Thursday, November 09, 2006

Rove: Evil Genius or Stewie?

Matthew Yglesias writes "that this election ought to demolish the Myth of Karl Rove". He points to Rove's strategy of not concentrating resources on the close races (VA, MT, MO, TN) but instead attacked Democratic seats in other states (NJ and MD). He then points to Rove doing the same (mistaken) thing in previous elections but winning in spite of it.

"Interestingly, Rove made the exact same error in 2000, engaging in an absurd late-game effort to campaign in California. He then lost the election, only to wind up with Bush securing the White House through a series of incredibly unlikely events plus a partisan Supreme Court. Then in 2004, he did something similar with weird last minute gambits in Hawaii and New Jersey that put his candidates perilously close to losing Ohio (and with it the presidency) not withstanding a decent-sized popular majority. Learning nothing from his good fortune except an unhealthy sense of infallibility, he proceeded to do it again and then, finally, have things genuinely blow up in his face."

Andrew Sullivan in May wrote How Stupid Is Karl Rove?. "Rove is a terrible political guru. To sell your soul - and your party's soul - for a permanent majority is one thing. To sell it for 51 percent is just pathetic."

No comments: