Much like we were all promised an “earth-shattering kaboom” once upon a time, we were told a red wave was incoming. Certainly the polls seemed to indicate that it was incoming. Well, the pollsters are going to need to do some serious soul-searching, but the Republican National Committee should be doing that as well.

But if comments from the current head of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, are any indicator, the RNC is trying to spin this midterm election as a “win.” I’m sorry, did we watch the same election results?

Now granted, this interview was done before Nevada “cured” enough Democrat ballots to put Catherine Cortez Masto over Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, who had been leading up to that point. Once the Nevada Senate race was called, the control of the Senate was now in the hands of Democrats. Georgia would just be the icing on their cake. If the Republicans take Georgia, then we are back where we started, a 50-50 split in the Senate with Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker, giving the Democrats the majority. That is not where we wanted to end up. That is not where we were told we would end up. The House majority is by no means an assured thing, with many races running razor-thin margins and currently being counted by the Zootopia DMV sloths in different states. This feels like pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. This, to put it mildly, SUCKS.

And now we are being told that we were never promised a “red wave,” so you just better like the one that showed up anyway.

Ronna Romney McDaniel is a lying liar. pic.twitter.com/wkSibmvniJ

— (((anti-antisemite))) (@Tristanshouts) November 9, 2022

If Ronna McDaniel was an NFL coach, she would be fired. By every single measure, this was an underperformance. Now, does she bear total blame? Nope, there’s plenty of blame to be spread around. However, McDaniel is the chair of the RNC. She is not running for office, she is supposed to be coordinating the Republican effort at the national level. And now she’s telling Republicans that they should just appreciate what they got. Sorry, nope. Not going to cut it. We need a complete overhaul in leadership at the top of the RNC.

A report is out from NBC News saying that some GOP leaders are contacting Lee Zeldin, asking him to run for RNC Chair. Hmmm. Tell me more.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., who lost a surprisingly close race for governor last week, has spoken with GOP elected officials and party activists who want him to run for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, his media consultant said.”

“He has received calls from around the country,” John Brabender said Sunday. “It’s likely that he will at least explore it. … He’s fielding calls, talking to people, listening to them, but it has not gone beyond that.”

RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel has not said whether she will seek re-election at the party’s winter meeting in January, nor has Tommy Hicks, the co-chair. Under the party’s rules, the top two posts must be held by one man and one woman.”

Yes, Zeldin lost his race to Kathy Hochul. New York is going to be reaping the consequences of that decision well into the future. But Zeldin got close enough to make Hochul seriously sweat – and she won by only 5 percentage points. To put this in context, in New York’s last gubernatorial election in 2018, Andrew Cuomo won by 23 percentage points. Hochul did not run a strong campaign, and Zeldin did. His performance likely led to the flipping of some House seats into Republican hands, because the down-ballot effect worked in the favor of those House candidates, even if Zeldin himself didn’t win his race.

If the Republicans manage to take the House, Lee Zeldin should be the first person on the list to receive a thank you card and a bouquet of flowers. Why not also make him the new chair of the RNC? He ran a very competitive race in a deep blue state by keeping his campaign message focused and his goals clear. Zeldin talked about the crime wave and how he wanted to combat it. The public responded, and he got within five points of Kathy Hochul. If he could bring that same focus on issues to the Republican National Committee, and help produce a national message ahead of 2024, then we would all be better off. We know that Joe Biden simply plans on doubling down on what he’s been doing. By the time 2024 rolls around, Republicans are going to have a LOT of material to work with in House and Senate races. And the Senate in 2024 is going to be a much harder year for Democrats, as they are defending more of their seats in that cycle.

The performance of the Republicans this year means that there should be a shake-up in leadership. Let’s start at the RNC, and Lee Zeldin should definitely be in contention for the job at the top.

Featured image: Lee Zeldin by Gage Skidmore via Flickr, cropped and modified, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)