand where their heart is, people understand these folks are gonna go out there and fight for them," Steele said.
Steele also appeared to take a strong stance on the recent animosity that has been brewing between establishment Republicans and the latest swell of conservative energy coming from the Tea Party, calling the quiet subversion of certain candidates by some in the GOP "misplaced."
"For the establishment in Washington or anywhere else to sit back and sit in judgment of her abilities to be a senator, to be effective in the Senate, is misplaced," Steele said." All that matters it that the people have decided this is the standard-bearer we want."
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