RNC Chairman Steele: Election not a referendum on President Obama

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Tuesday's electoral contests were not a referendum on the Obama administration. Still basking in the glow of victory Wednesday morning, Steele took a few moments to make jabs at President Barack Obama's policies, but not the president himself.

"I don't think it's so much a referendum on the president. It certainly is I think a checkpoint on the policies," Steele said of his party's wins in governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia. "I think the people last night in these two states took a moment to reflect over the last nine or 10 months to listen to and evaluate how what we're hearing at the national level translates locally."

The chairman of the RNC for just nine months, Steele directed more than $13 million into New Jersey and Virginia, part of what he called an "unprecedented commitment" from the RNC to the party's candidates and state chapters.

And, though history argues that the party that controls the White House was likely to lose the New Jersey and Virginia races, Steele said the victories showed Republicans are reclaiming their place in American politics.

"The Republican renaissance has begun, begun in earnest," he said. "I am just honored to have been the chairman who could help put those resources in place, to encourage and support our candidates, but most especially to give way to our base to lift them up and encourage them to go out there and share the message of our party."

Exit polls taken Tuesday showed only a tiny fraction of voters said Obama was a factor in how they decided to vote. In both states, slightly more voters said their vote was intended to be in opposition to Obama than in support of him, but the difference between the two numbers was negligible.

"I saw this convergence of national issues and local issues coming together for a lot of these candidates," Steele said Wednesday. But he added a caveat for his own party: "It's not easy to run and win as a Republican right now. It's just not."