Given his continuing series of gaffes and dumb-ass statements, I have been wondering why the Republican Party keeps Michael Steele as chairman. But then I read about his recent comments regarding the potential of gay marriage to wreak havoc on small businesses, or at least using that message to expand the base, which right now is limited mainly to dittoheads over 65 years old.

Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles.

Steele’s new party message goes something like this: if gays are allowed to marry, small business owners will have to pay for … well, that part is not really very clear. Here, we’ll let Steele himself explain it:

“Now all of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.”

There, isn’t that clearer?

Of course that sounds like nonsense because it is nonsense. I am married, but that has absolutely no impact on my boss, except that I am a more reliable employee because I have a mountain of debt like everybody else, so I show up for work on time and regularly. Even if my spouse was on my health insurance, I would pay the additional cost, not my employer. There is absolutely no way that I can conceive that an employee having a spouse impacts an employer’s bottom line.

But that’s the problem. The GOP has proven incredibly adept at pushing straw-man arguments on an undiscriminating electorate in the past. For example, the “socialism” argument of the past few months and the wave of terror conservatives have engendered in gun owners who fear that an Obama administration will mean a reduction in the availability of guns and ammunition (as a result, it’s boom times for gun and ammo sellers). There’s a slew of swiftboating and slanders in the slime wake of the Republican Party.

And Michael Steele knows this, and recognizes it as a strength — especially for a party desperate to appear to have an idea, any idea, and relevance, any relevance:

Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles.

Retooling the message is the name of the GOP game, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the truth of that message, it’s all about effectiveness. Time and again the Repugs have shown that if you repeat a lie often enough (yellow cake uranium, weapons of mass destruction, abortion is a legitimate litmus test, etc.), the populace that make up our idiocracy will buy it. And the fact that a recent Quinnipiac poll found that 57 percent of Americans favor gay marriage means the right wing needs to counter that, and quick.

And as long as he can keep coming up with creative lying arguments like gay marriage equals big costs for small business, Michael Steele will have a long and productive tenure with the Republican Party.