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" Was it only last Friday that the Republican National Committee elected a new chairman? One whose name is just the first in an incredibly fun series of things about him we had yet to learn? A long weekend and a full day&amp;#039;s news cycle later, herein is what we now know (and enjoy) about Reince Priebus, whether you&amp;#039;re a Republican, a Democrat, or just another American with a succinct appreciation for moniker etymology. 1. The Name, Part I. The thirty-eight-year-old lawyer&amp;#039;s name is pronounced &amp;quot;Ry-nts&amp;quot; (or as the New York Times put it, &amp;quot;rhymes with pints&amp;quot;) and &amp;quot;Pree-Bus.&amp;quot; Like a complimentary ride on public transportation. Just knowing this will put you a step ahead of most political dinner party conversation. 2. He&amp;#039;s obviously read The Prince. On his way to getting elected to the new gig, former Wisconsin GOP boss Priebus had served as a general counsel under previous national RNC Chair Michael Steele without once kvetching about the way things were done under Steele. It was that (lack of positioning) which came under fire from other Republicans, like Christopher C. Healy, who&amp;#039;s in charge of the Connecticut Republican party. Healy noted: &amp;quot;At no time until he chose to run did Priebus issue any directive, memo, or public utterance on Steele&amp;#039;s disastrous tenure.&amp;quot; Of course he didn&amp;#039;t. Did anybody note the poor skills of the Titantic&amp;#039;s crew until it was ass-up in the Atlantic? The man has a sense of timing.  3. He&amp;#039;s down with fine arts. Priebus served as a president and is still a member of the Kenosha Symphony Orchestra board. Wonder if he&amp;#039;ll put that love into NEA support! [Hint: He won&amp;#039;t.]  4. The man knows where to put a semi-colon. Priebus was the copy editor of Res Ipsa Loquitur, the bi-weekly law journal for the University of Miami law school. 5. The man also knows where the heart is: home. Priebus married his high-school sweetheart, Sally. Their first date? The Lincoln Day Dinner in Kenosha, to hear speeches delivered by two congressmen. And then, of course, a movie.  6. The Name, Part II. &amp;quot;Reince.&amp;quot; Can you think of any other names with the letters &amp;quot;R&amp;quot; &amp;quot;N&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;C&amp;quot; in them? If you can, you&amp;#039;re now two steps ahead of most political dinner party conversations. Congratulations. 7. The fact that he&amp;#039;s supported both black people and eminent domain is getting some Republicans out of their comfort zones. He once volunteered for the NAACP as a law clerk at their legal defense fund. They&amp;#039;ve helped win a few famous cases for guys like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali, while winning cases against guys like Rudy Giuliani and companies like Shoney&amp;#039;s. Not bad! He also once helped represent the City of Milwaukee in an eminent domain case \u2014 i.e. taking land from a private citizen for the public interest \u2014 against a small business. These associations caused one Republican blogger to note that it is &amp;quot;extremely hard, if not impossible to document that there&amp;#039;s a principled conservative&amp;quot; in the new RNC chairman.  8. Yet, the Tea Party&amp;#039;s pretty happy with him. Russ Walker of Freedom Works \u2014 that rambling, Tea Party-organizing collective \u2014 noted to NPR that as opposed to other people and other places, you don&amp;#039;t see the disconnect between &amp;quot;the grass roots and the party&amp;quot; in &amp;quot;a guy like Reince.  9. His election to the RNC could result in better elections for all of us! Over the course of 2008&amp;#039;s presidential election, an e-mail leaked out from Priebus&amp;#039;s office which essentially alluded to planned acts of voter suppression. Logic would follow that Priebus&amp;#039;s could&amp;#039;ve-been mistake could potentially yield cleaner elections for all of us, through the power of intensified scrutiny regarding anything having to do with him and elections!  10. The Name, Part III. His father comes from Greek and German lineages, which he sympathetically chose not to impose on his kids, Jack and Grace.  11. The man knows when to fall back (like when his job is on the line, or on Obamacare, seeing as how there&amp;#039;s not much he can do about it now). What would you say if some blogger told you that the guy who&amp;#039;s now the president of the Republican National Committee was once a partner at a law firm who told corporate clients hoping Obamacare would be repealed to basically give up? Well, here&amp;#039;s a blogger quoting Priebus&amp;#039;s law firm telling its corporate clients to stop fighting and embrace the Obamacare Machine: &amp;quot;Lawsuits filed to block the case are unlikely to succeed because the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution fives Congress authority to act on this legislation.&amp;quot; For a guy who now heads up the G.O.P., he doth protest not nearly as much as you&amp;#039;d think he would. Even more, that same law firm he worked for tried to grab federal stimulus funds, but Priebus denied having anything to do with that (despite having his name on the document).  12. He feels the pain of the single parent Sure, the guy&amp;#039;s throwing down for God like he&amp;#039;s the head of Priebus&amp;#039;s rap label, but the G.O.P. boss&amp;#039; nuanced stance on why gay marriage isn&amp;#039;t okay doesn&amp;#039;t just pertain to the strictly religious: he knows that being a single parent is &amp;quot;hard.&amp;quot; Can&amp;#039;t make that shit up if we tried.  13. The Name, Part IV. It&amp;#039;s okay if you get it wrong. Let he who is without pronunciation issues \u2014 like that time Priebus called for the execution of Barack Obama, and then corrected himself, noting that he was calling for the execution of Osama bin Laden \u2014 throw the first stone. Which, given the strange, winding disconnect of Priebus&amp;#039;s career thus far? America would best be advised to duck. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a9254/reince-priebus-rnc-4925589/>