You're Steele In Trouble

The last piece of the puzzle that would let you know that Michael Steele's days were really numbered at the RNC is the rise of an alternative.  That last alarm bell is ringing right about now.

Katon Dawson, the former South Carolina Republican Party chairman who lost to Steele by just 14 votes in last February's RNC election, will travel to the committee's Winter Meeting in Hawaii on Jan. 25 in the place of Karen Floyd, the current South Carolina GOP chairwoman. Floyd asked Dawson to make the trip in her stead because the RNC confab conflicts with a Republican gubernatorial debate in South Carolina.

Dawson told CNN he is "thrilled" to travel to the Winter Meeting in Honolulu so he can re-connect with "a lot of really good friends and associates" on the committee. Since coming up short in the RNC race, Dawson - who helmed the South Carolina GOP for seven years - has been running his Columbia-based auto parts business. He also recently started Dawson Public Affairs, a political consulting firm.

What follows is the usual "Gee whiz" stuff you expect to see from the unusually trite and grateful Dawson, not the firebrand "no confidence motion" stuff we saw last March.  (And let's not forget, Dawson's a great fit for the racist Teabaggers.)

Now things get interesting -- "Chinese proverb on interesting times" interesting.

Mike, meet your Hoffman.

[UPDATE 4:38 PM]   BooMan has more evidence that the Michael Steele deathwatch is officially on.