The Kingmaker
Written by Justin on August 15, 2007 – 8:39 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
I’m going to have to disagree with Brian. I’m going to miss Karl. On the overall looks of things, I find Karl Rove to be a political genius. In fact, his resignation has sparked me to re-read Boy Genius which covers most of Rove’s life and shows how he was the architect of Bush’s political triumph. –Yes triumph, because I’m not starting history at his 2000 election, I am talking about the elections for Texas Governor and the like.
His ability to win elections began in high school but the bigger ones came when he became the College Republican National Chairman. It was the first of many disputed election wins for Rove.
Rove’s early career in Texas is most notable, since he basically took over the state, ousting Democrats from many top positions and getting George W into the Governor’s mansion –who took out a governor with a 70% approval rating before the race. Rove was brilliant at starting rumor campaigns and groomed Bush into the presidential contender that he became. One of the more memorable parts of the book, and one of Rove’s more brilliant tactics was during the 1986 Clements gubernatorial campaign. Rove claimed that he found a listening device in the office. However instead of going directly to the police, he held a press conference to implicate democrats in the scandal and said an independent task force would investigate the matter. There were allegations that Rove bugged his own office, nonetheless a brilliant election tactic.
Obviously people are critical of Rove’s influence during the Bush Administration, the 2006 election, and the notion that Rove cared more about getting people elected than the policy they’d support, but I’d disagree. Since 1981 Rove and Co. have been in the business of getting people elected and he’s done just that over and over and over again. Phil Gram’s party switch and senatorial campaign in 82 and 84 respectively, the Texas supreme court in 1986, Bush’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign were a few of Rove’s successes. To his defense, Rove’s hands were tied during much of the 2006 campaing because of the Abramoff and Foley scandals and of course the furstrating situation in Iraq.
All I can hope is that I’ll have the second coming of Rove in my corner one day.
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Posted in GOP Talking Points |
August 16th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Mark Halperin and John F. Harris outline Rove’s genius in their book, The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008.
I’m not finished with the book yet, but it’s decent. And much of what you talk about is echoed by the authors. It was Karl Rove’s job to get people elected, and he did that very well. You can’t fault a man for being good at his job.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:47 am
The examples you cite to applaud Rove’s brilliance are disappointing. It’s like saying, “he’s a sneaky, unethical guy, but all that matters is that he wins.” The planted listening device is a prime example of why we shouldn’t want the likes of Rove in positions of power. In the end, unethical behavior will always come back to haunt you.
August 17th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
You’re kidding, right? Someone who is “good at his job” shouldn’t be “faulted”? Do we seriously need to bring up every malcontent of the past century to demonstrate otherwise?
August 17th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Patrick-
Rove revolutionized the way people campaign. He took out top Dems in Texas and got republicans into power, and that I feel is what matters most
August 17th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Work on a campaign some day and see if you like whisper campaigns and pranks pulled on your candidate. You won’t admire them then. Kid.
August 18th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
What Justin means, in other words, is that ethics and integrity don’t matter, so long as his guys win.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Justin, it’s not just Democrats the Rove took out or kept out of power, in Texas or elsewhere. Some of his most infamous hatchet jobs have been performed on fellow Republicans. Some, not all, of what you refer to as “revolutionize” I would refer to as “polluting.” Some of Rove’s tactics were on the up-and-up and successful, and it is fair to call him a brilliant and innovative campaigner. But the long-term impact of his vision is highly suspect. If his methods can get a candidate elected, but not result in a successful presidency, then what has he really accomplished? Most conservatives I know do not think of the Bush presidency as a successful one, largely because they believe this administration has abandoned its conservative ideals time and time again when politics made it more prudent to comprimise on those issues. That is highly indicative of the Rove model: power before policy. If I were a committed conservative, I would seriously question what good it does to have a plan/leader in place to successfully elect a flawed (i.e., not very articulate) candidate if that candidate/administration doesn’t consistently stand behind conservative principles once in office.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I will go a step further than Patrick and say that Rove may have also really hurt conservative principles. For a lot of people that have gotten their political education in the Bush/Rove era, the meaning of being a conservative has changed. To new people, Rove and Bush are the conservatives. This is what they have been called in the mainstream media, despite the fact that the term does not apply to their actions. For new people to politics, to be conservative means to value corporations and continue war. The conservative way of winning elections is to be ruthless, and indeed unethical, if it will guarantee a win. It’s not correct, of course, but it is the perception that a lot of people have. It does not serve true conservatives at all to have Americans believing that Rove and Bush are your ideological representatives. It discourages some from defining themselves as conservative who might otherwise agree with true conservative principles.
To put it simply, people vote “D” because they’d be ashamed to be an “R”.
August 29th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Jesus. The Dems are in charge of congress and will win the white house next year because of what Rove’s “win dirty” approach to everything.
Why not just admit that you admire Joseph Goebbles as well, as he did for Hitler and the Nazi’s pretty much what Rove has done for Bush and the Republicans.