So... ANYBODY Still Think Karl Rove Is a Genius?

[astorian]

Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist.

I mean, come on- his sole claim to fame was that he took a likable guy with a famous name ad 100% name recognition and helped him squeak past some really lame competition. And yet, until a few days ago, the Left pooped in its collective pants at the mention of his name, and trembled at the thought of all the ingenious tricks he'd pull to save the 2006 elections for the GOP.

Anybody want to take a second away from their celebrations to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, they gave Karl Rove WAAAAAAY too much credit?

[threemae]

Anybody want to take a second away from their celebrations to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, they gave Karl Rove WAAAAAAY too much credit?

No I don't think so.

I never thought that Rove was evil, just a slightly unscrupulous but incredibly intelligent and effective campaign manager. He has a genius for exploiting voter turnout and spin, but no amount of spinning can completely insulate a presidency from reality. He did well given the overwhelming circumstances. He's a fine political strategist.

[Frank]

I think he's pretty good. He's sharp, he's knowledgeable, and there's nothing so low he won't stoop to it. He got a president elected, and I can't think of any better way to define someone good at that job.

That said, I think political stategists are like baseball managers: they have a short shelf life. They get in a rut, accustomed to being in charge, and lose touch with reality just a bit.

[threemae]

IThat said, I think political stategists are like baseball managers: they have a short shelf life. They get in a rut, accustomed to being in charge, and lose touch with reality just a bit.

Based on his very cheery and optimistic interview on NPR a week or two ago in which the interviewer kindly described him as sitting on, "the optimistic side of reality," I think you might have nailed that.

[elucidator]

Are the SDMB Understatement of the Year nominations open yet?

[Aquila Be]

Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist.

There is one thing all of you might have overlooked.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY is conjuring up theories about how skulduggery involving the Diebold voting machines was going to guarantee that no significant change would take place, yet that is all people seemed to obsess about in the months and weeks leading up to the election.

Don't forget the big Prez prize is looming up in two years time. Now that everyone trusts Diebold Karl Rove can continue to work his magic behind his newly established duck blind.

Now, where did I put my hat. :cool:

[Evil Captor]

I still think Rove is a very bright guy, if not a genius, something like it. He also has no respect for the democratic process.

His boss is a man of average intelligence at best. Land war in Asia ... ha!

[you with the face]

I don't know if he's a genius or not, but someone in the GOP has been slipping on their job duties lately.

Rumsfeld's firing and the comments leading up to it reveal poor "strategery". Damage control for Foleygate was so ineffective that it actually made matters worse. The "a vote for Democrats is a vote for terrorism" rhetoric went way overboard, making it clear that they'd given up on reaching out to the rational middle and was pandering to the stupid. Instead of talking up the improving economy and lowered gas prices, they stayed on the defensive and repeated the same tired soundbites from two years ago. And they let Bush be interviewed by George Stephanopoulis too close to the final days, knowing good and well that he was probably going to say something stupid. Which he did.

But that's not all. Laura Bush and Rush Limbaugh started attacking Michael J. Fox. Bad move for two reasons. First, the man has Parkinson's Disease. No further explanation needed. Second, this is the man who played Alex P. Keaton. Again, no further explanation needed.

I don't know what happened to Rove, but he's seriously off his game.

[Squink]

Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.

[elucidator]

Well, didn't he engineer the coming American backlash to the Democratic landslide?

[Steve MB]

At the moment, he looks more like Wile E. Coyote, SUPER Genius.

[RickJay]

Lambasting Rove for the GOP losing an interim election is like saying Michael Jordan was a bad basketball player because the Bulls didn't win the championship every year.

1. Rove still has a winning record.

2. Given the number of screwups the Bush administration has pulled it's frankly miraculous they didn't do far, far worse than they did. We're talking about one of the worst Presidents in the 200+ year history of his country. His administration has failed to catch Osama bin Laden, screwed up a war that was vital to his nation's security, started an unnecessary war on a pretext of lies and turned THAT war into Vietnam 2.0, assaulted civil rights, publicly supported the use of torture, reacted to a major natural disaster with less competence than a Third World country, acted towards gay Americans with a level of outright bigotry towards a minority group not seen in a Presidential administration in sixty years, and managed the nation's spending with all the discipline one might expect from a gambling addict on a meth binge let loose in the Golden Nugget with a fistful of stolen twenties. I think it's amazing they did as well as they did.

3. The things that DID cause the Republicans to lose power in Congress had little, or nothing, to do with Karl Rove. Rove just gets Republicans elected; HE didn't decide to invade Iraq or fuck it up as badly as it has been, and those facts cannot be hidden by clever campaigning. Karl Rove didn't tell Rush Limbaugh to publicly slander a likeable crippled man, and he didn't tell Mark Foley to hit on his pages.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

I think Rove's "genius" was simply his ability to do things that most people would blanch at. Sure, some might see that kind of callous, manipulative personality trait as one of the components of psychopathy, but hey, it worked for him.

On some of the blogs, they make a good point that his genius really almost fucked up the two presidential elections. Specifically, in both cases, he thought that in the last stage of the campaign, it would be a good idea to portray an extreme level of confidence by having Bush campaign in California instead of Florida or in Hawaii instead of Ohio. Had there been no butterfly ballot, he would have appeared incredibly stupid for such a stunt. Similarly, if the nailbiter in Ohio turned out differently, they might have blown that one.

The fact is that they didn't, and he was on the ultimately victorious side, but I think these two items suggest something other than what I would consider campaign "genius."

[Kimstu]

Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist.

Sorry, but this is nonsense. Many conservative politicos and pundits agreed that Rove was a brilliant political operator and considered him extremely influential and important in the Bush Administration. Here's just one sample of conservative admiration for Rove from Eric Pfeiffer's National Review blog (http://buzz.nationalreview.com/):

Rove Cannot Be Replaced
10/19 11:33 AM

If Karl Rove were forced to step down for any reason could the Bush agenda survive? No one doubts Rove's value to this president. However, perhaps it is possible the agenda could stand on its own merits even while losing one of its great messengers.

Another source that works closely with the White House tells The Buzz, “Karl Rove is irreplaceable. Not only does he have incredible talents, he has a close working relationship with the president. Aside from Laura Bush, no individual can influence his opinion more. [...]"

[Lemur866]

Karl Rove is not a political genius, and people who say he is are idiots.

He's a hack, and he lucked out in two squeaker presidential elections that could have been lost with a few people reading their ballots more carefully. He lucked out facing John Kerry, a man with all the charisma and political appeal of Zombie Hitler, who's only issue was that he wasn't George Bush.

Let's look at Rove's legacy. A castrated Republican party that believes in nothing except political power, and now doesn't even have that. Rove is a cunning and shameless political tactician, but he doesn't give a rat's ass about actually governing, which is why he's been so pernicious. It's all well and good to win an election by trashing your opponent and lying to your supporters, but what are you going to do the day after the election? It's one thing to sell your soul for political power, how about when you sell your soul and find you got cheated for it?

Compare and contrast the legacies of Bill Clinton with Bush/Rove. Bill Clinton was an authentic political genius, because he understood people and liked them. Look at how he left the Democratic party, stronger than ever despite the scandals. And look at how Rove and Rovism has left the Republican party.

[BobLibDem]

He was a genius at handling the political climates of 2000, 02, and 04. And who knows, his work in 2006 may have prevented even more defections to the Democrats. But it is clear that his tried and true strategies of the past aren't as effective now. But still, he's one of the few effective people around Bush.

[Dumbguy]

Rove can only win the races he's managing. Is Conrad Burns or George Allen losing Rove's fault? If Rove had been handling those campaigns, there would have been rumors that Jon Tester’s ‘organic farm’ was really a front for marijuana plantations, and the Navy Cross Jim Webb earned in Vietnam was a cover-up for the fact that he accidentally dropped a frag grenade and blew up an orphanage while buggering his staff sergeant.

[Squink]

If Rove had been handling those campaigns, there would have been rumors that Jon Tester’s ‘organic farm’ was really a front for marijuana plantations...
To give credit, they did try pushing the idea that Tester was a 'brokebank democrat'.

[Voyager]

Let's look at Rove's legacy. A castrated Republican party that believes in nothing except political power, and now doesn't even have that. Rove is a cunning and shameless political tactician, but he doesn't give a rat's ass about actually governing, which is why he's been so pernicious. It's all well and good to win an election by trashing your opponent and lying to your supporters, but what are you going to do the day after the election? It's one thing to sell your soul for political power, how about when you sell your soul and find you got cheated for it?

Let's not confuse the marketing (Rove's department) with the product (Cheney's department.) Exactly where did Rove make mistakes in this campaign? He almost succeeded in fashioning a Venus de Milo out of a pile of shit - not his fault that it still smells.

The Republicans got all the power they wanted - and it became clear that their policies led to disaster. An analogy - in New York, when I was growing up, there was a beer called Piels. It had a fantastic advertising campaign, with cartoons of Burt and Harry Piels voiced by the immortal Bob and Ray. They were a disaster - sales went up, but the beer was such cat piss that as soon as people tried it, sales went down again.

[The_Good_Friday_Spell]

ANYBODY Still Think Karl Rove Is a Genius?

Not this week. ;)

[Lemur866]

It's a mistake to think that Rove was only marketing, and you can't blame him for having to sell crap. Rove wasn't just selling whatever product Bush and Cheny told him to sell, he was part of creating the product, he was part of creating policy and running the Whitehouse. Successful businesses don't create products and then try to figure out how to market them, they figure out what people want and then try to sell it to people. And that was Rove's job...what to promise the evangelicals, what to promise the corporate fatcats, how to bring in Latino voters, how to keep white males. He was one of Bush's closest advisors on everything, not just what ads to run and what stories to plant.

Plus, even if he was being asked to sell crap, he didn't have to agree. If you're a top political strategist you aren't stuck with trying to sell sub-par politicians like Bush, you pick the people you want to work for. Rove CHOSE Bush because Bush WAS sub-par, he would be dependant on Rove. If Rove really was a political genius he could have picked a patron who wasn't an idiot.

[Mtgman]

Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist.George W. Bush has referred to Rove as "The Boy Genius", "The Architect" and "Turd Blossom," a Texan term for a flower which grows from a pile of cow dung. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove#Trivia)That guy counts as "somone on the Right" in my estimation. As do all these politicians who have used his services, often more than once, for their campaigns, including, Phil Gramm, Ronald Reagan, William Clements, Jr., Rick Perry, George H. W. Bush, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and John Ashcroft. You don't go to a guy for three different races for three different offices if you only think he's "semi-competent." Well, unless you're semi-competent yourself that is.

Enjoy,
Steven

[Hentor the Barbarian]

This idea that Rove is only involved or responsible for campaigns he is managing is laughable. If that were true, then what is he doing? What is his job? Bush isn't running for anything. So why is Rove being paid and maintaining his security credentials?

I think Bush's patented sniping little smack-down of Rove from the conference after the crushing defeat they took also illustrated that Bush felt Rove is responsible for these election results.

[GLWasteful]

Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist.
Bullshit, as others have pointed out.

Essentially, this OP seems to me to be ass covering through revisionist history. (R)s lost big time, so claim that Rove was never viewed as anything more than a simple hack. Rest assured, had things gone the way that Rove was claiming they would, nonsense such as the OP would never be seen here or anywhere.

And Rove would be photographed with his smarmy, smug look of self righteousness and dropping enigmatic bons mots about his brilliance.

[kelly5078]

I don't know if he's a genius, but I'll rest easier once he's got himself a talk show.

[Voyager]

It's a mistake to think that Rove was only marketing, and you can't blame him for having to sell crap. Rove wasn't just selling whatever product Bush and Cheny told him to sell, he was part of creating the product, he was part of creating policy and running the Whitehouse. Successful businesses don't create products and then try to figure out how to market them, they figure out what people want and then try to sell it to people. And that was Rove's job...what to promise the evangelicals, what to promise the corporate fatcats, how to bring in Latino voters, how to keep white males. He was one of Bush's closest advisors on everything, not just what ads to run and what stories to plant.
Indeed, he did the promising. But Bush and Cheney were responsible for the delivery, which is where they screwed up. Don't you think Iraq would have been a plus if they hadn't screwed up the occupation so badly. It still would have been wrong, but it would have sold.
Even the evangelicals haven't gotten all that much - still no gay marriage amendment, abortion is still legal, and if you heard the evangelical who used to work for the White House and got fed up, not much money for faith based initiatives. Lots of sizzle but very little steak.

Plus, even if he was being asked to sell crap, he didn't have to agree. If you're a top political strategist you aren't stuck with trying to sell sub-par politicians like Bush, you pick the people you want to work for. Rove CHOSE Bush because Bush WAS sub-par, he would be dependant on Rove. If Rove really was a political genius he could have picked a patron who wasn't an idiot.
Any fool can sell a product that wins all the benchmarks. :) I wouldn't want to speculate on Rove's psychology, since I haven't read the books about him (I don't like to puke) but I'm sure that having someone dependent on you has some benefits.

Rove wasn't responsible for the war. Rove didn't initiate the cronyism (though I doubt he opposed it.) Why he couldn't handle Foley better I don't know - maybe he didn't want the mud to spatter on his boss, and maybe the Pubbies in Congress were no longer listening because of the poll numbers.

[astorian]

Bullshit, as others have pointed out.

Essentially, this OP seems to me to be ass covering through revisionist history. (R)s lost big time, so claim that Rove was never viewed as anything more than a simple hack. Rest assured, had things gone the way that Rove was claiming they would, nonsense such as the OP would never be seen here or anywhere.

And Rove would be photographed with his smarmy, smug look of self righteousness and dropping enigmatic bons mots about his brilliance.


"Bullshit"? How articulate! I bow to your superior logic.

I point out again, it doesn't take a genius to get a likable guy with a famous name and 100% name recognition elected governor of Texas. And given the piss-poor competition in the 2000 GOP primaries (yes, I regard John McCain as a lousy candidate who ran an inept campaign- I've explained why I think so in numerous other posts), it didn't take a genius to get Bush the nomination.

Karl Rove has been lucky, more than good. He latched onto a guy with a lot of promise and rode him for all he was worth.

[GLWasteful]

"Bullshit"? How articulate! I bow to your superior logic.
Yeah, well, the line forms back there around the corner.

I point out again, it doesn't take a genius to get a likable guy with a famous name and 100% name recognition elected governor of Texas. And given the piss-poor competition in the 2000 GOP primaries (yes, I regard John McCain as a lousy candidate who ran an inept campaign- I've explained why I think so in numerous other posts), it didn't take a genius to get Bush the nomination.
And I, being the selfless and steadfast person that I am, will take up the standard and point out to you that Bush's gubernatorial race was far from his sole claim to fame. As so many others have already pointed out, his services were used by numerous others (Mtgman: Phil Gramm, Ronald Reagan, William Clements, Jr., Rick Perry, George H. W. Bush, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and John Ashcroft) thereby pointing out that your ridiculous claim that "Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist," is, as I said, Bullshit.

You're more than welcome.

[gonzomax]

Rove was behind 2 successful presidental campaigns. He pushed an agenda that successfully transformed the political landscape. he dragged Bush out of a drug stuporred world and made him the most powerful man on earth. Nope, no success there.
The neocons have changed the world in 6 years. I hope it can be fixed in 2. Bushes power will be diminished by his stumbling and Iraq, plus his loss of Delay and Santorum.

[diggleblop]

Well, the biggest fucking idiot in the world won the Presidency again, so I'd say Rove's pretty smart.

[Squink]

From the Financial Times:
Rove off the hook as party blames Iraq (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/557516aa-704a-11db-9da6-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=4d699944-2ca8-11db-9845-0000779e2340.html) Republican analysts on Thursday said the jibe was unfair. The election was an indictment of Mr Bush’s Iraq policy, not political tactics. “Nobody thinks that Karl is in charge of the occupation of Iraq,” said Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, who has close ties to Mr Rove. “I haven’t heard any complaints about him. In a conference call with conservative groups no one faulted the turnout effort.”With Rove's genius, and his tactics vindicated, we'll see more of the same in 2008.

[GLWasteful]

With Rove's genius, and his tactics vindicated, we'll see more of the same in 2008.
Nonsense! After all: "Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist."

[HMS Irruncible]

I still think someone in the Republican leadership called for a less-than-full-court press on the 2006 election, knowing that if the Iraq implosion should arrive by 2008, the sitting government will have to share some blame. With a Republican president and a Democratic congress, they will be able to pull the old Reagan apologetic... the best president evar, but unfortunately hamstrung by a stupid liberal legislature playing partisan politics. I believe that is exactly what was intended... a gamble, sure, but look at the alternative... bearing responsibility for Iraq in 2008.

[Menocchio]

I still think someone in the Republican leadership called for a less-than-full-court press on the 2006 election.
God, if they were holding back this time, I'd hate to see what they could do if they were trying. The states I was in during election time were inundated with ads, most of them incredibly nasty.

No, they tried their hardest and failed. Nobody wants to lose power. There's no guarantee that they'll ever get it back.

[Revtim]

Lambasting Rove for the GOP losing an interim election is like saying Michael Jordan was a bad basketball player because the Bulls didn't win the championship every year.Yes, regardless of whether Rove is a genius to begin with, simply not having perfect performance is not a disqualifier.

Was Einstein a genius? He sure screwed the pooch on quantum physics.

I don't know if the term genius ever applied to Rove, but the fact that he or his party had a setback doesn't mean much.

[rjung]

Karl Rove makes up for any shortcomings in intellect with extra doses of unscrupulousness. From a distance, this could be interpreted as genius.

[threemae]

I still think someone in the Republican leadership called for a less-than-full-court press on the 2006 election, knowing that if the Iraq implosion should arrive by 2008, the sitting government will have to share some blame.

Those damn wiley Republicans, this time involved in a stunningly clever tactic of gaining power by losing elections! The bastards? Why didn't the left think of that? We should have had all of the Democrats stay home so that the Republicans would have retained control of the congress and denied them what they really wanted.

Fucking conservatives, even trickier than we thought!

:rolleyes:

[astorian]

Talk about a moldy, decomposed zombie thread...

But the last elections made it seem relevant to me again.

As you can see, I always thought Karl Rove was an absurdly overrated political strategist, a man who was much more lucky than smart. His only achievements were getting a President's son elected governor in a solidly conservative state, and then getting a guy with 100% name recognition elected in an incredibly close election (one he may actually have LOST!)

I never thought he was a genius, but liberals here disgreed with me. How about now? Having seen EVERY one of his candidates get trounced last November, will anybody concede that maybe Karl isn't a mastermind (albeit an evil one) after all?

[hansel]

Karl Rove made tens of millions of dollars in fees from the 2012 elections. Remind me again how he lost, and how he's not that bright. And this after 2006, which according to you showed that he was massively overrated.

[Folacin]

Nobody on the Right EVER thought Karl Rove was anything more than a semi-competent political strategist.

Karl Rove made tens of millions of dollars in fees from the 2012 elections. Remind me again how he lost, and how he's not that bright. And this after 2006, which according to you showed that he was massively overrated.

At any rate, I think that your premise that no one on the Right ever gave him any credit was blown out of the water.

[CalMeacham]

Zombies? Karl Rove?




Bush's BRAAAAAINNNSSSS !!!!!!!!!!

[Der Trihs]

Zombies? Karl Rove?




Bush's BRAAAAAINNNSSSS !!!!!!!!!!
"In today's news, political strategist Karl Rove was found dead of starvation..."

[foolsguinea]

Karl Rove made tens of millions of dollars in fees from the 2012 elections. Remind me again how he lost, and how he's not that bright. And this after 2006, which according to you showed that he was massively overrated.I've seen this argued before, maybe by Krugman. Rove's campaign efforts in 2012 made him a lot of money, and in a losing year, he at least was able to line his own pockets with fees charged to candidates (who were probably unfit for office), and call that a personal success. Thin defense, though.

[John Mace]

Henry Ford was a genius for his time, and then his time passed and he was just a cranky old man.

[Simplicio]

Well, "Compassionate Conservatism" and "a Permanent Republican Majority" have pretty well been resigned to the dust-bin of history, to the extent that its hard to even use either term without sounding sarcastic. So what he thought would be his legacy in domestic policy has been a spectacular failure. And it hasn't helped that legacy that he came off 2012 looking like a huckster.

But to defend him a little: I think he realized a lot earlier then most Republicans that the Southern Strategy and the associated tactic of trying to compensate for losses amongst minorities and the young by driving up an ever higher proportion of older whites to the polls was going to have a limited half-life. And he saw GOP needed to look elsewhere for new voters if they were going to continue control the Gov't.

Twelve years on that prediction looks pretty good.

[CalMeacham]

"In today's news, political strategist Karl Rove was found dead of starvation..."

An easy swipe, but I kinda had this in mind:

http://www.bushsbrain.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush%27s_Brain

[Der Trihs]

An easy swipe, but I kinda had this in mind:

http://www.bushsbrain.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush%27s_Brain
Oh, I was pretty sure what you actually meant; I just have trouble resisting a straight line like that. :D

[Randvek]

But to defend him a little: I think he realized a lot earlier then most Republicans that the Southern Strategy and the associated tactic of trying to compensate for losses amongst minorities and the young by driving up an ever higher proportion of older whites to the polls was going to have a limited half-life. And he saw GOP needed to look elsewhere for new voters if they were going to continue control the Gov't.

He had been nothing but wrong until the last few months, imho. This whole tea party vs. Rove thing makes it clear that he's a lot more reasonable/strategic (pick one) than a lot of his fellow Republicans, election day meltdown notwithstanding.

[Robot Arm]

I've seen this argued before, maybe by Krugman. Rove's campaign efforts in 2012 made him a lot of money, and in a losing year, he at least was able to line his own pockets with fees charged to candidates (who were probably unfit for office), and call that a personal success. Thin defense, though.A lot of people donated money to Rove's PAC in this election cycle. Presumably they thought rather highly of his skills or they wouldn't have given him a dime.

[Der Trihs]

A lot of people donated money to Rove's PAC in this election cycle. Presumably they thought rather highly of his skills or they wouldn't have given him a dime.
The lesson is, just because someone is rich doesn't mean they aren't gullible. And the other lesson is that when you put together a political movement largely composed of totally amoral Social Darwinists who think Greed is Good, they tend to spend a lot of time scamming and exploiting each other.