Political Discussions
Karl Rove's Legacy
Posted by clioandme • 11/02/08 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: gop, Karl Rove, politics
I've been wondering why McCain moved to the right in the general election, when he needed to win independent voters. The excuse has always been his base, and the general wisdom has been that Karl Rove-style divisiveness works. But does it? It won two elections, but it gave Bush nothing like a decent mandate to work with. It lost McCain a primary in 2000, because he rejected Rove politics, but now he's embraced it and look what happened.
Are we entering new territory? Of course, we'll have to see what happens on Tuesday, but the author of this Politico article on the subject seems to have a point: www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15177.html. What say you about Karl Rove's lessons?
Me? I'm encouraged by the centrist rhetoric I'm hearing from the Obama camp. I'm also encouraged by their efforts to get well beyond a mere 270 electoral votes, by appealing to a broad cross section of the country.
User Comments
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Avlon talks about the Nixon having been in a similar situation as Bush during his run for reelection, but Nixon had made some enormous diplomatic progress in dealing with China and Russia shortly before his first term was up, so he was riding the wave of those successes. Bush was riding a wave of failures and divisiveness was his only weapon. And Kerry was a bit of a douche bag, anyway.
The divisive politics of the 90s where the Republican congress spent some 50 million dollars digging up dirt on Clinton, and the media publishing their dirt almost daily on the front page, as well as Clinton's impeachment, were all designed to get the next Republican candidate elected. Although it was a witch hunt, people were tired of all the scandals. After the longest period of economic expansion in U.S. history, Gore should have won by a landslide -- especially considering Bush's oration skills (or lack thereof).
Clinton was enormously popular, in part, due to his personality. He's a great public speaker who's optimism is contagious. But he also ran during a time when the economy had been in a recession and people wanted change. It was obvious that Reaganomics had not worked and Clinton offered new economic policies and new optimism. Bush, Sr. also raised taxes after he promised he wouldn't, so he lost some of his base.
The current election isn't one that can be compared to anything in recent history. We might have to go back to 1932 to find something similar. Obama arrived on the scene at just the right time. He's a great orator -- perhaps not quite as good as Clinton, but inspirational none the less. He also has the optimism and centrism of Clinton. McCain's been trying to paint Obama as a radical, but people have had enough time to get to watch Obama, and it hasn't taken.
Rovian politics worked with Bush and could have worked again with a weaker candidate than Obama. We have a large enough portion of the population that can be influenced by divisiveness for it to easily work again under the right circumstances. Just look at how quickly this country changed after 9/11. McCain could very well be ahead right now if the finance sector could have been propped up until after the election.-
I would agree a lesser opponent would have fallen to it. But it also wasn't as sustained as the Bush attacks. They popped up and went away and popped up again but I think your right it wouldn't have made a difference, Obama was and is just the right candidate at the right time like a JFK. -
It's not for lack of trying. They couldn't really find anything on Obama. The Rove strategy is to attack the opponent's strengths. Kerry was using his military service in Viet Nam to try to win supporters and he was "Swift Boated" to defeat. They made him look like a coward with their attacks.
Obama's biggest strengths are his ideas for the U.S. and his ability to rile up a crowd. They've tried to spin his ideas and claimed he was "nothing but a celebrity," but nothing's really worked.
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I really hope this means a move away from divisive and ugly politics that have been prominent for the past decade or more. Most all polling (live during debates and otherwise) shows that many U.S. citizens are sick of the negative attacks and want to hear more about the real issues that affect us all.
Hopefully, the screaming matches on Fox News will subside with it. -
I agree with Sati's assessment. Had Obama been a weaker candidate, the Rovian tactics would surely have worked. In some circles, it is working, but overall I think it's backfiring because Obama is not only dynamic, but his platform is appealing to those who are moderate and beyond.
RR - I had written a short bit on Obama's campaign, and I agree with you that this could be the end of the really ugly campaigns. I hope that other candidates will follow the example of Obama's campaign strategy in future elections. -
Also let us not forget the massive amount of cash Obama was able to raise I am sure that helped to silence some of the McCain attacks.
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I'm not sure I understand your thought process here.
How does his fund raising silence smears from McCain? -
Seriously. McCain started the smears, and Obama answered them. Perhaps you mean that Obama's ability to answer the smears might have led the McCain campaign to see diminishing returns on attacks? I rather thought McCain toned down the attacks because they were having a negative effect on his favorability ratings.
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Perhaps he means the McCain-Palin smear campaign motivated people to give more to the Obama campaign - sorta of like it motivated some conservatives to change their vote.
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Could it be that the smears weren't as successful against Obama because they weren't focused? How can Obama be a godless socialist if he was also in a radical Christian church? And how could that have any traction if he's also a super secret Muslim too? It's like saying you're fighting a solar-powered vampire who is also Hitler. It's just confusing instead of scary.
Mental note: write movie script about solar-powered Hitler vampire.-
There's also maybe the whole boy who cried wolf syndrome going on.
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Renal - I'm thinking that you're right about the inconsistency of the smears.
He can't possibly be ALL of the things they say he is - they're just throwing crap out there in hopes that they can get everyone to believe them for different reasons. -
Yeah, definitely a boy who cried wolf--basically, at this point, even if they came up with something legitimately horrible about Obama, the only people who would take it seriously would be those who will believe anything about him, and they're already voting for Mccain. -
Apparently there have been six different versions of McCain this season.
www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html?partner=permalink&expro... -
I should mention, though, that most historians now agree that Hitler was, in fact, a solar-powered vampire.
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Well that explains a lot...
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Not clean coal? I keep getting that mixed up.
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Karl Rove Predicts Obama Landslide
John McCain and his aides are still banking on a come-from-behind victory Tuesday, but the GOP's most famous political strategist has already called the race for Barack Obama.
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/04/rove-predicts-obama-landslide/
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