Karl Rove

by ABlueKansas, Mon Jun 19, 2006 at 04:52:59 PM EST

Does anyone else think the Republicans know they have nothing beneficial to offer the country and worse, that they readily acknowledge that they only intend to govern for their core supporters and no one else?

After reading the Sunday Post piece on Karl Rove, it seems apparent that they have nothing but clever slogans and prepaid voting machines.  The story noted that Rove's strategy for the midterm elections is to make the election a choice between the philosophies of the two parties, especially on national security, rather than a referendum on Bush's performance.

This seems to indicate that even Rove acknowledges that Bush's performance, despite any popularity at any point, is simply not an electable campaign strategy.  Why can't the Democrats finally capitalize and win an election when their opponent has admitted that it has nothing to offer but red meat to its core constituency.

The Dems should start every campaign stop off reminding people that even the Republicans know their policies have failed, they are out of ideas and the country is in no better shape now than it was in 1994, 2000 or 2004 when they promised better governance and that it is time for some real progress in this country.  The Republican experiment is over: despite Rove's frequent declarations that "Conservatism is on the rise in this country," the only major successes of the last 12 years of Republican control of Congress are several tax cuts and a proposal to ban gay marriage that has driven out enough voters each time to keep Republicans in power so they can cut taxes further.  I'm pretty sure this is not what Republicans promised in their "Contract With America."  Ask anyone what they value in life and an honest answer will never be tax cuts.

If Rove wants to make this election about political philosophies, why can't the Democrats run the table?




Tags: Rove, Bush, White House, Midterms (all tags)

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This happens to (none / 0)

coincide with something that's weighing heavily on me today.

Dems are still unable or unwilling to make the basic argument against this administration: That pretty much everything they say is a lie.

Dems don't get to point out that our Iraq policy isn't about a free and democratic Iraq at all -- they can only argue peripheral issues, issues of style and what could have done differently, which leaves them sounding like weak second-guessers. They can argue redeployment, and it can be as sound as you please -- but I just listened to a rundown of 'strategic redeployment' articulated by Randi Rhodes, and it's about as non-compelling a platform plank as you could hope for. I can already see people starting to nod off as a Dem candidate attempts to explain it, only to be awoken when the Reep rebuttal comes: "THEY WANT TO CUT AND RUN!!!"

Reeps get to argue that "all the Dems have is hindsight and retreat" because Dems can't/won't address the central issue, which is that everything the administration has done in Iraq is about corporate colonialism, not freedom or democracy. Dems are stuck arguing incompetence because the truth is too awful to be spoken in public. You can't tell the truth, because to do so would be to hurt the morale of US troops and give talking points to those who are attacking them.

The end result of all this is that Dems don't get to argue for a responsible course in Iraq, because the responsible course would be to try to do what the Bush administration insists it's trying to do. Kerry tried this, more or less, and it just didn't work.

If the Dems don't call the administration on its lies, they can't field a practical alternative which will be substantially different from the stated administration agenda. If they do call the administration on its lies, they'll be accused of encouraging our terrorist enemies. That leaves accusing the administration of incompetence, and accusing the Reeps in Congress of deferring to that incompetence. Unfortunately, the administration is not incompetent at all, so running on that is very risky.

Tough spot to be in.


Yeah, I'm cynical.
by catastrophile on Mon Jun 19, 2006 at 06:28:40 PM EST


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