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Title: Rove Unbowed
Source:
Politico
URL Source: http://dyn.politico.com/printstory. ... DE2-EBCC-7CE0-35468BDA744F7E1A
Published: Oct 26, 2010
Author: Kenneth P. Vogel and James Hohmann
Post Date: 2010-10-26 12:35:02 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 2578
Comments: 2
NEWARK, Del. — The man known as “the architect” of George W. Bush’s political successes initially seemed to have withdrawn to the political sidelines in the Obama era, his time past. But Karl Rove has emerged as perhaps the midterm election’s most controversial figure, managing to draw fire from across the political spectrum. “I was thinking of the word ‘sophisticated’ in the way that I think of a lot of members of the media — pretentiously wise,” Rove told POLITICO, before taking the stage for a joint appearance with former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean at the University of Delaware. The fact that the Crossroads groups’ public donations come mostly from “a few major donors from the Bush years ... proves that his is not a grass-roots awakening,” former Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer wrote last week. “The party still hasn't rinsed itself clean from the Rove-Gillespie approach, as vapid and intellectually lazy as ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians,’” Latimer said. Popular conservative blogger Michelle Malkin branded Rove as “Tokyo Rove” for his O’Donnell comments, which have continued to haunt him, with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on Sunday accusing Rove of “elitism.” "I was very disappointed in some, particularly Karl and others, who were so dismissive of Christine O'Donnell," Huckabee said on Aaron Klein’s WABC radio show. "Unfortunately, there is an elitism within the Republican establishment," Huckabee told Klein. "And it's one of the reasons the Republicans have not been able to solidify not only the tea party movement but solidify conservatives across America." “On the Republican side, there are divisions and jealousies and egos and competition,” Limbaugh said. “And the simplest explanation is that the tea party cannot be claimed as credit by anybody. ... Nobody who makes a living generating political support, generating political donations, nobody in that business can point to the tea party and say, ‘I did it.’ So it's a threat,” Limbaugh said last week, discussing Rove’s comments. On Monday, though, Rove pointed out to POLITICO that the Crossroads groups were backing the campaigns of many tea party favorites, including Senate candidates Ken Buck of Colorado, Sharron Angle of Nevada, Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky, as well as “a host of congressional candidates who are identified as tea party candidates.” But his favorability rating among Republicans is just 42 percent, according to the POLITICO/GWU poll, which surveyed 1,000 likely voters nationally last week.
Democrats up to and including President Barack Obama have singled out Rove by name for his role as the mastermind behind a network of outside groups spending tens of millions of dollars — much of it contributed anonymously — on ads boosting Republicans, while conservatives have criticized him as a power-hungry elitist trying to marginalize the grass-roots tea party while attempting to reestablish influence in the official GOP.
And Rove seems to be relishing the fight, telling POLITICO in a Monday interview that “I’m having a lot of fun,” before bashing the media, rejecting suggestions that he is a potential drag on his party and brushing off Democrats’ attacks.
“It certainly hasn’t seemed to help (Democrats) up until now, has it?” he said of the Democratic focus on his role with American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies — the affiliated independent nonprofit groups that he conceived along with fellow Bush-era operative Ed Gillespie.
But here in Delaware, where Rove is particularly unpopular among some grass-roots activists for his efforts to derail the Senate candidacy of tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell, Rove had to deal with yet another controversy involving the tea party. This time, he accused the media of misinterpreting his recent comments to a German newspaper in which he labeled the tea party as “not sophisticated.”
“The tea party people I meet don’t think of themselves as sophisticated in the ways of Washington. They are common sense, ordinary, run of the mill Americans who care deeply about their country, who love it and are deeply concerned about what’s happening in politics and they think smarty pants elitist liberals in the press and in politics in Washington, D.C. are lording it over them, and they’re absolutely right.”
But tea party activists — as well as some leading voices in conservative politics — have said Rove himself is part of a Beltway Republican elite that led the party astray during the Bush years. These critics worry that along with Gillespie and fellow Bush-era operative Mike Duncan, also involved in the Crossroads groups, he has been using access to funding from big Bush donors to drown out or co-opt the grass-roots energy of the tea party movement.
The Rove-as-tea-party-nemesis storyline gained wide traction on the right last month when he disparaged O’Donnell as unimpressive and unelectable on the night she defeated the candidate who was clearly Rove’s choice — and that of the GOP establishment — Rep. Mike Castle.
“I’ve met her. I wasn’t frankly impressed by her abilities as a candidate,” Rove said during a primary night interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. O’Donnell returned the favor by saying “the so-called political guru” would be “eating some humble pie.”
Influential conservative talker Rush Limbaugh jabbed at Rove for “insulting” tea partiers with his recent “not sophisticated” assessment to the German press.
But he didn’t back down from his critique of O’Donnell, pointing out that polls show her trailing Democrat Chris Coons by double digits and telling POLITICO ,“I’m, as a Fox News analyst, paid not to be a cheerleader for everything that has an ‘R’ behind it, but to give candidate analysis. ... She says she’s a strong closer, so we will see.”
Though Rove repeatedly refers to the Crossroads groups as “we,” he has ardently insisted that he doesn’t play a role in their day-to-day operations, alleging Democrats and the media have exaggerated his involvement “because anything that I’m associated with gets attacked.”
On Monday night, he blamed Democrats for the fact that one of his Crossroads groups accepts anonymous donations, after they made an initial commitment to transparency.
What changed, he said, was “the realization that these were vehicles which Democrats had used and that if we didn’t create one of our own, we were fighting with one arm held behind our back.”
Rove, who has accused Obama of maintaining an “enemies list” with Rove’s name on it, this month asserted in his Wall Street Journal column that “Obama looks weirdly disconnected — and slightly obsessive — when he talks so much about the Chamber of Commerce, Ed Gillespie and me. The president has already wasted one-quarter of the campaign's final four weeks on this sideshow.”
In the closing weeks of the 2010 campaign, Obama and other top Democrats have made the anonymous donors a major focus of their campaign rhetoric, singling out Rove, Gillespie and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in television ads and suggesting that Crossroads GPS and the Chamber are funding ads that are drowning out the voices of regular voters in an effort to install a sympathetic Republican majority in Congress.
Rove and his allies have suggested that Democratic criticism of him and the Crossroads groups was intended to scare off donors, but Rove said this month they’ve done the opposite. “The president, by attacking American Crossroads, has helped drive people to our website and has helped to raise the amount of money that we received,” Rove said on Fox News.
But Dean said Monday the attacks are an effective way to rally independent voters, telling POLITICO “It’s very clear that it is deeply worrying to people that these corporations are making these million dollar contributions.”
And, he said, the biting ads placed by Rove’s groups and others have “actually been very helpful in rallying Democrats.”
A POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground poll, released Monday, suggests why Rove is an appealing target for Democrats.
With 75 percent name identification and a 23 percent favorability rating, Rove is better known and less liked than other GOP leaders Democrats have tried to vilify, such as Minority Leader John Boehner, who is totally unknown by 54 percent of likely voters, despite a White House effort to target the would-be speaker.
Attacking Rove is regarded as red meat for the Democratic base, as the left tries to narrow an enthusiasm gap by invoking unfavorable memories of the Bush years.
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#1. To: Brian S (#0)
He's not making a living off of my tax dollars, so he can do what he wants. Personally, I think his view of politics is now six years out of date.
Obama's first all-by-his-lonesome budget, btw, calls for a $1.17 trillion deficit.
Obama is a paranoid imbecile.
#2. To: Brian S (#0)
President Barack Obama have singled out Rove by name for his role as the mastermind
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