The RNC's New Ambulance Chaser

The Republican National Committee, which has worked hard to make "trial lawyer" a dirty word, just chose an ambulance chaser as its chairman. Oh sure, he's also a Cuban senator from Florida, but Mel Martinez started out his professional life by making millions as a plaintiff's attorney. During his 2004 senate race, primary challenger Bill McCollum dubbed Martinez "the John Edwards of Florida."

Despite his litigious roots, Martinez is not likely to take lawyer-bashing out of the GOP platform. Like all good trial lawyers who move into politics after making a lot of money, he has seen the light and embraced tort reform. Besides, it's the nativists who are upset about Martinez's selection, not the tort reformers. Clearly the pitchfork-rebellion types don't realize that Martinez is the perfect guy for the job. After all, one of the RNC chair's main assignments is to hound people for money, a skill he honed as a trial lawyer.

Moreover, one reason Martinez was one of the most useless HUD secretaries of all time (he once told a housing group that the federal government had no role to play in housing) is that he spent all his time giving political interviews on Univision, attending GOP fundraisers and awarding federal grants in key battleground states during the 2002 mid-term elections. What more could you want from and RNC chairman?