Posted on 01/13/2014 11:24:55 AM PST by SeekAndFind
“Mr. Rove has grown so controversial among some conservatives,” the NYT wrote recently, citing GOP sources, “that candidates worry that donors will not contribute to a super PAC if it is connected to [Rove's group American] Crossroads.” You trust a guy in that position, whose personal brand is now sufficiently toxic among righties that it can alter fundraising battle plans, to have a sharp read into the thinking of tea partiers, don’t you?
On the other hand, he’s not totally wrong. I noticed over the weekend how conservative media, including columnists, are starting to pay attention to the amount of coverage Bridgegate got in its first flush versus the coverage Obama’s IRS scandal received initially. No less a tea partier than Palin, while noting that what Christie’s team did is “atrocious,” was quick to add that his sins pale next to O’s. That’s the key to damage control for him on the right: Play up every available contrast with Obama, from the gravity of Obama’s misdeeds to the partisan skew in media coverage to the quick action he took to punish the guilty staffers versus Obama’s reluctance to fire anyone. He’s past the point of earning any “street cred” with conservatives but pointing out their common enemies on the left will naturally make some people on the right more reluctant to use Bridgegate against him.
Problem is, he can’t follow that strategy yet. It’s still too early, and the scandal too shady, for Christie to shift into victim mode now. Case in point:
New documents related to a traffic jam planned by a member of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) staff show for the first time how furiously Christie’s lieutenants inside the Port Authority worked to orchestrate a coverup after traffic mayhem engulfed Fort Lee last year.
Inside the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Christie’s top appointees neglected furious complaints from Fort Lee’s police chief as well as from angry rush-hour commuters. One woman called asking why the agency was “playing God with people’s jobs.”
The Republican governor’s appointees instructed subordinates to stonewall reporters who were asking questions. They even ordered up an actual “traffic study” to chronicle the impact and examine whether closing the lanes permanently might improve traffic flow. The study’s conclusion: “TBD.”
Jersey Democrats are threatening to subpoena Bridget Kelly, the Christie staffer fired for sending the “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” e-mail. Christie’s own timeline of when he first heard about those traffic problems has changed, although whether that’s an incriminating inconsistency or just a memory lapse remains to be seen. And now, as Ed noted earlier, the feds are sniffing around whether he misused funds appropriated for Sandy relief by giving the tourism ad bid to a contractor that featured him and his family in their spots. Maybe all of that will evaporate, leaving Christie free to argue that he was the target of a media witch hunt that President Bambi never had to endure. But even if it does, most tea partiers would, I think, react by making the point Mollie Hemingway made the other day: Namely, however trivial Christie’s scandal is vis-a-vis O’s, it reflects the same tendency by underlings to damage a political opponent by hurting his constituents that we saw from O with the IRS scandal and the national park closures during the shutdown. The scale of the scandals is different and media partisanship is what it is, but if you want something new and fresh in 2016, why choose a guy whose administration proved that it’s not above Chicago-style hardball retaliation and whose 2016 platform will be less about limiting the reach of government than about making it work “better”?
Karl is a toxic scumbag. Later, I will try to insult him.
What the hell does Karl Rove know about the Tea Party?
You have RINO Rove rong. He is a brilliant sales genius. His only "triumph:" what shoulkda been the slam dunk election and relection of GWB into suspense-filled cliff-hangers. With this track record of '0' results, he still is able to get clients to pay him exhorbitant fees time and time again. He is capable of spending huge, truly astronomical amounts of campaign cash without any appreciable result ... and then getting re-hired. Rove campaigns would shame a Detroit Buy-Here, Pay-Here Used Car Lot, yet the Republicans (et al) hire him again and again!
Now however, exactly as in a steaming road apple, there is a teentsie grain of truth in Rove's latest expostulation.
If Big Pussy Christy had the cojones of a chipmunk, he could turn the tables on his gay buddy from DC, who has a box'o'scandals that truly dwarf anything Christie's opponbents could find.
But, the question remains. WTF does it take to get a 400-lb RINO to charge?
Apparently Rove judges Tea Party conservatives by his own ever-moving, elastic principles-if the miscreant has an “”R” next to his name, no matter how he’s cosied up to the left, the right should rally round him. Rove, you and your cohorts living in the DC bubble have absolutely no idea of the principles real American patriots live by, integrity is a foreign word to you, and so is betrayal. Rove obviously thinks that it’s a “betrayal” if we don’t stand by a man who, for his own political ambitions, betrayed conservatives at the first chance he got when he thought it would advance his own ambitions. We’re apparently rubes and hicks for actually believing that the principles for which we stand on the conservative platform matter more than which avenue-D or R-a given politician uses to get ahead. He mistook our patience with George W in his second term, for either weakness or his own brand of cynicism.
And Rove has a nerve anyway, considering his insulting dismissal of the Tea Party when it interfered with his plans. One wonders why he thinks it would be a good thing now, to have the support of the Tea Party, after what he’s said about it.
Karl doesn’t speak for me!
Only in your dreams Karl...
Not sure who’s signing this guys paychecks recently, but he appears to be severely out of touch.
I think he just graduated from the McLame (d) Arizona school of Repulicanism.
If that hog wants any sympathy from conservatives he can do a cannonball off Michigan’s Big Mac bridge, naked, in the middle of Jan, live on PPV with all proceeds going to the NRA.
If he’s willing to do all that, we’ll muster a “ Gee...sorry bout your tough luck ahole.”
My main irritation, is the left attempting to trump up what would be less than a tempest in a teapot, if it were a Democrat. Considering how Hillary Clinton, Hussein, and their supporters have dismissed much worse scandals as mere “distractions”, including those which cost many people their lives.
Just about the craziest theory I’ve ever heard!
Fugeddaboudit, Tokyo!
I was thinking something along the lines of what you said. There’s no question that Rove is politically very savvy, if not genius. It’s just too bad that he can’t be turned (if that’s the word) to utilize his genius the “right” way.
Nope.
Petty vindictiveness won’t give him “street cred.” Quite the opposite, actually.
Playing the victim card gives you street cred? With conservatives no less? I thought Rove was from Texas.
Dear Mr. Rove:
No.
Sincerely,
The Tea Party
**** rove... both are a FOUR LETTER WORD!
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