Steele blasts Tennessee ad; defends nude party

By Robert "Rob" Redding Jr.

Publisher

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2006, 6:30 p.m. - Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, a candidate for U.S. Senate, today said the creator of a controversial Tennessee advertisement pulled this week against U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. couldn't work for him.

Steele, who has himself been pummeled by partisans for being a black Republican, said that it is up to Sen. John McCain and executives at Wal-Mart whether they continue to be affiliated with Terry Nelson, who is reported to have been responsible for crafted a controversial ad that has been running against Ford, a Democrat. 

"That is a decision for McCain and for Wal-Mart to make," said Steele during a wide-ranging interview on XM 169 The Power. "He wouldn't be advising me if he produced stuff like that."

The NAACP has said the advertisement, paid for by the Republican National Committee, stokes racial fears by featuring a bare-shouldered white woman saying she met Ford at a Playboy party.

"The Tennessee ad is stupid, its silly and I'm glad to see them pull it down," he said. "Harold Ford is a friend of mind and I just sat there and I saw that and said, 'What idiot would run this type of advertisement against this man?'

"That is the kind of silliness and stupidity in politics that has been heaped upon me," said Steele, who was just likened to a slave last week. "My only point is, when do members of our community stand up and say, 'Well we may not agree with this brother, we may not agree with his political philosophy or his view, but he is a member of this community and you will not disrespect him because to disrespect him is to disrespect us.'"

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Steele, who advocated the need for Affirmative Action, also said he is still fighting the stereotype among members of his community that all black Republicans are sell-outs.

"I have got to prove to the community something that black elected Democrats don't have to prove," he said. "And that is what I am prepared to honor the commitment to serve the interest and to deliver and I am willing to do that."

Steele, a devout Catholic with a degree in divinity, also for the first time responded to a Redding News Review exclusive last year that Steele in October 2005 attended a magazine launch party that featured nude women in body paint.

He said that the women where "artistically covered" and that he was unknowingly placed in a situation that he did not know was there.

"They said, 'Did you see the art that they did?'" he said. "And I said, 'Oh that's kind of interesting' ... It was ok with me...it wasn't a nudie bar.

"In my view it was art it wasn't a suggestive, nasty, sexual, inappropriate thing," he said. "In fact, if you really didn't pay attention you didn't know they were there."

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