This makes RNC Chair Reince Priebus the highest-ranking polit­i­cal fig­ure to urge New York Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gress­man Anthony Weiner to resign after yesterday’s sur­real, bomb­shell of a press conference.

All eyes will now be on whether other GOP heavy-hitters join in; and if Democ­rats reverse their call on hav­ing the House Ethics Com­mit­tee inves­ti­gate before they pass any fur­ther judgement.

One gets the feel­ing that being New York Sen­a­tor Chuck Schumer’s pro­tege may be the only thing keep­ing Weiner polit­i­cally alive at this moment.  Weiner was once a spokesman for Schumer and now sits in the senior sen­a­tor from New York’s old con­gres­sional seat.

Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee Chair­man Reince Priebus called for Rep. Anthony Weiner to resign from Con­gress on Tues­day, a day after the New York Demo­c­rat admit­ted trad­ing sex­u­ally explicit pho­tos and text mes­sages with a half-dozen women over a period of years.

“Con­gress­man Weiner’s actions and decep­tion are unac­cept­able and he should resign,” Mr. Priebus said. “We do not need an inves­ti­ga­tion to know he lied and acted inap­pro­pri­ately, we need a resignation.”

Repub­li­cans are step­ping up pres­sure on Demo­c­ra­tic lead­ers to force Mr. Weiner’s res­ig­na­tion a day after House Minor­ity Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) called for a con­gres­sional ethics inves­ti­ga­tion into whether Mr. Weiner vio­lated House rules in send­ing these pic­tures and mes­sages. Mr. Weiner said on Mon­day that he has no plans to resign.

“Either Leader Pelosi and (Demo­c­ra­tic National Com­mit­tee Chair­woman Deb­bie) Wasser­man Schultz believe mem­bers of Con­gress are held to a dif­fer­ent set of stan­dards or they believe these actions demand his res­ig­na­tion,” Mr. Priebus said.

Mr. Weiner, who is mar­ried, admit­ted Mon­day to a pat­tern of trad­ing sex­u­ally explicit notes with women all over the coun­try and lying about one recent photo he sent to a stu­dent in Seat­tle in an effort to cover it up.

Best part, when RNC Chair­man Reince Priebus coun­ters that it is the media which is push­ing the “Birther” issue (they are) and CNN’s Carol Costello stam­mers a defense, Reince goes, “Then why did you invite me on to talk about the birth cer­tifi­cate issue again?“

Con­grats to good friend of the blog (and its author) Reince Priebus for being elected as the Repub­li­can National Com­mit­tee Chair­man yes­ter­day at the Committee’s Annual Win­ter Meetings.

I’ve been back out in the DC area inter­view­ing and job hunt­ing for the past few weeks, so I got to watch the vote live at the really beau­ti­ful Gay­lord National Har­bor Resort just out­side of DC on the Mary­land side of the Potomac.  It’s been quite an amaz­ing ride for Wis­con­sin Repub­li­cans this past year, and yes­ter­day was in a way the cap­stone of all those achievements.

Dur­ing the vote, I caught up with friends I hadn’t seen in a cou­ple years; net­worked (It is DC after all), and finally met  Reince’s lovely wife Sally and his mother who was beam­ing with pride for her son.  To para­phrase a famous Repub­li­can from Wis­con­sin, it sure is a great time to be one.

(Espe­cially if you’re in or from Wisconsin.)

No doubt all who know Reince and call him friend are think­ing back to when they first met or chat­ted with now the world’s most famous lawyer from Kenosha.  For me, it was in 2005 at She­boy­gan at the State GOP Con­ven­tion when I was cov­er­ing it for this blog as the only press on the tra­di­tion­ally dull last day of state con­ven­tion.  Reince was walk­ing past with his then-infant son Jack in his stroller.  I said “Hi,” and we struck up a conversation.

As the con­grat­u­la­tions (or spite in some cases) come pour­ing in from all across the polit­i­cal spec­trum, I was shocked to see how one of the more classy state­ments was from a place most Wis­con­sin con­ser­v­a­tives don’t look first for class.  Mike Tate, Priebus’ oppo­site num­ber at the Demo­c­ra­tic Party of Wis­con­sin, offered this state­ment upon Priebus’ elec­tion as National GOP Chairman.

“Con­grat­u­la­tions to Reince Priebus. I will miss our spir­ited — and civil — debates on the direc­tion of our state and our nation. While we don’t agree polit­i­cally, I am grate­ful for his gen­er­ous spirit dur­ing the hard-fought cam­paign sea­son behind us — and in the hard-fought cam­paigns yet to come. And while of course we don’t wish him luck, we do wish the first national party chair­man from Wis­con­sin well in his new endeavor.”

Tate sees what prob­a­bly a lot who have observed or worked in Wis­con­sin pol­i­tics see, that this is a huge moment for our state.  A state we all love and care about, even if we have dif­fer­ent views on what’s best for her.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Reince once again.

Freshly sworn-in Con­gress­man Sean Duffy (R-Ashland) says it all. (H/T Politico)

The RNC Win­ter Meet­ings kick off today and will cul­mi­nate on Fri­day with the Chairman’s election.

Word is he announces he will not seek a sec­ond term as Chair­man of the GOP. Given how much of his sup­port has been scut­tled in the last month by the Gen­try Collins let­ter and Priebus announce­ment, that prob­a­bly seems wise.

Bet­ter he leave on the per­cep­tional high note of tak­ing back the House and posi­tion­ing the party to pos­si­bly take back the Senate.

Reince for Chair!

Dear Fel­low RNC Members,

After care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, prayer and encour­age­ment from many, I have decided to run for RNC Chairman.

The RNC must be at its best dur­ing this next elec­tion cycle.  There is too much at risk for our Party and, more impor­tantly, for our coun­try. That is why I am run­ning for Chairman.

It is not just Repub­li­cans that have a lot at stake. This next elec­tion is about the entire direc­tion of our coun­try.  Our coun­try can­not afford a sec­ond term of Pres­i­dent Obama and Demo­c­rat con­trol of the U.S. Sen­ate and pos­si­bly the House.  For­tu­nately, our vic­to­ries in 2010 put us in a posi­tion to put a stop to the Obama Administration’s lib­eral agenda.  We must cap­i­tal­ize on the 2012 elec­tion cycle in order to get our coun­try back on the right track.  How­ever, this won’t hap­pen with­out sig­nif­i­cant changes at the RNC.

It is not just about fundrais­ing. It is not just about com­mu­ni­cat­ing our mes­sage. It is not just about stand­ing up for our con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues and Party Plat­form. It is not just about putting together suc­cess­ful vic­tory pro­grams.  It must be all those things to win in 2012.

As Chair­man of the Wis­con­sin GOP, I did all those things and more. We built coali­tions. We brought in Tea Party activists and we worked well together. I assem­bled and led an excep­tional team in Wis­con­sin.  We recruited good con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­dates who are reflec­tive of the GOP Young Guns sweep­ing our coun­try. We raised the money needed for victory.

In this his­toric elec­tion, Wis­con­sin Repub­li­cans also achieved tremen­dous suc­cess. And the Party was an inte­gral part of vic­tory in all of our cam­paigns.  Sim­ply put, Wis­con­sin enjoyed one of the biggest Repub­li­can vic­to­ries in the coun­try and we flipped just about every­thing from blue to red.

When I took over as Chair­man we started with just about noth­ing and now we just cel­e­brated arguably the great­est Repub­li­can vic­tory in the his­tory of our state.

I will run a tight ship at the RNC.  I will keep expenses low.  I will put in strong and seri­ous con­trols.  We will raise the nec­es­sary funds to make sure we are suc­cess­ful.  We will work to regain the con­fi­dence of our donor base and I will per­son­ally call our major donors to ask them to rejoin our efforts at the RNC.

I will con­tinue to main­tain and build good rela­tion­ships with RNC Mem­ber­ship, House and Sen­ate Repub­li­can Lead­er­ship, Repub­li­can Gov­er­nors and all Repub­li­cans from the grass­roots, local and national levels.

I will pro­mote our Party Plat­form.  As a fis­cal and social con­ser­v­a­tive, I strongly sup­port our Party’s core prin­ci­ples.  I will fight for our Party and work to strengthen and grow it.

We need to unify the RNC. This cam­paign for RNC Chair­man is about all of us.  I plan to run a “member-to-member” cam­paign.  And I will come out and see as many of you as I can per­son­ally. Together we can bring back strong lead­er­ship at the RNC and con­tinue to help change the direc­tion of our country.

I thought hard about whether now was the time to run. My mother was born in Sudan and my father was a union elec­tri­cian.  They both taught me to be hon­est and that noth­ing was more impor­tant than faith in God and work­ing hard.  I grew up in Wis­con­sin where the Repub­li­can Party was born.

My wife, Sally, and I met in high school and our first date was a Lin­coln Day Din­ner! We have two young chil­dren — Jack (5) and Grace (9 months). America’s future is their future too.  I want you to know Sally and the kids are on board and will move with me to Wash­ing­ton for the two-year term so that we can do this as a family.

For me, being State Chair­man isn’t a title – it’s a mis­sion. As Chair­man of the RNC, I will assume that same laser focus. Less drama, more hard work, more results and more focus on win­ning. That is my pledge to you and I humbly ask for your support.

I first met Reince in 2004, but got to know him in 2005 when the State GOP Con­ven­tion was in She­boy­gan.  He’s been a good friend, a great father, and an out­stand­ing chair­man for the Wis­con­sin GOP when many thought it was left for dead after the 2006 and 2008 elec­tion cycles.

Hope­fully, he gets that chance to do for the national GOP what he’s helped accom­plish for Wis­con­sin con­ser­v­a­tives and Repub­li­cans.  Best of luck “Mr. Chairman.”