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Probably one of the most controversial figures in today’s politics, Karl Rove announced today he is leaving the Bush Administration. Rove has been maligned recently for his involvement with the attorney scandal in the DOJ and with the Plame leak investigation. Yet Rove has also been designated as one of the most effective Presidential advisers in Political history, even named “The Architect” who planned Bush’s 2004 win.
Yet just now on Fox News we hear speculation that Rove could be leaving to jump on board one of the 2008 campaigns. There is no doubt that his expertise would in fact give any campaign a significant boost. Who knows the statistical break down of key states like Rove? Yet with Rove there is a lot of baggage.
When I first heard the rumor he could be signing on with a Presidential campaign my thought was, “hmm, good news or bad news?” Let’s just hypothesize for a moment and say my favorite candidate hired him. Would I be excited? I don’t think I would. Romney is running on a “Reform Washington” ticket. Mitt’s the outsider who knows that Americans have had enough of the Washington game, and the one candidate who knows how to reform a troubled ship. It would seem like rehiring the captain of the sinking ship, no matter how much of an expert, would be a PR disaster. Could you really say you are going to come in and reform DC with the help of Karl Rove? It’s like saying I am going to remake the Big Mac with the help Hamburglar.
Then that one libertarian Judge on Fox, the one with the funny last name, said he was betting Fred Thompson would pick him up. Thank heavens. Just another weight on Thompson. He wants Rove? All the better. It’s not easy campaigning as a GOP candidate right now, especially when you are a former lobbyist, a Hollywood actor, have the same accent Bush got derided for, and now have hired the man with the bedeviled reputation who is seen as an agent of corruption by the middle and left.
None of this is to say Rove wouldn’t be a great member on an ‘08 team, or that he really is deserving of the Democratic bombs he’s received. But all of this is to say, if the GOP wants to win in 2008, they need to take Karl Rove’s own advice and cut themselves free of the corruption in DC that unfortunately, Rove is now the poster child for.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:09 am
[...] post by Jason Bonham and software by Elliott [...]
August 13th, 2007 at 11:17 am
I think that Bush is morally evil, corrupt, and lacks any ability for moral empathy…but Rove I believe is truly authoritarian in his scope and gives/gave Bush justification for a lot of his immoral actions. It’s good that Rove’s gone, but it’s not who’s behind the power that’s the important question — it’s the power.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Nusrat you are a cartoon.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Rove leaving will frustrate liberals (the loss of an object of their hatred). At this point I think the main liberal motivation is hatred of Bush and it’s only slightly moderated by lust for power.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Am I? Is it possible to march the largest military in the world into a third world country, ordering hired murderers to slaughter people who are not directly threatening them in any way, shape, or form, while possessing any moral empathy at all?
Explain how that is morally justifiable, and I’ll be glad take back my virulent comments. However, I see no situation in which killing innocent people who have done no harm to you is justifiable under any valid moral code.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Rove is bad news. He was spot on in his assessment that the GOP vote would be enough to beat the Dems in 2004 if all of the socons were motivated to show up at the polls, but he was too willing to compromise principles on spending and government expansion. In the long run the big government problem and the perception that the Republican party is out of sync with the general public on social issues alienated GOP voters. That, and of course, Iraq hur the party big time last fall. Rove failed to comprehend the long term problems that came about because of his strategy for short-term gain. Instead of selling out and making bigger government he should have instructed the president to be a LEADER and explain why limited government is better for all.
August 13th, 2007 at 11:58 am
I wonder what happens when you Google Nusrat?
August 13th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Yeah. If Fred Thompson wants Rove, he has my best wishes. It’d be the sort of monstrously idiotic move that’d we’ve come to expect from the Thomspon campaign/non-campaign.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
any campaign that would touch rove is so stupid that I would never nominate them. whether he deserves the hate or not, it is political suicide.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Matt, agreed! Though I doubt Thompson is considering it.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
In the general election, Rove may or may not be political poison, but in the primaries, among mostly Republicans voters, where Bush enjoys a high approval rating and support on most issues, and where the plame and attorney “scandals” are seen as political witch-hunts, Rove could be an asset. Rove is, unquestionably, one of the most brilliant political strategists of our time, and if one candidate does pick him up, all the other have a big problem. While there may be some people turned off by the hiring of Rove, those people are most likely to be Democrats and left-leaning independents, those who are not ususally allowed or inclined to vote in the GOP primary in high numbers.
I think the problem is going to be that few candidates WANT Rove, but none want an opponent to have him.
August 13th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
by the way, a google search of “Nusrat” turns up results about some Pakistani musician.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, actually. I have several of his CDs.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
What’s the point, though? I notice you and troy think it’s clever to joke about the username, but in all seriousness, how is murder, or the ordering of murder, justifiable? If you can explain how that is a sign of human empathy, please do.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
you are going to have to provide examples. Where has the United States Government ordered “hired murderers” to kill innocent people. There have been some incidents with some soldiers acting outside the orders of the government, but you are going to have to provide more info.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
I don’t think anyone was joking about your user name. Sorry if it hit a nerve though.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Oh, it didn’t hit a nerve. I just misread
Soldiers are the hired murderers — sorry not to clarify.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Nusrat, actually we stepped in and STOPPED (hundreds of?)thousands of documented murders by Saddam Hussein. That is fact.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
And in doing so, we carpet bombed the hell out of villages. You call that a fight? It’s as much a fight as if I were to step into a boxing ring with an anorexic.
The fact is: anyone who volunteers for the army is essentially being hired to be a legal hit-man. A soldier’s job is to murder whomever his boss tells him to murder. That is the definition of a hit-man. Not exactly the most moral profession, signing up for the military.
The point is…Bush was absolutely OK with sending in hired hit-men (soldiers) to murder innocent people. Is this a moral thing to do?
August 13th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
On the topic at the top:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0807/5354.html
He’ll be behind the scenes in ‘08.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Nusrat,
Are you a pacifist? Do you not see the need for countries to have a military?
August 13th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Not a coerced military, funded by coercion.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
ACT, I get what you are saying. However, I think the main candidates must start distancing themselves from Bush, and picking up a guy like Rove will not help them do this.
Independents are going to decide who becomes president, and center/right leaning independents are in no mood to elect another Bush. I’d argue Fred could be hurt the most by taking him. He is already the most similar to Bush of all the major candidates running, and to pick up a guy like Rove would just seal the comparison. If he does it, it will be an excellent opportunity for Romney to frame himself as the “anti-Bush†(very competent, with a new team) without getting even the slightest bit nasty about it. Rudy will have the same opportunity.
He will definitely add uncertainty if he gets involved, though I’m not sure who will benefit.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Nusrat,
Coerce is to force, to make someone do something against his or her own will by using force or threats.
How does that apply to a volunteer army?
August 13th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I don’t mean to bring this back to the original Karl Rove story, but. . .
I think avoiding Karl Rove will prove to be a bigger mistake by any campaign. For all his faults he is still by all accounts a brilliant political strategist. The fact that the Democrats have held him up as the devil incarnate proves just how valuable he can be. By passing on his expertise, a candidate is only allowing the opposition to dictate who should run our campaigns. Most GOPers have little love for James Carville but I doubt we’d be surprised if a Democratic candidate chose him for campaign manager. Anyone running for proseident on the GOP side better get used to constant viscious attacks – political and personal – from the other side (the DEm party, the left-wing organizations, the liberal blogosphere, the MSM, etc). Who better to help a campaign succeed in the face of such attacks than Karl Rove.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Scott,
Because I am being coerced to pay for it.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Scott,
I appreciate the argument that you are trying to make, but I’ve been down this road with nusrat before. To argue from the position that our soldiers are “hired murderers” you either have an infantile world view or you side with America’s enemies. You can’t argue persuasively with children. You just need to work against them gaining enough power to destroy the country.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Nusrat,
You can’t just choose to opt out when everything does not go the way you think it should. If we could, the system wouldn’t function. There would be chaos. That’s why there is a democratic process in place to deal, as best we can, with issues we don’t agree with.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
alaska jake,
It doesn’t appear that Rove is going to be doing much other than writing a book, which I’m sure will be a huge bestseller.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Well, whoever the GOP candidate is they will always need someone who has the ‘craft’ yto cage voters with junk mail. Impungn that the other candidate has god-forbid a black child. Or make sure that anti-gay initiatives are on as many local ballots as possible to drive the base. Yep, that’s pure political genius.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Bill,
You win the Lefty prize!! Republicans are “Racist, Sexist, Bigoted, Homophobes” all in one post. Oops, you missed Sexist. Better luck next time.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Troy,
But isn’t that what he did? As BBC reporter Greg Palast about the vote caging, ask John McCain about his black child, and ask Karl himself about the anti-Gay initiatives. And no I don’t all Republicans are that way, but these are proven techniques to win elections. Disprove it Tony.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Scott – yeah I just heard that but I’d be very surprised if Rove stays out of the ‘08 campaign. Even if he takes a minor role, he will not be content to just sit in his living room and watch the whole campaign unfurl on TV.
Bill B – Without addressing the specific allegations you make against Rove (since I don’t know the details), I would just say that the role of a political strategist is not to be a nice guy. His only mission in life is to win the election. That said, if Rove was able to win through the means you suggest, that says a lot more about the voters than it does about Rove. Appealing to the base is what a strategist needs to do. Rove, better than anyone in politics, knew how to read the voters and knew how to respond to them. And he succeeded several times. Do I wish the tactics you mention weren’t necessary? Of course – it’s too bad some voters maintain certain opinions with which I strongly disagree. But Rove’s job was not to make the voters see the light on gay issues and racial harmony. His job was to respond to 50% plus one of the voters and convince them to vote for his guy. And he did that better than anyone I can remember.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Fred has no need for a savvy political strategist manipulating things behind the scenes. He’s already married to one!
August 13th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
His name is Andrew Napolitano, by the way…hope the AZ Governor doesn’t end up getting called “that woman governor with the funny last name” if she gets shortlisted for VP.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Jake:
The ‘caging’ is illegal. Republicans, as part of a court settlement, said that they would never do this again. Most of the people that were targeted were, of course, of color (also illegal). Also some military personell who were in Iraq. According to the emails, Karl’s right hand man, Tim Griffin, was the head of this operation. He resigned his US attorney’s post the day after Rep. Conyers asked the BBC for the evidence and opened an investigation. Not only that, as a presidetial adviser, and on the US payroll, Mr. Rove was not supposed to be doing ANY work for the campaign. That’s illegal. Technically that means my tax dollars paid the Bush campaign.
And the tactics of race-baiting and anti gay hatred are necessary? Maybe you are right. But what kind of a country do we live in then?
August 13th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Bill B,
As far as the McCain issue or any other dirty tricks you can’t really say it came from the top. Often in capmpaigns, over zealous staffers spread information below the radar.
With regard to anti-gay initiatives, they were anti-gay “marriage” issues. Which by the way, all the top tier candidates both democrat and republican are against as is the majority of the country.
Also, citing the BBC is not likely to help gain support for your argument.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Right now, Rove is a bit toxic to any campaign. Besides, all but one of the candidates has a set staff, way of running things, and individual campaign strategy. Short of Fred Thompson, I don’t think any candidate will have any desire to actively seek Rove out. Things could change in the general election, but for now, I think Rove is on vacation.
However, there are two things that could make Rove hot property:
1) A candidate tries to tap him – As I said, very few candidates have any want or need for him at this point, but ALL of the candidates have a strong need to stop him from falling into an opposing camp.
2) Bush becomes popular – this could happen, and may already be starting. If Iraq improves, Bush approval rating is going to go up, significantly. If we are able to start drawing down troops becuase of progress, his approval rating will skyrocket. If Bush becomes popular, so does everything and everyone associated with his administration, and Rove will instantly become the must-have.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I think that the “Karl Rove as political genius” meme is utter nonsense.
He managed the 2000 campaign in such a manner as to give GWB a strong second-place finish, as counted by the number of votes earned from the electorate. In any just world, that would have been the last we all saw of Bush and Rove. But by a fluke they ended up in the White House. The ‘02 campaign was one by the fact that the president had acted properly in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, and the implications of the failure to pursue al-Q after Tora Bora were not yet felt. And of course, Iraq had not happened yet.
In 04 we also had a set of lucky circumstances. Starting of course with the advanteges of incumbency, and a war whose first few weeks were successful, and whose quagmire-nature was only beginning to emerge. Nonetheless, the victory in ‘04 was by the smallest margin of any successful presidential re-elect, and was pulled off by using a strategy that left the president with almost no political capital-boost, as he found out the moment he tried to spend that capital he thought he had won.
The essentials of Rovism was to win by ginning up the base, as opposed to appealing to the middle. The consequences of that strategy was to leave the president with what he has now – continuing strong base support, and no support whatsoever anywhere else. Bush today has HALF the popular support that Reagan and Clinton had, and it is all coming from the hard-core base.
The problem here is that the moment that the administration runs into problems, there is no well of loyalty or even grudingn support available in the middle.
All presidents, even Bush, need to govern with some eye to the middle. As a result of this combination – ginning up the base to get elected, and then doing at least some things to govern from the middle, the base of the party ends up being dissatisfied, yet feeling the need to express loyalty. As the administration winds down, and they thus lose political power, the fissures open. Ironically, the energy of GOP dissatisfaction lies even further to the right that Bush, for there is a lot of conservative anger about those moves to the middle that the president needed to make.
So the GOP today has basically abandonded the middle ground, stoked up the base to be antagonistic to everyone else in the country, and has an energetic movement that is even more isolated from the middle than the president himself.
The only hope for the GOP is that the Dems find a way to screw up this golden opportunity. The political middle is being offered up to them on a silver platter. I know that a lot of Republicans drift off to sleep every night convincing themselves that the Dems are incapable of siezing this opportunity. I am not arguing that they are necessarily wrong in that, but it does amount to a lot of wishful thinking. The Democratic party, for all its faults, is the oldest political party in the world, and has learned a lot of lessons over the years. If they can figure out a way to exploit the present situation, then you may well see, starting in Nov. 08, just what a genius Karl Rove has really been, in terms of directing the long term trajectory of the GOP.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
As horrible as it is to say this, “Race-baiting” is all in how you define it. Dems use the same type of strategy to appeal to their base. Remember the political ads back in 2000 showing the Texas case involving the African American who was brutally dragged on the ground behind a pick up truck by a white guy? Ads shown just days before the election? That wasn’t race baiting? It’s not a job I’d ever be proud to have my kids doing, but political strategists do what they have to do to win. If the electorate is racially divided, the strategist (from either party) must play to that, however immoral that may be. I’m not saying it’s right or ethical or the American way. But it’s what works with the voters we have. Dirty tricks are only dirty to the people they are used against.
As for any illegal activities, that’s a different issue which the courts are dealing with now or have already handled. Both parties often partake in illegal campaign activities knowing full well the repurcussions are well worth the effort. The GOP doesn’t have a monopoly on illegal campaign activity.
August 13th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Scott:
Why not cite the BBC? The mainstream media in this country is all under corporate control, and you are not likely to see this stuff elsewhere. I laugh every time I hear “liberal media.†Yes, the media owned by Disney (most of which is owned by Saudi Arabia) the media owned by General Electric (major arms components), and of course the media owned by Rupert Murdoch are all liberal media outlets. It was only foreign media that said that Saddam didn’t have nukes, or other WMD. Our media went right along with ‘W’ and his cherry picked intelligence, just dying to get those reporters embedded, and cover the ’shock and awe’ and get those ratings.
True the top tier Democrats do not favor gay marriage, personally I think it’s a Constitutional issue, you know, “Pursuit of Happiness” and all that. Obviously that doesn’t apply to all. But at least the Democrats are not pushing a Constitutional amendment like candidate Bush did. So what if most people in this country oppose it. Isn’t one of the founding principles of this country that the majority will not impose its will over the minority, and exclude them? This is an issue driven by religion. You can’t give a secular reason for this. Aren’t we also to have a separation of church and state?
August 13th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Tano,
I think was Rove was most notable for was how well he knew the counties across the country. It was he who knew the election was going to come down to Ohio in ‘04 before anyone else, as I remember.
Your post, which mentions much truth, assumes that a longer term strategy could have or would have worked better. I am not so sure of that given the political atmosphere of the time.
By the way, the only candidate or non/candidate, that I could see even considering that paradigm is FDT. The red state strategy is just too tight to hold on to anymore in my opinion. Which is why I believe we, meaning republicans, are not going to have a southerner at the top of the ticket, at least in this election. Personally, being from the northeast, I’m a bit encouraged by that. Not a lot but a bit.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
The day Rove leaves the WH he should say to the White House staff exactly what Francis Cleveland said “Take good care of things, I’ll be back”
August 13th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Bill B,
The BBC is notorious for it’s hatred of conservatism and Bush especially. Their reports are filled with comtempt and hautiness toward anything having to do with the administration.
As far as the secular argument against gay marriage, men are designed to mate with females, procreate and ensure humanity’s continuance. It’s just naturally set up that way. If a small minorty choose to live outside the natural that is their right. However, it is not their right to be given the same legal status as those who benefit society (in the ideal) raising families where a mother and father are present giving the children the best possible healthy environment in which to grow up.
August 13th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
2008 is going to be a very different game than was 2000 or 2004, and Rove’s playbook may prove to be outdated.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Bill B,
Your thought process demonstrates what is so terrifying about liberal doctrine. Gay marriage is a constitutional issue because of “the pursuit of happiness”? Good lord, what a silly idea. The constitution says nothing whatever about the “pursuit of happiness”. That’s the Declaration of Independence if you remember. Second of all, what in the world could “the pursuit of happiness” possibly mean in a legal sense? It certainly couldn’t mean you’re entitled to do anything you’d like, as long as it’s done in the pursuit of happiness.
Happiness is simply a shorthand term for “that which brings me pleasure”, or “a feeling of gratification”. People don’t pursue “unhappiness”. They might be mistaken about those pursuits that will bring them happiness. Or they might pursue things out of a sense of self-destruction, but even then they’re not pursuing unhappiness. They simply have a different predilections about what will cause them to feel gratification (i.e, some feel “happy” when they’re miserable). So what is “the pursuit of happiness”? Absolutely everything that an individual chooses to pursue. And it can’t possibly be right that the Declaration of Independence or the constitution intended to give people absolute freedom of action.
After all, the latter was intended to establish, and the former was intended to prepare for, a government; a government which, like all governments, must restrict choice in some respects. I don’t imagine it strikes you as particularly vindictive for the government to take money from the rich (thus restricting their ability to pursue happiness with that money) to fund lavish social programs. That’s because the writers of the Declaration of Independence never meant, by the pursuit of happiness, anything like “the right to pursue whatever you think will constitute your own happiness without interference from the government”.
Instead it meant that “we, the colonists, think you, the British Empire, have interfered with our right to pursue our happiness in certain key respects, and we’ll lay some of them out in the remainder of this declaration, and then in various pamphlets, treatises, and debates and discussions, throughout the revolution, and up until we establish a new government that will persist in perpetuity”. And I can assure you that the government refusing to sanction, and incentivize any and every conceivable union, wasn’t among their grievances with England.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Rove is 4-0. Nuff said.
August 13th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Gamecock. . .exactly right. People can criticize his tactics, and mourn the loss of ethics in politics, they can long for the days when voters cared about actual issues more than negative attacks (although I’m not sure that ever happened). But Rove accomplished the only goal he had to accomplish – winning the election. And like you said he’s 4-0. How he got there is incidental to his success. We may not like political strategists, we may call their strategy “dirty tricks,” and we may wish they were sweet and cuddly teddy bears instead of mean nasty ugly monsters. But they aren’t sweet and they’re far from cuddly, and campaigns wouldn’t last a week without them.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
CNBC’s Larry Kudlow asked Rudy Giuliani today if Karl Rove will help him in his campaign.
Rudy’s response:
“I’m sure if I’m the Republican nominee, he would. And if he would help me before, I would love it. He’s a great guy and he’s a good friend. And, as you know, he’s a very, very smart man.”
Here’s the link to the full interview:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/20252849
August 14th, 2007 at 12:42 am
[...] for the future, Republican Jason Bonham wonders about any current Republican hopeful hiring Rove. Would having Rove as a consultant would help or harm a GOP candidate? That goes like this [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Scott:
Your statement “men are designed to mate with females, procreate and ensure humanity’s continuance.” That’s your secular argument? In a world where your legal definition revolves around your ability to procreate, if you are married and love your wife, I hope you have children. Because if you don’t, or you can’t, then, by your definition, why should you be allowed to be married?
Then you say, “If a small minority choose to live outside the natural that is their right.†I could point to psychological studies that show that for this segment of the population this IS nature and not nurture, not a choice. So if they are naturally pre-disposed to this activity, is it OK for them to marry? I could also show studies that the actual genitalia of parents are not at issue when it comes to matters of child rearing. Its more how the parents act with each other and with the child. Gay parents don’t have sex in front of their kids anymore than straight parents do. The fact that both parents are same sex also doesn’t pre-dispose a child to homosexuality either. In fact, most homosexuals had straight parents. Of course this is just ‘liberal’ science.
So based on your definition of “nature†its ok to discriminate against 10% of the population? I can’t say that this doesn’t follow a long tradition in this country.