Glenn McCall, the York County GOP chairman elected as RNC committeeman last year, has become one of the first leading Republicans in South Carolina to ask Gov. Mark Sanford to step down, following the Governor’s affair with “43-year-old divorcee and high-powered international businesswoman” Maria Shapur. While most people consider Sanford’s abandonment of the state the main problem, with the affair as the kicker, McCall sites the affair as the impetus for his statement.

“He was saying our elected leaders needs to stand firm on principles and values and one of those is strong family values,” McCall said to CNN. “What he said is hypocritical if he doesn’t step down, because he was right with what he said about Clinton and others. When you are elected leader we hold you to higher standards.”

However, McCall wanted to split the baby when it came to whether the Governor abused his authority. He said he’d like to see the General Assembly investigate the matter, but is not advocating impeachment. If legislators found a certain level of improper conduct, it would make sense to go all the way. After all, it wouldn’t be right for a law enforcement agency to find enough evidence for an indictment and then just let it sit there.

According to a widely-circulated letter that was leaked today, U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham have endorsed Columbia attorney Kevin Hall for chairman of the S.C. Republican Party. The move is a bombshell of sorts in the race, coming at the same time RNC committeeman Glenn McCall announced that he had no intention of running for the post.

“Throughout all of his service, he never made a dime from the campaigns he’s helped,” the letter read. “He does it because he is a true believer in our party and in the conservative cause. He does it because he understands that if we’re going to reclaim our credibility as Republicans, we must recruit and support candidates who will be true to our ideals and principles.

“Kevin’s philosophy of volunteerism is exactly what built our Party’s grassroots organization. Who better to recruit and organize new volunteers for our party than someone who has volunteered so much of his own time and talent.”

The endorsements put the momentum firmly behind Hall, who is up against Spartanburg County GOP chairman Rick Beltram. Though McCall has taken himself out of the running, others may still jump in. According to SCHotline, Karen Floyd is seriously considering a run and could make her decision within days.

Sunday night, Jeffrey Sewell started up a Facebook group to back Floyd, “Karen K. Floyd,” to draft the former Superintendent of Education nominee to lead the party.

As of Monday afternoon, however, the group seemed to have disappeared from the social networking site.

A new chairman will be chosen at the party meeting in May.

The next era of the S.C. Republican Party started on Saturday when party chairman Katon Dawson, on the heels of his loss in the RNC chairman’s race, announced he would not seek another term.

As of right now, the only two announced candidates are Columbia attorney Kevin Hall and Spartanburg County GOP chairman Rick Beltram. As was tweeted by a number of Republican operatives and activists, representatives for Beltram were passing out fliers for him.

On interesting development over the course of the day was efforts underway to push RNC committeeman Glenn McCall into the race. After the Dawson announcement, Adam Piper tweeted to fellow Richard Quinn and Associates employee Adam Fogle, “@palmettoscoop let’s draft glenmccall for sc gop chairman #tcot #sctweets.” Roughly an hour later, Piper tweeted, “Just heard people are going draft glenn mccall for scgop chair #sctweets #tcot.”

McCall won election to the Republican National Committee last year, and was recruited by Dawson for the post. A Web address to get McCall to run for chair, DraftMcCall.com, was registered and went active on Saturday. The site is registered to a Gaffney address under “SC for McCall,” while the administrative and tech contacts are located at a Northeast Columbia residence. As of Saturday evening, the address redirects browsers to an online petition.

Also, a “Draft Glenn McCall SCGOP Chair” Facebook group sprouted up, which as of this time has 31 members, including Piper, Fogle, GOP operative Somer Grasser and Rep. Carl Gullick.

An initial reaction from the Democratic side indicates a preference for Beltram.

“Democrats for Rick Beltram (or Karen Floyd),” Rep. Boyd Brown tweeted. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but both of those sound good for the SCDP.”

After the departure of former Mike Huckabee campaign director Chip Saltsman, and after some significant horsetrading on the floor of the Capital Hilton, Michael Steele became the new chairman of the Republican National Committee today.

The vote, 91 out of 168 ballots, came on the sixth round of voting. SCGOP chairman Katon Dawson made it to the final round, but went into the sixth ballot trailing by 10 votes and could not make up the difference.

RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, after seeing his support slip, was the first to pull out of the race, followed by former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, who was in the lower level of voting on each ballot, pulled out after the fifth round.

The first two rounds of voting were basically similar, with Steele performing better than some observers believed. The GOPAC director and former Maryland lieutenant governor had been under pressure in the past few weeks because of the perception among some in the party that he was too moderate. Duncan held his own, garnering 52 votes and first place in the first round, and tying with Steele at 48 in the second round.

While the third ballot was cast and counted, Wonkette founder Ana Marie Cox tweeted from the event that the rumor was Duncan would lose his support in the third round, though that conventional wisdom was countered by a GOP insider. Republican Internet strategist and blogger Patrick Ruffini, a little after 1 p.m., tweeted that the race was effectively down from five men to three.

Indeed, Duncan did remain in, but he lost four more votes and Steele jumped into first place with 51. Dawson picked up five, but remained in third behind Duncan. Anuzis, holding tight at 24 votes, became the topic of speculation as The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder tweeted that the Michigan GOP chairman could make a deal with Steele. Cox, though, tweeted that such a move wouldn’t happen because it made too much sense. Again, she relayed a remark made at the event that Duncan was done.

Before the fourth ballot, Duncan stepped up to the podium and withdrew his name from consideration. With Steele and Dawson about halfway to the Promised Land, and Steele with a 17-vote lead, Duncan’s 44 votes were set up to be a potential game-changer. As the votes were being cast, the race largely came down to Steele and Dawson, with Anuzis and Blackwell bringing up the rear.

Dawson was the big winner after the fourth round, gaining 28 votes and leaping past Steele, holding a 62-60 advantage. S.C. politcal consultant and staffer to Rep. Gresham Barrett, B.J. Boling, tweeted that Duncan would be voting for Dawson. Cox surmised that if Blackwell dropped out, which looked increasingly possible after not picking up any votes, his social conservative backers would go to Dawson and effectively decide the race.

“Anuzis [who holds 31 votes] can stop the all-white country club guy from winning if he really wants to,” Cox tweeted. “Not that I’m encouraging him.”

As of the 3 p.m. reconvening of the meeting, Blackwell stepped out of the race. Blackwell tossed his support to Steele, influenced, he said, by the Good Book. If Steele pulled his total number of votes, then he would be sitting pretty at 75, just 10 shy of the winning total. Boling did not believe it would make a difference, and that followers of Blackwell would still move into the Dawson camp.

The move to Dawson didn’t happen, but the move to Steele did. He pulled 19 more votes on the fifth ballot, pulling within just six votes of taking the chairmanship. Dawson came in second with 69, and Anuzis, pulling just 20, went in front of the committee shortly after the vote to drop out of the race. He did not publicly pick either Steele or Dawson, which leaves the door open for his supporters. But, Dawson still needed 16 of the 20 to win on the sixth round of voting.

Cox tweeted that Anuzis told RNC members that he was never interested in making a deal for the chairmanship, but that it was unlikely that his supporters would back Dawson in the final vote. S.C. consultant Wesley Donehue was of the same mind, tweeting that there was “No doubt at all that Anuzis voters will go to Steele.”

And, they did, with Steele picking up 12 of the Anuzis backers.

Enjoying significant support among his native South Carolinians, Dawson was rumored as far back as fall 2007 to be running for RNC chair, but only officially kicked off his effort in late summer of last year.

Recently-elected RNC committeeman Glenn McCall put Dawson’s name in nomination, saying, “The Lord has put great mentors into my life, and Katon is no exception. I know his heart — he’s a great man, and he has turned our party around with a lot of hard work. I feel that the things we need from a chairman, that inspire voters…we can raise funds, but if we don’t have inspired voters, it’s all for naught. Katon has done those things, so the things that we need in a new chairman of the party, someone that can inspire voters, someone that can rebuild the grassroots operation — like Katon has done in South Carolina — someone that can work very hard, which you do every day, to protect our Republican brand, hold our elected officials accountable, and he does that with a very simple statement at how he’s brought coalitions together in South Carolina. Some of you may think that its really easy, because it’s South Carolina, but it’s not. We have coalitions in every state, all across the country. In South Carolina, Katon has been able to bring those coalitions together….”

McCall continued, “If you look at his record, and that’s what it is all about, we’re not like the Democrats, we’re about experience and accomplishments, and that’s what we need in our next chairman. Out of all the candidates, great candidates, he’s the only one that has the experience to actually, and the accomplishments — proven accomplishments, to move our party forward.”

As the vote drew closer, Dawson was under increasing heat for not only his 12-year membership in the all-white, elite Forest Lake Country Club, but also his comments at a West Forum event at USC in 2003 in which he said he was inspired to get involved in politics because of the desegregation of A.C. Flora High School. Additionally, some were pointing to his participation with the Camellia Ball, one of a number of exclusive, and usually all-white, debutante balls in the Columbia area.

Dawson counted on the support of black RNC members like McCall and N.C. committeewoman Ada Fisher to blunt the accusation that he was racially insensitive. However, it did not stop Democrats, and Republicans supporting other candidates, from spreading these stories across the Internet.

In the coming days, it will be determined whether having to defend his background harmed Dawson enough to where he could not take the win.