"OK people! When the phone rings, just say what's on the cue card: 'Thank you for calling the John McCain Presidential Campaign Charity Telethon. How much is your pledge?' Stay positive, everyone!"
If I posted what I really thought about Rove my post would be deleted by the moderator.
Let me just say this, instead:
Rove’s a Genius, this I know, because the RNC tells me so.
We’re off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz...
But he and the President need to take responsibility for not forcefully defending the war--over and over and over again.
They didn't need to be zealot crazies like Cindy Sheehah, but getting out the GOOD NEWS from Iraq and showing the progress there (instead of relying on the LAMESTREAM MEDIA to do it!) would have been wise.
And, to Rove's point, if the "dissatisfaction in Congress" was a determining factor, well that just shows ME how inept the Republicans were at pointing out the corruption in the Democrat party.
Let's face it: both parties have their whackos. The fact is, the Democrats did not have any of their corruption exposed or trumpted.
Harry Reid's shady land deals? silence. Nancy Pelosi's vineyards and her wages? silence. That crook (Jefferson, was it?) down in Louisiana? barely a mention.
Even when the Foley story broke, Republicans should have been all over the Democrats for supporting that Congressman in Massachusetts who had an affair with his intern then got a chairmanship....sorry, I forget his name.
They needn't have defended Foley, just attack the damn 'rats.
This "new tone" stuff doesn't have to be implemented when you're being targeted for destruction. The "new tone" works only when you're clearly in charge--and when it comes to the press, the Republicans are NOT in charge.
“A footnote: Republican leaders report that the most enthusiasm among grassroots activists is for Gingrich and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul.”
That statement destroyed any credibility (in my mind) that this article may have held. Sorry, but something this crass and bogus calls ALL facts into question.
LLS
This is news?
They just figured this out?
Heck, Rush has been saying this about the election SINCE the election.
One needs to carefully distinguish between"enthusiasm" and "manic psychosis".
Here in OH, it's hard to figure it out. Dickie Morris says that 16% of indies, who voted Republican in 2000 and 2004, voted Dem last election.
While it's true, as Rush says, that if you don't have a person in the military or know someone closely who is over there, the war really doesn't affect your daily life, the constant drumbeat of casualties and bad news CONVINCES people that it does.
On the other hand, other than the war, the single biggest thing that changed from 2000 to 2006 among Republicans was their willingness to spend money and get caught in scandals. That hurt, a lot. Look at Vitter: the dual standard is ridiculous, but it's a fact of life. CLEAN UP YOUR ACT, REPUBLICANS! You can't take dirty money; you can't cheat on your wives; and you can't straddle the fence on spending.
Hmm. And the color of their sky, is that in the report?
They all miss Katrina - the most clever move was the rats spinning that one as “all Bush’s fault.”
Rove refuses to admit the hatred free people have for globalism and open borders.
“Karl Rove, President Bush’s political lieutenant, told a closed-door meeting of 2008 Republican House candidates and their aides Tuesday that it was less the war in Iraq than corruption in Congress that caused their party’s defeat in the 2006 elections.”
Nice try Karl LaRaza Rove. Bush holding hands with Ted Kennedy, shoving CIR and amnesty down our throats in a critical election year is what divided the party. Bush risked it and Bush lost it. Take some responsibility.
The Republican party needs Gingrich - just NOT as its candidate.
The writer is on crack!
I guess that's why Rove and Bush supported the career RINO Republicans in 2006.
Rove is in legacy building mode.
Our congressman Pombo lost to a rookie dem. Every commercial, and there were quite a few, was about corruption. He never fought it, the idea stuck in peoples minds, and he lost. The war, to my recollection, never even came up.
Corruption is just a symptom for a lack of party discipline.
Republicans in Congress just ran hog wild because their own leadership refused to lock their heels, limit their excesses, reward loyalty and punish disloyalty.
This was their leadership in the Congress proper, in the republican party, and ironically from George W. Bush. The latter was the strangest.
I have come to the conclusion that President Bush, with a republican Congress, believed in a strange doctrine that lived, intermittently, in the late 19th Century Presidents.
Simply put, that the President should deal with foreign policy, and leave domestic politics up to the Congress. In domestic issues, the President is just the executive of the wishes of Congress.
To support this idea I can point to three things: the lack of Presidentially sponsored, ordinary domestic policy issues (setting aside the WoT laws); the lack of Presidential arm twisting and vetoes to new laws; and the frequent use of the Presidential Signing Statement, in which he stated how he interpreted the new law and intended to execute it.
But without the discipline and self controls from the Congressional leadership, the republican party, or the President, the Congressional republicans just behaved abominably, and were correspondingly punished in the election.
Hunter/Coburn’08!
Rove was once a God here....criticism of Lord Karl was a perilous endeavor
how the mighty have fallen and taken our political capital with them
they still just don’t get it
In effect, Rove was rebutting the complaint inside the party that George W. Bush is responsible for Republican miseries by invading Iraq.
I can't believe any Republican candidates are actually listening to Rove if they really want to win. Distance yourself from Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley??? Is that supposed to be brilliant advice for 2008?!?
I'd love to hear what Rove advised them to do vis a vis immigration? No doubt he told tell them to embrace amnesty, er, sorry, I mean "comprhensive immigration reform" .
And the war in Iraq ain't exactly a selling point at tstage. Taking down Saddam was the right thing to do, but the war has been terribly mismanaged post invasion. Unfotunately, that's the truth.
Karl Rove is partly right. The Congressional scandals and free spending contributed to the loss of Congress in 2006. But the Bush White House has its share of blame. Particularly its “Borders? What are those?” immigration policy.
That is spin for the benefit of the President and the War policy.
Any wonder RNC fundraising is in the tank? How are Republicans supposed to take a GOP that puts Democrats into office to bring in amnesty?
FIRE MEL MARTINEZ.
Rove has helped preside over the expulsion of Conservatives from the GOP. He can kiss my @ss.
In effect, Rove was rebutting the complaint inside the party that George W. Bush is responsible for Republican miseries by invading Iraq.
Yet another article where there's no mention of the border and illegals as the cause of the problems.....now it's because of Mark Foley. FOFLOL!
There's an elephant in the room!!!