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Posted on 08/29/2006 7:30:29 AM PDT by meandog
WASHINGTON - With polls showing that voters favor Democrats over Republicans in the coming congressional races, even some Republican strategists are pessimistic. But they're overlooking the power of Karl Rove.
In his 2004 victory speech, Bush described Rove as the architect of his win. Normally, President Bush does not invite his friends' offspring to his birthday party. This past July 4, however, he invited Andrew Rove, the 16-year-old son of Bush's political guru. It was a special gesture that showed how much Rove means to the president.
Because most of what Rove does is done in secret, it's easy for political strategists outside the White House and Republican National Committee to underestimate the impact he and his protege RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman will have on the November elections.
"Karl is a genius," former White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. "Andy" Card, Jr., told me recently. "And Ken Mehlman is as good as Karl. People don't know that - Karl's ability to understand the dynamics of demography. In the 2000 election, he knew Florida inside and out. He knew Ohio inside and out in 2004. He knew every state like that. He knew every swing state. He could say which counties had the most significant growth in soccer moms," who tend to be more open to voting Republican.
Based on that knowledge, Rove would say, "Don't bother going to this county; go to this county," Card said. "Go to this media market, not that media market."
Card said he has seen how "some pretty remarkable people in politics" operate - people like Ed Rollins, Ron Kaufman, and Lee Atwater. "But I found Karl and Ken Mehlman, first of all, complemented each other," Card said. "They knew the ways and the means to get things done. Lots of other people know the ways and some people know the means, but I felt that they had a good media sense, they had a good grassroots sense, they had the personality triggers that helped in one district or hurt in a district. And they would say, ‘Tell that person to stay away,' or ‘Tell that person to come in.' They played masterfully."
For the 2000 election, Rove and Mehlman began developing what is known as Voter Vault, a database that allows Republicans to ping in on possible Republican voters house by house. To compile the database, Rove and Mehlman conducted a survey of, say, 5,000 people in each state. The survey revealed which voters were for Bush or leaned toward him or toward Republicans. It asked about attitudes toward the war on terror, education policy, tax cuts. Then Rove and Mehlman matched those people with a voter file that lists all 168 million registered voters in the country. Finally, they matched all the data with 107 other identifying features from each voter's consumer history, obtained from consumer data mining companies and direct marketing vendors. They broke the profiles into manageable segments so the campaign could focus on candidate preferences or issue preferences.
Now Rove and Mehlman knew that if a voter drove a Mercury, subscribed to a hunting magazine, and belonged to a church, he or she was open to voting Republican. If the voter drove a Subaru and contributed to the Sierra Club, he or she would likely vote for Democrats. With that data, Rove and Mehlman ran the field program, targeting each voter who might be a good prospect through the mail, phone, Internet, and personal contact. Rather than sending out paid volunteers, as the Democrats were doing, Rove and Mehlman would ask a Bush volunteer who is Hispanic and active in the Boy Scouts to pay a personal call on a prospect who was also Hispanic and active in the Boy Scouts.
Today, the Democrats are still talking about the possibility of developing plans for such a capability.
Collister "Coddy" Johnson, who became national field director for the 2000 campaign, remembered when he first started working for Mehlman as an intern in 1999 and he had the task of drafting a letter from Bush to Iowa farmers. Johnson was in Rove's office on the first floor of campaign headquarters in Austin when Rove read his draft. Rove wrote a few notes on the letter and handed it back to Johnson. At the top, Rove had written, "Purpose?"
"What do you mean by ‘purpose,' sir?" Johnson asked. "If you mean the thesis, I think it's right there, in the last line of the first graph - the thesis, I mean."
"The thesis, eh?" Rove replied. "Well, if that's your Ivy-league language," he said, smiling, "let's talk about theses, antitheses, and syntheses," using philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's formulations. "Where is the tension in the letter? How do you drive the purpose, its synthesis, from that tension? I don't see it, and I don't think the second and third graphs carry it."
Johnson walked back to his desk, recognizing that the letter was dull and somewhat amazed that Hegel had just been quoted in a campaign office.
Rove's wonkishness melds well with Mehlman's leadership skills, which Rove ranks as the most important component of Mehlman's success, along with his political acumen. Unlike many in the political world, both men support their employees even when the chips are down, engendering tremendous loyalty.
In one example that has never previously come out, on June 8, 2002, the Washington Post and other publications began reporting that a Senate staffer on Capitol Hill had found a computer disk in Lafayette Park across from the White House. On the disk was a PowerPoint presentation that Rove and Mehlman had given to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in the 2002 mid-term election. As outlined in a series of subsequent press disclosures, the presentation reviewed prospects for individual candidates, including which ones might lose. The vaunted secrecy of the Bush White House had sprung a leak.
"Karl, Karl, Karl," Maureen Dowd chided in her New York Times column.
According to the Mehlman aide who was in charge of the mechanics of the PowerPoint presentation, the talk was given to a chapter of the California Lincoln Club at the Hay Adams Hotel across from the White House. The aide hooked up his laptop computer to the projector.
"At that time, I used to bring a floppy disk in case there was a computer problem," said the aide, who agreed to tell me what happened without attribution to him. "I took the disk out of my pocket and put it in a folder I was carrying with Karl's hard copy of the presentation. I left the folder on the projector; I'm certain the disk was still in it."
The aide said the disk was not lost in the park.
"My belief is that someone in the room took it from the folder on top of the projector," he said. "I did leave it there unattended after I tested the projector for a minute or two. I think I went to get a diet Coke."
When the details of the PowerPoint presentation hit the press, Mehlman asked the staffer about it. He said he took full responsibility and offered to resign. But both Mehlman and Rove supported him.
"There were two possible responses to the media inquiries, neither of which I took," Mehlman said. "We could have said we have fired him, which I was not going to do. Or I could have said the Democrats must have taken the disk, which I knew was not true. I'm a huge believer in lancing the boil. I just move on. I told Andy Card and Karl and said the aide left the disk on the system. He didn't drop it in the park. If you're going to be angry at someone, be angry at me."
Under Bush's direction, Rove and Mehlman have reached out to blacks and Hispanics. Peter N. Kirsanow, whom Bush named to the National Labor Relations Board in January, has lived in Ward 10 in Cleveland for nearly 25 years.
"The ward is approximately 90 percent to 95 percent black, working class," said Kirsanow, who is himself black. "Before the 2004 presidential election, I had never seen one Republican flyer, yard sign - save my own - or canvasser in my neighborhood. In 2004, they were everywhere. Moreover, for the first time that I can recall, the GOP ran frequent ads on the local black radio station. These efforts may explain, in part, why President Bush's percentage of the black vote in Ohio rose from 9 percent in 2000 to 16 percent in 2004."
Beyond efforts at mobilizing Republican voters, the RNC has cash on hand of $43.6 million, compared with $11.3 million for the Democrats. That difference is even more significant because, to obtain discounts on services it buys, the RNC often guarantees payment by placing funds in escrow before bills are due. However, for Senate and House races, the Democrats are ahead. The Democrats have $68.2 million cash on hand, compared to the Republicans' $54.8 million.
Starting in early September, the RNC will be using its money for TV commercials that will portray the Democrats as defeatists who, if elected, would undermine national security.
"Karl pulled it off in two successful presidential runs," said Brad Blakeman, a Republican strategist and former Bush aide. "In 2002, we took the Senate back. In 2004, we made more gains in both houses. I think Karl is going to use the strategies that have proven effective in the past - that is to play to our strengths, which the Democrats have constantly miscalculated. They perceive our weakness to be the war, but they have never won using the Iraq war as an issue," Blakeman said.
When Americans go to the polls in November, Blakeman said, "The issue will be security, especially after the London airplane plots were uncovered. Who has kept us safe? President Bush and the Republicans
Same story, different election cycle.
1) Most Americans are inherently Conservative
2) The Democrats have no message
3) The Democrats hate this country
4) Most Americans have grown to distrust the Democrats and their media allies
Nope. If Republicans win, it will be because Karl Rove is an evil, secretive, genius.
I guess they actually believe their own hype now about the polls. Republicans are going to win this year, this is the same garbage we have been hearing every election cycle, and every election cycle the dimwits get their brains beat out, and it will be so this year.
I LOVE Ken Mehlman...he's one of the most Articulate men I have ever seen on TV.
And when don't the "polls" say that? Been around too long to quake every time I hear this.
"WASHINGTON - With polls showing that voters favor Democrats over Republicans in the coming congressional races, even some Republican strategists are pessimistic. But they're overlooking the power of Karl Rove."
You are correct. Every election cycle Democrats are poised to win back large numbers of seats because Americans are dissatisfied with how the country is being run.
And after every election cycle the Mediacrats are praising the courage of the defested Democrats and their moral victories.
Concur...but Mehlman looks so good in part because of his Democratic counterpart: Mean, Teen, Howard Dean!
Based on all the weather forecasts I have been hearing, the evil Dr. Rove (tm) has a big Republican brand Hurricane on it's way to thin out the herds up in the northeastern Blue States.
All I keep coming back to about Rove is the comment he made to Sensenbrenner re:I llegal Immigration - "You just don't like brown people". That did it for me. He is a piece of crap, I don't care how many election cycles he impacts, we KNOW where he stands - PRO ILLEGAL.
The demos think the repubs are clueless as to what is going on with the publics' mindset. I still believe the demos will get the crap beat out of them come November, and quite frankly, it will be a lot of fun watching them point fingers at each other for the blame. Reid and Pelosi will blame each other and both will turn on Dean. I promise you, it will be a blood bath on their side, and provide some super comedy for us to watch!
Rove is overrated. He almost lost the 2004 election despite having an incumbent President in wartime with a good economy against the most liberal senator from the most liberal state in America. Kerry had so much personal baggage and an unattractive wife yet he made the race very close. The SBVFT made the difference and Rove had nothing to do with it.
If they lose (and I believe also they will), they will be pointing their fingers at "election fraud" and the electronic voting and demanding re-counts. They will call every lost race an illegitimate Republican victory. This pattern started with Gore and has been emulated world-wide by liberals ever since those horrific re-count weeks in 2000.
The "personal baggage" Kerry has was not reported by the media, he was played the hero all the way. Until we have a non-corrupt media, Republicans have a tremendous disadvantage that even a genius like Rove cannot get past and we will have close, difficult elections even when they run total losers on the left.
I knew that, even without all the fancy info nuggets.
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