Machiavellian Rove 'Kept Santorum Alive Until He Could Kill Rick Perry First... THEN Newt Gingrich'

Reaganite Republican ^ | 15 November 2012 | Reaganite Republican

[Reaganite Republican]

GO AWAY already

It's over dude...

As you've most likely already heard, the TEA Party right has declared all-out war on Karl 'Boss Hogg' Rove in the wake of numerous recent (expen$ive) GOP disasters in which
'The Architect' played an inglorious starring role. The final straw was likely his lack of willingness to take responsibility for an almost complete lack of success in the 2012 election cycle, instead pointing fingers and making excuses like an Italian cruise ship captain.

Rove's flat-out whiffing in almost every race he backed -on top of improbable Romney defeat- would be enough for any sensible organization to seek-out somebody with a different strategy/skill-set... yet now Rove has provided still more reason to turn on him by attempting to blame the right for Mitten's lack of results while pushing an ill-conceived and unhelpful amnesty agenda as a shiny fool's gold cure-all for the party's current electoral woes.

As someone who initially backed Bachmann and later Newt Gingrich, I sure haven't forgotten the way Rove utilized near-limitless resources to destroy conservative candidates and ram Romney down our gullet. I really felt like I'd been totally screwed-over... not a very pleasant feeling.

Now we read that Santorum -who I'm no fan of- served effectively as a post-Iowa useful idiot that Rove utilized to damage all other conservatives, as he diluted and split the party's right by surrepticiously funding Santorum's dead-end campaign long past it's natural life. Not a huge surprise I guess, we all knew the fix was in... apparent from very early-on.

Thanks Ricky- do you even know you were played yet?

I ASK YOU who needs a duplicitous RINO scumbag like Karl Frickin' Rove manipulating our party- this gaming-the-primaries stuff is completely anti-democratic, denying the people's will (only 30% of Republicans supported Romney in the primaries- that's what you call 'collective wisdom'). 

Small wonder then that Rove got his blobular butt kicked all up-and-down the field on Election Day, and now the whole party is paying a heavy-duty price for it, not to mention the country (highlights Ed.)-

_____________________________________________________________________

Business Insider:

Karl Rove was out raising money to keep Santorum alive until they could kill Newt 

Santorum basically ran for Governor of Iowa in 2011, visiting all 99 counties; 

Santorum, out of Iowa, had no organization, no money and no chance in 2012 to be the Republican nominee; he was only a stalking horse for Mitt Romney 

Rove kept Santorum alive until he could kill Rick Perry first, and then Newt Gingrich. It's instructive to note that Santorum placed 3rd in the South Carolina Presidential Primary the third week of January, and placed 3rd again the next week in Florida — yet Rove [by encouraging GOP donors to donate Santorum] was able to parlay two third place finishes into a $1M shot of money to keep Santorum alive...this is political gamesmanship on a whole other level, plus access to unlimited money. 

That Fox News and the The Wall Street Journal worked out a hefty financial contract with Karl Rove is of no concern to me, Karl has every right to be paid well and -like me- participate in the political process. 

But giving Karl Rove the perch as a neutral analyst and an unbiased observer -honest broker- when in reality Karl is driven by his desire to enhance his clients and/or personal interests -corrupts the process. 

_____________________________________________________________________

But guess what? WE WILL WIN this war with Karl Rove and other ossified GOP failures over the next few months...
and we're going to have one helluva lot of fun doing it. 

Yes, the imminent death of the Karl Rove's diabolical RNC cabal will mean a true Reaganite renaissance in this country: you know... the long-overdue one who's time had unfortunately not yet quite come last week- but it is coming my friends, and soon.

How soon? It's already here for Rove- he wasted millions on crap results from coast-to-coast, and nobody's going to hire him for this sort of thing again- he can just sit there and bloviate on Hannity every night, 'blah blah blah CHART blah blah blah $$$ blah blah blah 'confident' blah blah blah blah blah' -yawn-

It's here for Obama's former crony-capitalist buddies on Wall Street, too- financial markets are tanking because most investors were sure that Romney was going to win, and since this was already priced-in to securities, now-disappointed traders are dumping in dismay... tell me they're not up for a Reaganomics-driven recovery right about now.

Yes, it's almost here for all of us: all we got to do is roll
Rollee-Pollee Rove to the curb and usher in a NEW generation of GOP leaders... the so-called 'Children of Reagan': the Rubios, Ryans, Gowdys, the Bachmanns... Ted Cruz... Mike Pence. THESE are people who get it- and because of that, they now stand ready to inherit the leadership mantle of the TEA Party
-which is to be indiscernible from the 'new' GOP- in our ongoing quest to salvage this great nation:

_____________________________________________________________________

Forbes:

Rubio already has earned rock star quality, both for his personal charisma and the charisma of his ideas. 

Rubio is a leader in presenting prosperity-with-social-equity, fostering Reaganesque economic policies: 

'We don’t need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system. 

And then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again. And that’s what we should be focused on, and that’s what we’re not focused on.'

Rubio leads the pack among GOP Insiders in the most recent National Journal Political Insiders’ Poll. He’s built a major league team and is first tier..

_____________________________________________________________________

First step? Replace John Boehner with -say- Paul Ryan...

_____________________________________________________________________

iowntheworld   Forbes   ArkansasGOPWing   RSN   Business Insider

[blueunicorn6]

I think that Rove is a good tactician. The problem is that he’s not a strategist. He thinks he is, but he’s a tactician. Rove and the Republican Party’s focus on tactics elected Bush....twice. It also elected Obama....twice. Rove would be good as part of a Republican election team, but not as the leader of a team. I don’t think that his ego will let him subordinate himself to be a team player.

[JCBreckenridge]

Yeah, Santorum Stopped Gingrich. 11 > 2.

He’s exactly right, but as usual, got the wrong target. Gingrich cost Santorum wins in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I sent Rick $100.
Still waiting for my sweater vest...

[GlockThe Vote]

Karl Rove is probably one of the worst things ever to happen to the GOP.

[GlockThe Vote]

Karl Rove is probably one of the worst things ever to happen to the GOP.

[laweeks]

Altho this election was flat out stolen from us, and altho NOTHING will be done by the Stupid Party to go after the filthy bastards that stole it, I personally have had enough of Rove (the “Architect” as Hannity continually calls him . . . and I’ve had enough of Hannity).

This election was stolen with dramatic finesse right out from under our noses, and the powers-to-be in the Repub Party stood there like morons and let it happen.

There was no way we could’ve won this election:

* Airplane crash with hundreds of thousand military ballots gone
* Ballots found in trunks of cars, in warehouses, under desks, in filing cabinets, in graveyards
* Repubs being refused entry into voting precincts by the lawless bastards on the left, and nothing was done about it
* States being prohibited from removing felons and dead people from the rosters

Everything smells to holy high heaven, and the Stupid Party will do nothing.

[onyx]

I concur.

[Charles Henrickson]

There just wasn’t a better option in the field.

You are correct. Romney gave us the best chance to win, and he came close. Did a lot of things right (e.g. Ryan), did some things wrong (e.g., not enough specifics on his five-point plan). Overall, ran a fairly decent campaign, could have been stronger, coasted too much toward the end.

[RedMDer]

[C. Edmund Wright]

yada yada yada - you insist on changing the subject. You can’t change the fact that Santorums vaprous campaign was kept alive by Mitt’s money, or the express purpose of beating Newt. Now, did both Mitt and Newt under estimate Santorum’s appeal to those anyone but Mitt voters? Yep, and I was inside Newt’s PAC warning about this as early as the first week of January. Did they make mistakes? Damn right they did. But that was after the period this article is talking about.

But nothing changes the fact that Santorum has no appeal outisde of a slice of the GOP electorate, and nothing changes the fact that he is a pro life liberal on may issues regarding unions, environmental issues, and big government. And nothing changes the fact that while he has a narrow slice of folks who loved him, he was offputting the vast majority of the country. He just doesn’t have that much ability.

What Newt and Mitt missed is that with Mitt’s scorched earth campaign, and teeny tiny turn outs in all states AFTER South Carolina, that narrow slice of Santorum support was a big percentage of the shrunken universe.

But again, nothing changes the fact that his campaign was floated by Rove and Mitt money for the purpose of destroying Gingrich.

[TexanByBirth]

Karl Rowe = James Carville

Both past their prime talking heads...and both are cockroaches that need to be stumped out!

[GlockThe Vote]

He comes across as corrupt, slimey, and everything people hate about politics,

He needs to be sent far far far away.

McCain raised 1/3 the money that romney did and got the same turnout.

$$$$ is not everything if you have to get in bed w the likes of rove & co. .

[squarebarb]

I didn’t particularly like Perry, but saying his ‘lackluster performance’ did him in is silly. Obama had a terrible performance. It was the lazy b@stards in the GOP who just DID NOT WORK to win.

I heard that the Dems had 130 working outreach centers in Ohio and the GOP had six!

the only positive thing is that we came close to beating the Obama Machine even with both hands tied by this sh!t-@ss party.

Where the hell did the money go?And so what am I going to do about it? I’m going to, first of all, find out how the GOP works. What is its organizational pattern, how things get done.

Very few people know anything at all about any political party; it’s structure, its offices, how people get to positions of power. etc. This is what I need to know.

It’s what we all need to know.

[cripplecreek]

3000 votes in Michigan which was under 1% and was a tie with Romney till the rules committee voted to change the rules in the middle of the night.

However Gingrich didn’t interfere in Michigan but getting out would have cost Romney the state and likely ended his run.

[C. Edmund Wright]

The race was over after Florida. It was just a matter of time. This article is talking about the critical time of Iowa through Florida.

The tiny GOP primaries in those states were vaporous niche contests. You can claim “states” all you want, but in the primary, unlike the general, “states” mean very different things. Just teeny tiny percentages of the voters in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan even came out. Rick’s shameless pro union sops helped him in those very union thug heavy states. That and the narrow niche he appealed to. Turn out was statistically meaningless.

But people who think that winning certain primaries has anything to do with being able to win those states electorally are just so out of touch with how the process works that I care not to discuss it with them.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Or the other explanation is the candidates all just stunk. And the primary voters knew it.

Weakest field ever in a primary.

[Democrats hate too much]

If Karl Rove had anything to do with the ridiculous amount of money that went to NEGATIVE ADVERTISING against other republicans in swing states, that would be bad... Romney lost places like Iowa and Florida when he spent so much money in negative advertising against Republicans. I came to find after election day that my large amount of conservative facebook friends from Florida didn’t vote because they “didn’t like either one.” This was because Romney spent over 40 Million in negative advertising in Florida. Newt countered with negative advertising… This is the real reason we lost Florida. It is pointless to spend so much money in negative advertising against each other… Yes, we should vent each other. Accuse people of things and then let them use the debate to vet themselves. Romeny also stopped doing debates (was this Karl’s idea). Republicans next time need to use debates as commercials to explain why the Dems are so bad... I like the experience Karl has. He may be an asset but he needs to understand that some of his ideas are a mistake.

[greene66]

This points to my biggest revulsion towards Rove... his going on FoxNews and pretending to be an ‘unbiased’ political analyst while taking massive amounts of money and utilizing his platform to deliberately prop-up or deep-six candidates, according to who fills his wallet.

Of course, this invariably leads to the support of big-moneyed GOP-E Rino candidates of the ruling-class, and the slitting-the-throats of grassroots tea-party types. I despise Rove as much as any sleazoid Dem operative. Maybe even more.

[newzjunkey]

The Santorum folks on here don’t want to hear this, but this is exactly what did happen.

Yup. I said FL was the last stand for a conservative alternative to Romney and Newt had emerged as that candidate in SC. I said if Santorum stayed in, it was to benefit Romney.

Those here enraptured by the sanctimonious establishment hack Santorum would hear nothing of it. They didn't care about his voting record, his GOPe ties, he had a nice family and was talking their values and they followed him like the Pied Piper. They would travel thread-to-thread in attack mode.

Now unlike the op ed, I think Romney was the right candidate in the end. He had the right skill set for the mess we find ourselves in. Who among us could anticipate GOP turnout would be as low in light of the crowds? It came down to ground game and people, like those who supported Santorum, refusing to ever vote against Obama because Romney was the nominee.

The so-called Tea Party failed to stop Obama's agenda, it lost ground over 2010 and produced more US Senate candidates who failed in states Romney won easily with tens, even hundreds of thousands of votes difference. Now some seem to think this is a mandate to hijack the agenda. It is nothing of the kind. It's time for introspection, time to reexamine how primary candidates are chosen.

These winnable but lost seats were the difference between a GOP Senate and Harry Reid's expanded majority against all expectations.

I have not seen a single of Akin apologist here admit to being wrong about him staying in the race. Instead they attacked, they demonized, the slandered everyone from Romney to Palin, from DeMint to Ryan, to their fellow freepers as pro-abortionists.

[newzjunkey]

I bet an independent Tea Party could even out-fundraise them.

More delusions. Did someone spike the tea?