[Rhodes22-list] The end of the Rove era -- Political

Tue Nov 4 07:03:02 EST 2008

Dave

I think you have accurately pointed out that there is a large number of
people out there who wish for a more civil, less partisan and more
cooperative atmosphere in government. In my mind this explains why Hillary
was rejected in the primaries, she represented old-style divisive politics,
and voters spoke.
In asking people from all walks of life about what they think about these
two presidential candidates, all of them feel that while Obama is untested
and unaccomplished, yet so many are willing to take a chance on him. It is
nothing short of astonishing.
The under-30 (or 40?) years of age group here in the NE seeems to be 100% in
favor of Obama, and claim to know no one in their age group who will vote
Republican. This stands in contrast to past elections when that age group
voted more diversely.
The middle will vote too, and this will be so interesting! A choice between
risk, or something one no longer wants.
As to Palin, even William Kristol can't apologize enough. She will need to
pick between politics and show business, always a murky distinction in our
messy democracy. If she chooses show business, it will be a Reagan in
reverse career. My money is on politics, as she is a cultural warrior and
really wants to mix it up with those who do not hold her views. In this Brad
is probably right. We are in the midst of a culture war.

See you Thursday. It ain't over 'til its over.

Andrew

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 1:30 AM, David Bradley <dwbrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Great clip.  As they said, see you on Thursday.
>
> I imagine Sarah Palin will be an important figure in the conservative
> movement regardless of tomorrow's outcome, and her actions over the
> next four years will probably determine whether this was her one shot
> or whether she will be taken seriously as a mainstream party leader.
>
> I don't really think there is anyone on this forum or of
> medium-to-above intelligence elsewhere that doesn't get that there is
> a sizable (huge) percentage of the population that has not deviated
> from Conservative principles.  All I'm saying is that it's not a large
> enough percentage to win without carrying the middle.
>
> Dave
>
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> > David,
> >
> > Another instructional video -
> >
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p53kJX64ieQ
> >
> > What most people don't get is this: there is still a substantial
> > constituency in this country that haven't deviated from their
> > conservative principles.  Palin will become the new leader of this
> > neglected and currently gloomy bunch regardless of what happens
> > tomorrow.  The pundits can mentally masturbate all they want about
> > some so-called "negative Palin effect".  She has a future and will not
> > fade away - neither will we.  This is McCain's last chance. Palin
> > and/or Jindal will be players in 2012 no matter what.
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 9:57 PM, David Bradley <dwbrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Thank you Brad Almighty for your balanced reply.  You are nothing if
> >> not consistent.
> >>
> >> You might note that I said "may have cost."  I am not assuming this is
> >> over until it is over.
> >>
> >> I still maintain that the choice of Palin may have put off more in the
> >> middle than it did to pull back conserviatives from... (where was that
> >> from?)
> >>
> >> We can let the post-election analysis interpret the outcome.  Not that
> >> you'll believe any analysis that isn't consistent with your theory.
> >>
> >> As for what half the country will think four years from now...  it
> >> will be based on what actually happens, not what was said during this
> >> campaign.  I'm betting on moderation.
> >>
> >> Dave
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> David,
> >>>
> >>> Before anyone gets carried away with a victory dance, here's an
> >>> instructive video -
> >>>
> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkO78wo-zpo
> >>>
> >>> The article you referred to is a poorly researched unadulterated piece
> >>> of crap (insert drivel here if it suits your sensibilities better).
> >>>
> >>> Rove's "genius" that earned him the moniker "the architect" was that
> >>> he understood the electorate state by state and county by county, even
> >>> down to the level of township, and could modify the main message
> >>> slightly to each smaller geographic area.  Using the term
> >>> "hyperpartisanship" reveals the author's ignorance of the GOP.  There
> >>> is no monolithic "base" in the GOP anymore (if there ever was) than
> >>> there is amongst the Democrats after Howard Dean and the netroots
> >>> jerked it far, far to the left. Bush marketed himself as both a fiscal
> >>> and social conservative and turned out to be neither.  At the risk of
> >>> unnecessarily picking at old scabs, let me remind the author that Bush
> >>> 43 won the 2000 election by a 6% wider margin than Bill Clinton did in
> >>> 1992. The author should also remember that Florida wouldn't have been
> >>> an issue if Al Gore had won his home state of Tennessee.  Bush didn't
> >>> need to contest New Mexico which he lost by 400 votes after the
> >>> Florida count. Let me remind everyone that the Supreme Court decision
> >>> in 2000 was to set a deadline for Florida to stop counting and send
> >>> their electors to DC. A later investigation conducted by a pool of
> >>> five Florida newspapers found that Bush won Florida by every possible
> >>> method suggested by both campaigns.  That the author felt the need to
> >>> use "contested" without a full explanation reveals his bias.
> >>>
> >>> As it turned out, Bush 43's spending habits on entitlement programs,
> >>> with the help of a compliant Congress, should have endeared him to
> >>> every liberal. McCain has been to the left of the majority of the GOP
> >>> most of his career, and has been drawn even further to the left by an
> >>> opponent that is undoubtedly the most liberal candidate to run for
> >>> POTUS in our nations history. His pick of Sarah Palin was a brilliant
> >>> political move in that she gave hope to what few conservatives are
> >>> left, who reluctantly remain in the GOP because all the other
> >>> alternatives are so much worse. She also appeals as well to the 'never
> >>> easy to define' middle.
> >>>
> >>> The gist of the Mr. Avlon's thesis is that McCain betrayed his
> >>> post-partisan stance taken during the primaries to appeal to the old
> >>> Rove definitions of "the base". McCain has moved so far left of Rove's
> >>> base that he'd be 10 points behind right now but for Palin.
> >>>
> >>> The country has lurched far to the left, a bit ironic after 8 years of
> >>> prolific Bush spending.  The question to be answered tomorrow, is just
> >>> how far further left are we going?
> >>>
> >>> My wife swears we're headed down the same path of the country she left
> >>> 20 years ago (before China abandoned most of the economic silliness).
> >>> We'll see, ask me on Wednesday and I may agree. Should Obama win, it
> >>> will not be the start of the "post-partisan" era, quite the contrary.
> >>> Assuming he survives Fitzgerald's investigation as Senator or as
> >>> POTUS, he still will have to deal with half the electorate that will
> >>> remain upset by his fundraising methods, attempts at voter fraud, and
> >>> use of public databases to destroy private citizens.
> >>>
> >>> Half the country will be pissed four years from now no matter what the
> >>> outcome.  To think otherwise is naive.
> >>>
> >>> Brad
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 5:51 PM, David Bradley <dwbrad at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>> I think this in an interesting piece which reinforces what I've been
> >>>> saying about the importance of the middle of the political spectrum.
> >>>> A similar article on CNN.com over the weekend about how Sarah Palin
> >>>> may have cost McCain and herself the election by alienating the middle
> >>>> - I can send that link if anyone wants it.
> >>>>
> >>>> Dave
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15177.html
> >>>>
> >>>> The repudiation of Karl Rove
> >>>> By JOHN P. AVLON | 11/2/08 7:38 AM EST
> >>>>
> >>>> We don't know yet who will win or by what margin, but we know one
> >>>> thing for certain: This election represents the repudiation of Karl
> >>>> Rove and his play-to-the-base strategy.
> >>>>
> >>>> There was always something dicey about stoking the fires of
> >>>> hyperpartisanship as a campaign and governing strategy, treating 51-49
> >>>> victories as ideological mandates instead of an obligation to form
> >>>> broader and more durable coalitions.
> >>>>
> >>>> Now we have the data to judge the results: a president who tried to
> >>>> unite his party at the expense of uniting the nation and failed to do
> >>>> both, repudiated by both candidates running to succeed him. Even John
> >>>> McCain admits to visitors at his Web site homepage, "the last eight
> >>>> years haven't worked very well, have they?"
> >>>>
> >>>> It's an unprecedented condemnation of the president's politics as well
> >>>> as the effectiveness of his governance.
> >>>>
> >>>> If Obama wins this election, especially by a large margin, there is
> >>>> going to be a lot of talk about how the Obama team has rewritten the
> >>>> rules of modern politics. But the real question may be whether the
> >>>> rules were wrong all along.
> >>>>
> >>>> Take a look back at the two presidential victories engineered by "the
> >>>> Architect." In 2000, Bush lost the popular vote after leading in the
> >>>> polls for months, ultimately winning the electoral vote because of a
> >>>> contested 537-vote margin in Florida. In 2004, he won reelection with
> >>>> 51.3 percent of the popular vote — the lowest percent of any
> >>>> victorious Republican incumbent in American history. The narrow
> >>>> margins of these victories are signs of strategic weakness, not
> >>>> strength.
> >>>>
> >>>> Rove is a smart man and a student of history. He knows that a
> >>>> Republican president in wartime should be able to win reelection
> >>>> almost without campaigning. Richard Nixon won 49 states in a similar
> >>>> circumstance, and he did not have Bush's engaging personality, a
> >>>> massive domestic attack that briefly united the nation or a stiff
> >>>> patrician opposition candidate like John Kerry.
> >>>>
> >>>> Or reach for a more immediate parallel: Bill Clinton closed out his
> >>>> administration with a job approval rating in the mid-60s, even after
> >>>> being impeached — nearly three times as high as President Bush's
> >>>> recent record low of 22 percent. That was not a measure of Americans'
> >>>> approval for Clinton's personal behavior, but it was a clear
> >>>> endorsement of his centrist policies.
> >>>>
> >>>> In this campaign, the two candidates who tried to ape Rove's strategy
> >>>> most closely — Mitt Romney on the right and John Edwards on the left —
> >>>> fashioned hasty political facelifts, pandered to the base, spent
> >>>> enormous amounts of money and failed. Even in the essentially rigged
> >>>> system of closed partisan primaries, the play-to-the-base method
> >>>> wasn't working. The American people wanted something less cynical and
> >>>> divisive.
> >>>>
> >>>> Barack Obama and John McCain both ran in opposition to the polarizing
> >>>> establishment of their two parties, preaching the need to reach across
> >>>> the red-state and blue-state divide. They called upon Republicans,
> >>>> Democrats and Independents to join their cause to restore a new
> >>>> solutions-oriented civility to our politics.
> >>>>
> >>>> Ironically, this had been McCain's riff back in the 2000 campaign,
> >>>> when he earned the admiration of centrists and Independents everywhere
> >>>> while running into Rove's buzz saw. McCain detested the divisive and
> >>>> dishonorable personal attacks deployed against him in the South
> >>>> Carolina primary. The right-wing radio and evangelical base that Rove
> >>>> mobilized against McCain returned the favor, hating the Arizona
> >>>> senator for his independence and bipartisan instincts. McCain won the
> >>>> 2008 nomination anyway, without their support — a win that was in
> >>>> itself a repudiation of the world according to Karl Rove.
> >>>>
> >>>> The McCain campaign's mistake came in the transition to the general
> >>>> election, when it became surrounded by Republican operatives who had
> >>>> learned their trade from Rove. The candidate was lurched from center
> >>>> to right and back, with messaging more tactical than strategic, a tone
> >>>> more sarcastic than substantive. And when the McCain campaign tried to
> >>>> deploy the Rovian techniques he had deplored in years past, they not
> >>>> only failed to stick, but they even provoked a backlash among the
> >>>> Independent voters who had long been his core constituency.
> >>>>
> >>>> In effect, John McCain has been defeated by Karl Rove twice — because
> >>>> he's been tarred by the Bush brush and even if McCain pulls off a
> >>>> narrow upset win, his ability to unite the country will be damaged
> >>>> from Day One.
> >>>>
> >>>> Obama took aim at Rove's red-state/blue-state tactics early on, making
> >>>> them a staple his stump speech appeal to voters before the Iowa
> >>>> caucus, saying "we can't afford four more years of the same divisive
> >>>> food fight in Washington that's about scoring political points instead
> >>>> of solving problems; that's about tearing your opponents down instead
> >>>> of lifting this country up. ... We have the chance to build a new
> >>>> majority of not just Democrats, but Independents and Republicans. …We
> >>>> can change the electoral math that's been all about division and make
> >>>> it about addition."
> >>>>
> >>>> In some ways, the key to Obama's campaign has been about inspiring an
> >>>> inclusive crusade to overturn Rove's play-to-the-base politics, and.
> >>>> as a result, he may be on the road to a victory with margins unseen by
> >>>> President Bush or the Democratic Party since Lyndon Johnson.
> >>>>
> >>>> Of course, if there is a Democratic landslide, some liberals will be
> >>>> tempted to interpret it as an ideological mandate, spending wildly and
> >>>> fueling their own excesses. A President Obama will need to see that
> >>>> his administration's record matches his postpartisan rhetoric. And if
> >>>> the Republicans go into the wilderness, count the hours until some
> >>>> social conservative commentator comes up with the self-serving
> >>>> assessment that John McCain failed because he was not conservative
> >>>> enough. That is precisely the wrong lesson to learn from this era and
> >>>> this election.
> >>>>
> >>>> The lesson is that narrow hyperpartisan appeals are not enough to
> >>>> govern effectively or representatively in the 21st century. Ignoring
> >>>> the center is a sure path to political isolation. And dividing the
> >>>> American people in order to conquer them in campaigns is morally and
> >>>> practically bankrupt. Karl Rove's play-to-the-base strategy has been
> >>>> exposed as unethical and unwise.
> >>>>
> >>>> John P. Avlon is the author of "Independent Nation: How Centrists Can
> >>>> Change American Politics."
> >>>>
> >>>> __________________________________________________
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> >>>> __________________________________________________
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> __________________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> David Bradley
> >> +1.206.234.3977
> >> dwbrad at gmail.com
> >>
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> >
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>
>
> --
>  David Bradley
> +1.206.234.3977
> dwbrad at gmail.com
>
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