The Republican National Committee elected Michael Steele as its first African American chairman today in Washington, a decision that came after an excruciating series of ballots that displayed a level of drama rarely seen in national politics.

On the sixth and final ballot Steele bested South Carolina Republican party Chairman Katon Dawson 91 to 77.

"It's time for something completely different and we are going to bring it to them," Steele said after his victory.

In picking Steele, who had previously served as the chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, the state's lieutenant governor, and the GOP nominee in the Maryland Senate race in 2006, the party regulars seem to be acknowledging the need for new -- and different -- faces at the top of its food chain.

"The winds of change are blowing at the RNC," said current chair Mike Duncan who stepped aside after losing votes on each of the first three ballots.

After five ballots, the race came down to Steele and Dawson. Republican party strategists in attendance at the meeting openly fretted about the possibility of electing Dawson, who had acknowledged his membership in a whites-only club, and the signal it would send to a country that had just elected Barack Obama as the nation's first black president.

It was -- interestingly -- former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell who ultimately swung the race to Steele when he dropped out before the fifth ballot and endorsed the former lieutenant governor. The move was somewhat unexpected as Blackwell had staked out the turf as the most socially conservative candidate in the field while Steele had had to beat back rumors that he was not sufficiently conservative.

Steele faces a massive challenge to rebuild a party that faces significant organizational, financial and messaging hurdles.

Here's hoping Mr. Steele is up to the challenge.  I for one am hopeful.  I'd say it was a good day for conservatives!

Illinois senators stripped Rod Blagojevich of power Thursday in the final act of a political drama that handed the reins of state government to his estranged lieutenant, Pat Quinn, and will likely end Blagojevich's career in politics.

Senators voted unanimously to convict Blagojevich, 59-0 and shortly thereafter, Quinn was sworn in as Illinois' new governor.

The outcome was never in doubt. In fact, Quinn went to the state Capitol earlier in the day  in preparation of being sworn in.

The governor's impeachment was triggered by his arrest last month on a variety of federal corruption charges. The criminal complaint against him included a long list of shocking quotes that portrayed Blagojevich as trying to auction off President Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat and pressure people for campaign donations.

The former governor had refused to take part in the trial, but he surprised everyone by asking to make a closing statement in which he insisted that he should not be tossed out of office on what he called incomplete evidence.

"You haven't proved a crime, and you can't because it didn't happen," Blagojevich pleaded with state senators. "How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?"

But state senators were unswayed. One by one, before casting their votes, they expressed their contempt for Blagojevich with a litany of names, calling him "dishonest," "devious," "corrupt," and a "hypocrite." 

It's now a matter of waiting to see if Patrick Fitzgerald proceeds with a criminal indictment.  Should that happen, Blogo may disclose details that could be very embarrassing to the Obama administration.  It seems unlikely that Blogojevich is the only one tainted by stench and filth of the cesspool that is Illinois politics.  He's just the only one to get caught .  .  .  so far.