Michael Steele somehow remains a star in the Republican Party. He gave that “Drill, Baby, Drill!” speech at the party’s convention in St. Paul a few months ago, and his name has been coming up as a possible H.U.D. secretary should there ever be a McCain administration.

Just two years ago, remember, Steele tried to engineer the bottom-feedingest voter-fraud effort this area has ever seen.

On Election Day 2006, Steele knew he was about to get crushed in his bid for U.S. Senate by Democratic opponent Ben Cardin.

But rather than go down with dignity, Steele and fellow sure loser Bob Ehrlich, who on that day knew he was about to get crushed in his bid for re-election as Maryland’s governor by Democratic opponent Martin O’Malley, tried a desperate and dirty Hail Mary.

The Republican partners in grime rounded up homeless men from Wilmington, Del., and Philadelphia and promised them $100 and two meals if they’d bus down to black neighborhoods of Prince George’s County on election day and pass out intentionally misleading fliers.

The red, black and green documents were headlined “Ehrlich-Steele Democrats Official Voter Guide” and insinuated that popular P.G. County officials Wayne Curry and Jack Johnson, along with former NAACP head Kweisi Mfume, had endorsed both Steele and Ehrlich.

None of three had made such endorsements.

There were also sample ballots inside the pamphlets that indicated Ehrlich and Steele were Democrats.

The only true thing on the fliers, it turns out, were the lines saying that the fraudulent paperwork was “Paid and Authorized by” Ehrlich and Steele.

(Weird and unrelated sports trivia about Steele: He’s Mike Tyson’s ex-brother-in-law, and because of his height he shows up in a lot of old Redskins highlight packages, cheering from the RFK grandstands. We now return to our regularly scheduled program…)

So, in a country where we accept that Pac Man Jones isn’t morally fit to play football, how can Steele still be allowed anywhere near a political operation?

But there Steele was over the weekend, stumping for McCain/Palin in Missouri.

Steele’s job is to get the Republican crowds riled up about ACORN. According to a report in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, in his speech Steele accused the voter registration group of “undermining the legal system, the voting system.”

Geezus Chrysler…