Free Republic

Top Republicans in Washington and in the national GOP establishment say the 2010 campaign highlighted an urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over: Stop Sarah Palin. Interviews with advisers to the main 2012 presidential contenders and with other veteran Republican operatives make clear they see themselves on a common, if uncoordinated, mission of halting the momentum and credibility Palin gained with conservative activists by plunging so aggressively into this year’s midterm campaigns. There is rising expectation among GOP elites that Palin will probably run for president in 2012 and could win the...

Karl Rove, Republican political strategist and the general behind George Bush's presidential victories, has been taking pot shots at some conservative favorites. His latest target, former Alaska governor and Tea Party darling, Sara Palin. Palin, Mr. Rove told Britain's The Daily Telegraph, lacked the "gravitas" to be president in 2012. He dissed her new Alaska reality series as a bad political move. “With all due candour, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office’,” Rove told the...

Rove: Huckabee apologized Ben Smith October 28, 2010 Karl Rove told a New York audience today that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee e-mailed him to apologize for a public shot at the former White House adviser. Huckabee, in the course of denouncing "elitism" in the Republican Establishment, told WABC's Aaron Klein that he was "disappointed" in Karl Rove's dismissal of Christine O'Donnell. Speaking to the Heritage Foundation in New York today, Rove was asked about the comment. Per The Nation's Neima Jahromi, whose outlet asked the question, Rove said Huckabee had apologized for the jab. Rove has become a target...

Karl Rove, the former senior adviser to George W Bush, has cast serious doubt on Sarah Palin's viability as a White House candidate, questioning if the American people thought she had the "gravitas" for the "most demanding job in the world". Expressing the strongest public reservations about the conservative star made by any senior Republican figure, Mr Rove said it was unlikely that voters would regard someone starring in a reality show as presidential material. In two weeks, the former governor of Alaska launches a cable television series exploring her home state's wilderness. "With all due candour, appearing on your...

Karl Rove seems to be taking some heat for his saying the Tea Party is less sophisticated than the Reagan Revolution - enough heat to tug on Tucker Carlson's chain for a slight walk-back, anyway. That's some leash. I guess it extends to Texas after all. Heh! But pay attention to the bit from Rove in bold below. What he calls progress, we call progressivism of the Republican sort. And that's just the sort of big government Republicanism I would link to Karl Rove. SPIEGEL: But is he so different from other Democratic presidents? Take Lyndon B. Johnson. He introduced...

In 2004, the Republican master strategist Karl Rove led weekly sessions at his Washington residence where, over big plates of his butter-smothered “eggies” and bacon slabs, he planned the re-election of President George W. Bush — and what he hoped would be lasting Republican dominion over Democrats.

Karl Rove continued his media rounds tonight with a satellite appearance on Hannity, which he used to discuss Christine O’Donnell’s appearance last night on the same program. After his much-talked about criticism of O’Donnell in the past week, it’s safe to say after hearing her last night, Rove is coming around. Rove tempered his own positive thoughts by noting how far behind she still is in the polls, but called her overall performance in last night’s interview “a very good sign” that she can get people to “pay attention to her.” Most notably, he said O’Donnell “handled the witchcraft issue...

Karl Rove – the top GOP strategist who declared last week that Christine O’Donnell’s surprise victory does “little good” for the party – is now calling on the surprise Senate nominee to explain her comments about witchcraft. "In southern Delaware where there are a lot of churchgoing people, they're going to want to know what that is all about,” the former aide to President George W. Bush told "Fox News Sunday." “My view is she can’t simply ignore it,” he said. “She’s got to deal with it and explain it and put it in its most sympathetic light and move...

Karl Rove, political mastermind for former President Bush, said Sunday that Christine O'Donnell, the Tea Party insurgent who won an upset victory in Delaware for the GOP Senate nomination, "can't simply ignore" the controversy stirred over the disclosure that she "dabbled in witchcraft" and has to find a way to "explain it and put it in its most sympathetic light and move on." "In southern Delaware, where there are a lot of church-going people, they're probably going to want to know what was that all about," Rove said on Fox News Sunday. "And again, she said it on television when...

After helping propel several upstart Republican contenders to recent primary victories, Sarah Palin said Friday that it's time for Republicans to unite now that primary season is over. The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee delivered a fiery speech to about 1,400 people at the Iowa Republican Party's Reagan dinner, the party's largest annual fundraiser. She noted that the general elections are less than two months away and stressed that Nov. 2 should be the focus of all Republicans. "This is our movement, this is our moment," she said. "The time for unity is near. It is...

Neil Cavuto just teased: Is Christine O'Donnell the next Marco Rubio? Karl Rove will be here to analyze? FAIR & BALANCED.

Will have more comments on last night's primaries today on @happeningnow. Hope you'll tune in at 11 AM ET! #TCOT #desen #2010

Karl Rove and Sean Hannity duked it out tonight over Christine O'Donnell's win in the Republican Senate primary in Delaware, with Rove, surprisingly, calling some of O'Donnell's remarks "nutty" and conceding that "this is not a race we're going to be able to win." "This was about Mike Castle's bad votes," Rove said tonight on Fox News. "It does conservatives little good to support candidates who, at the end of the day, while they may be conservative in their public statements, do not evince the characteristics of rectitude and truthfulness and sincerity and character that the voters are looking for."...

This is a disgusting fit of pique by the same crowd that handed super majorities to the Democrats in the first place. Foxnews is reporting that the NRSC is refusing to back Christine O'Donnell in the general election even though she is the clear choice of Delaware Republicans. Party fractures on full display, Republican aides told Fox News Tuesday that O'Donnell would not be getting national fundraising support. State party leaders had warned that O'Donnell cannot compete against Democrat Chris Coons and vigorously backed Castle, a nine-term congressman and former governor. This, more than a reflection on the O'Donnell campaign,...

Report: National Republican Senatorial Committee Won’t Fund Christine O’Donnell (Updated)by Colby Hall | 10:35 pm, September 14th, 2010 Earlier tonight Christine O’Donnell was declared the winner of the Republican Senate primary in Delaware over heavy favorite Mike Castle. Since O’Donnell was viewed as the Tea Party candidate endorsed by Sarah Palin, with little chance of winning in the general election in November, this race had shaped up as a the GOP establishment versus the Tea Party Republicans. In fact, just last night Charles Krauthammer called a vote for O’Donnell as irresponsible. Well according to a recent report, it turns out...

Sources at the Christine O’Donnell victory party revealed to The Freedomist that in December of last year Karl Rove met with Tea Party leaders in Dover, Delaware trying to get them to cut a “deal” in which they would leave Mike Castle alone and NOT support O’Donnell. The Freedomist has also learned that Rove was allegedly acting as an operative, although in what capacity it is not known, even as he is playing the role of a political analyst on Fox New in a fair and balanced way.

Karl Rove -Sean Hannity, Discussing Christine O'Donnell + 2010 Election

It was an amazing bit of television. Almost instant(ly) followed by an amazing bit of scoop. *snip* The normally rational and analytical Mr. Rove had vanished. In his place was someone who looked like Karl Rove, sounded like Karl Rove…but spoke like the last guy out of the hoped-for-victory-party of the landslide losing candidate for Register of Deeds in NoPlaceville, Texas. What on earth was Rove thinking? He was bitter, angry, cutting, demeaning, mean-spirited…and those were the nice things he had to say about O'Donnell.

I just finished watching Karl Rove trashing GOP Senate primary winner Christine O’Donnell. It was on Sean Hannity’s FNC show. Might as well have been Olbermann on MSNBC. The establishment Beltway strategist couldn’t even bother with an obligatory word of congratulations for O’Donnell. He criticized her “character” and “rectitude” and claimed she hadn’t answered questions about her financial woes. She did so here. Rove mocked her security concerns as “nutty.” Yet, her concerns have been more than justified. See here. Rove came across as an effete sore loser instead of the supposedly brilliant and grounded GOP strategist that he’s supposed...

Did anyone catch Rove on Hannity? This was the most disgraceful performance I have ever seen. Rove was exposed as a beltway elite RINO. He absolutely trashed Christine. And she had already won. Totally uncalled for. Hannity was stunned. Nothing but sour grapes.