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The Republican National Committee (RNC) provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy. It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Convention. Mike Duncan won a two-year term as chairman in January 2007. Similar committees exist in every U.S. state and most U.S. counties, although in some states party organization is structured by congressional district, allied campaign organizations being governed by a national committee.
Its main counterpart is the Democratic National Committee.
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The 1856 Republican National Convention appointed the first RNC. It consisted of one member from each state and territory to serve for four years. Each national convention since then has followed the precedent of one representative per state or territory, regardless of population. From 1924 to 1952 there was a national committeeman and national committeewoman from each state and U.S. possession, and from Washington, D.C. In 1952, committee membership was expanded to include the state party chairs of states that voted Republican in the preceding presidential election, have a Republican majority in their combined U.S. representatives and senators, or have Republican governors. By 1968, membership reached 145. The only person to have chaired the RNC and later become US president is George H.W. Bush. A number of the chairs of the RNC have been state governors.
As is typical for national US political parties after losing an election, many senior Republicans promised big changes at the RNC after losing control of the White House in 2008. Former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele described the party as having lost its sense of purpose while announcing his candidacy to succeed Duncan. "I think I may have some keys to open the door, some juice to turn on the lights," he said.1
Other Republicans said the RNC will focuse its efforts on congressional and gubernatorial elections in the coming years rather than worrying about the next presidential election. "When I was chairman of the Republican National Committee the last time we lost the White House in 1992 we focused exclusively on 1993 and 1994. And at the end of that time, we had both houses of Congress with Republican majorities, and we’d gone from 17 Republican governors to 31. So anyone talking about 2012 today doesn’t have their eye on the ball. What we ought to worry about is rebuilding our party over the next year and particularly in 2010,” ex-RNC chair and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said at the November 2008 Republican Governors conference.2
The above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the copyrighted Wikipedia "Republican National Committee" article.