Karl Rove: History Favors Republicans in 2010

NRO ^ | November 13, 2008 | Greg Pollowitz

[RobinMasters]

Karl Rove has a rosy assessment of the GOP's chances in 2010 in today's WSJ. An excerpt:

History will favor Republicans in 2010. Since World War II, the out-party has gained an average of 23 seats in the U.S. House and two in the U.S. Senate in a new president's first midterm election. Other than FDR and George W. Bush, no president has gained seats in his first midterm election in both chambers.

Since 1966, the incumbent party has lost an average of 63 state senate and 262 state house seats, and six governorships, in a president's first midterm election. That 2010 is likely to see Republicans begin rebounding just before redistricting is one silver lining in an otherwise dismal year for the GOP.

In politics, good years follow bad years. Republicans and Democrats have experienced both during the past 15 years. A GOP comeback, while certainly possible, won't be self-executing and automatic. It will require Republicans to be skillful at both defense (opposing Mr. Obama on some issues) and offense (creating a compelling agenda that resonates with voters). And it will require leaders to emerge who give the rig

[slowhandluke]

He sounds clueless.

It doesn't much matter how we 'resonate with voters', when the votes are counted by ACORN operatives (re: MN Secretary of State), and when other ACORN operatives (new FCC head) can guarantee free air time for the left to counter each and every one of our resonating messages, or even block them as hate speech.

The field has been tilted left, it's no longer level. And that started in 2000, if not before, and Bush & Rove did precious little to fix it. And what little they did was done incompetently. Firing a couple of district attorneys for not following policy about voter fraud prosecutions should have been easily defensible.

[sickoflibs]

Let’s not blow it. Remember 1993-1994, we had a party to be proud of.

[TADSLOS]

Feh. We had historic based election analogies supporting a McCain win being touted daily here on FR by McCain sycophants leading up to this past election that fell apart. Spit and chicken bones.

[Welcome2thejungle]

After two successive shellackings in 2006 and 2008, it is difficult to see how we could possibly get any lower than this. This wasn’t exactly the most brilliant prediction I’ve ever heard.

[exist]

I thought everyone at National Review was on a cruise. I can tell they’re serious about helping conservatives get back in power.

[Ranjit]

I’ve love to be optimistic but the Republican party has lost it’s way... BIG time. I’m not sure 2 years will be enough time to repair.

---

You are absolutely right. Expecting results without doing nothing will not bring any improvement. If Republicans or Conservatives want to win, we have to first change our organizational structure. We need to reach people outside talk shows and fox news. When I mean we have to reach to these people, we should never compromise in our principles. If we have to loose 2010 let us loose it. But keep building internet based outreach program. Let us face it. Most of the conservatives and republicans are middle aged or old. They are in no position to take part in ground games or getting into the gutter of precinct battle. In the past, we trused on churches to deliver the elections but that is getting old because the number of church going people are falling in numbers.

[brownsfan]

Psssst, hey Karl. If there aren’t any conservative Republicans on the ballot in 2010, America will favor the Dems.

Why elect a Dem-lite when you can get a Dem to really trash the country properly?

[truthguy]

Rubbish, this type of analysis is a artifact of history. The US has been producing consumers of wealth rather than producers of wealth for about 40 years now. We have also been importing consumers of wealth. The growth of the number of people who want government services is greater than those who produce wealth. In short we have become a country of grasshoppers and not of ants. Obama's election is just the effect of this. The chickens have come home-finally and they are going to stay home.
The past history of elections in off presidential years is just the type of analysis a guy like Karl Rove would come up with. He lives in a different world than most of us.

[lone star annie]

If doughboy Rove had not been advising GWB, I think he would have been much better off. Thanks to Rove, GWB left the borders wide open and now we have over 50 million new RAT voters. He also advised Bush to sign every spending bill that came down the pike.

Pfft on his advice.

[Ranjit]

One positive thing about 2010 is that, obama will not be in the ballot. The turn out of blacks will not be so great. So, if we can find some decent conservative candidates, we can win. For example, in North Carolina Richard Burr(R) US senator can win by being more conservative and start building the ground game for the next 2 years. Same thing in Indiana, we can win it in 2010. Atlease we can win in the conservative states(pre obama) like North Carolina and Indiana

[LeavingNewYork]

Of the dimms I can see only Lincoln(NE) and Salazar (C0)as possibly going Repub. and I think Salazar is a stretch.

For the pubbies, Martinez (FL) will be in a battle, as will Spector (PA).

I would love to Spector and McCain being challenged in the primaries by a conservative.

[oldbill]

From Rove’s own words we learn the following:

A relatively few Hispanics (719,000) changed their votes from Republican (Bush 2004) to Democrat (Obama 2008).

However, from Rove we also learn this:

“Then there were those who didn’t show up. There were 4.1 million fewer Republicans voting this year than in 2004. Some missing Republicans had turned independent or Democratic for this election. But most simply stayed home.”

They stayed home. McCain and Rove, in their pandering to the Hispanic vote with amnesty and open borders and a long list of other promises, traded 4.1 million votes for Hispanics who not only didn’t vote for McCain the Pander Bear, but traded another 0.7 million votes to Obama.

Of course, Rove doesn’t admit to this result of his and McCain’s designs. And they and the RINOs insist that the only hope for Republicans is to pander even more to Hispanics, which means amnesty and citizenship for 20-40 million lawbreakers. Like Milo Minderbinder in Catch 22, they obviously believe that if you are showing a loss on a transaction, the only way out is to increase volume.

The only way back to the top for Republicans is to reassert and run on conservative values. That will bring back the 4.1 million who stayed home, and those Hispanics who cherish those values and the American experience, and a lot of the old Reagan Democrats waiting for someone reflecting their values to show up.

In his all too numerous TV “analyses” in the election runup, Rove the Genius never mentioned that one big constituency - four million spurned conservatives who were not secretive in saying they weren’t going to support McCain. Rove just couldn’t admit that the legacy of his, Bush’s and McCain’s policies were at fault.

If Hispanics wish to follow the liberal Democrat siren, they will end up a permanent underclass, like the blacks who have seen little improvement in their lot since signing up with the Democrats. Democrats will no sooner tolerate an uppity Hispanic than they will an uppity black.

Republicans need to remember their core constituency and its values - it is always a winning combination, and to treat blacks and Hispanics as adults looking for a hand up not a handout.

Republicans running on those values always win - big.

[Ranjit]

I still believe Richard Burr(R) can win in North Carolina. We just lost this state by 10,000 votes to obama. Most of those votes came from huge increase in African American votes and from wake county which was the suburbs of Raleigh. It will not have heavy turn out for Dems.

Regarding Colorado, I think, it might take long time to win it again for any election. same thing with VI and PA.

[LiberConservative]

Bla bla bla bla compassionate conservative bla bla bla bla bla.

[azcap]

Keep in mind that most of the people that voted for “change” had NO CLUE about what they were REALLY getting. NONE! The realization of rank socialism will work in the Repub favor,

 

You are assuming that Obama & Co.'s socialist ideas will fail miserably and the economy will be in an even worse state and people will be hurting. That's a good bet but the idea that the media will portray this as a failure of socialism and the Democrats is foolish. We will see all of the horrible predictions of Freepers come true regarding the economy and crumbling American society. We will also see the media spin these as the fault of big business, greedy rich people, and an intolerant an unwilling to accept change conservative/Christian institutions (Catholics, Mormons, Bitter Small Town Types. The answer the media wil feed the electorate will be more Hope and Change.

 

 

[brushcop]

We gave them such great victories and they sluffed them all away... Never again for RINOs, never, no matter what swansongs they sing.

[1Old Pro]

It will be impossible for the GOP to pick up the 9 seats to retake the Senate.

It will be possible but improbable that they could retake the Congress.

The GOP will pick up seats, but Obama will keep his two house majorities for 4 years, very dangerous.

[azcap]

Until we stop the decline of the voting process and clean up the fraud, it doesn’t matter who we have running...we’re going to lose

 

Nothing was done in 8 years of Republican administration and several years of GOP congressional majorities. The odds of anything be done about it by Obama-Reid-Pelosi are somewhere less than zero.

[Ranjit]

Your analysis good but I am afraid that, the nature of the elections in america has changed. We need to get into county level game or we are going to loose. I will give you an example. Dems are just playing three or 4 big counties in each state and winning elections or turning state into blue. They did it in Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia.

So, we have to do the reverse psychology. Go into these growing blue counties in each of this state and increase registrations for conservative candidates. If we can reduce the margins in these counties, the rural counties will asusual deliver big time for republicans.

But, why we are not doing it? Absence of volunteers to do the ground work.

[E. Cartman]

I’ve love to be optimistic but the Republican party has lost it’s way... BIG time. I’m not sure 2 years will be enough time to repair.

Agreed. Moreover, when it comes to anything Rove says, 'tis best to apply the Jimmy Carter rule: Listen to what they suggest and then do the exact opposite.