New Face of G.O.P. Brings a Brash Style

New Face of G.O.P. Brings a Brash Style

Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, does not seem to share Barack Obama’s hunger for bipartisanship.

WASHINGTON — The election last week of Michael Steele to be chairman of the Republican National Committee drew considerable notice, not surprisingly: he is the first African-American to hold that position in the party’s 155-year history.

Yet there are other ways that the selection of Mr. Steele, a former lieutenant governor from Maryland who lost a bid for the Senate in 2006, represents a break from the Republican past. And those could prove to be more significant than race, as the Republicans debate in the weeks ahead how much “opposition” they should put in the phrase “loyal opposition.” They face a president who is extraordinarily popular and a nation that appears weary of partisan politics as it confronts an economic crisis.

With Mr. Steele, the Republican Party has turned to someone who is markedly different from his recent predecessors in style and temperament. He is brash and brawny, takes chances that occasionally get him in trouble, and clearly relishes the idea of being portrayed as the fighting counterpoint to President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is not someone who is going to be spending a lot of time talking about microtargeting and the other mechanical aspects of politics.

The new face of the Republican Party does not seem to share the hunger for bipartisanship that Mr. Obama has made one of the stylistic touchstones of his first weeks in office. That became clear from the moment Mr. Steele took the job on Friday, as he all but invited the president of the United States to join him in the boxing ring.

“It’s going to be an honor to spar with him,” he said, before throwing down the gauntlet to Mr. Obama with a quotation from, apparently, an in-your-face late-1980’s rap song by Kool Moe Dee: “How ya like me now?” (Confession: A certain reporter initially suggested that Mr. Steele was invoking the country star Toby Keith, a reference that was convincingly challenged in a barrage of e-mail messages from readers.)