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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Yeah, well, the line forms back there around the corner.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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?
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 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.