Ken Mehlman will step down as Republican National Committee Chairman, GOP officials said Thursday.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mehlman had not yet made his intentions public.
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During his tenure, Mehlman, 40, traveled extensively to promote the Republican agenda. When he became chairman in January 2005, he said he hoped to tighten the GOP's grip on power in Washington.

"Nothing is permanent in politics," he said then. "The goal is how do you — both in the short term and the long term — do things to make it sustainable?"