Posted on 05/31/2007 8:53:31 AM PDT by kellynla
Karl Rove’s political strategy for President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign was "maniacally dumb,” declares Newt Gingrich – who says the right can’t retain power if it alienates the center.
In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg for The New Yorker magazine, the former House Speaker said Rove left Bush with "no political capital.”
Gingrich observed: "All he proved was that the anti-Kerry vote was bigger than the anti-Bush vote.”
The Bush campaign failed to wage a campaign based on ideology, said Gingrich, and instead of suggesting that Kerry was "to the left of Ted Kennedy,” it focused on attacking Kerry’s war record.
Gingrich has gotten heat of late from some conservatives for reaching out to center-right voters, Goldberg notes. But Gingrich said he wants to bring the center into a coalition with the right "because I want to give the right power. The right can have power only by being allied with the center.”
Failure to recognize that was Rove’s mistake in 2004, according to Gingrich, who feels Republicans risk alienating "America’s natural majority.”
The GOP’s only hope of holding on to the White House in 2008 is to nominate a candidate who runs against Bush, just as Nicolas Sarkozy won France’s presidency by "making his own president, Jacques Chirac, his virtual opponent,” said Gingrich.
Goldberg writes that Gingrich "says the Bush administration has become a Republican version of the Jimmy Carter presidency, when nothing seemed to go right.”
Gingrich also warned: "When you have the collapse of the Republican Party, you have an immediate turn toward the Democrats, not because the Democrats are offering anything better, but on a ‘not them’ basis. And if you end up in a 2008 campaign between ‘them’ and ‘not them,’ ‘not them’ is going to win.”
I’m not that big a fan of Newt either...
especially the way he went about divorcing his former wife while she was laid up in the hospital...
but you have to give the guy credit for being a major force behind the 1994 Republican revolution.
oh and btw, could you be a little more concise next time. LOL
In fact, there is evidence that the WH inner circle holds socons in contempt.
What evidence?
The book that the progressive minister wrote about what happened to the Faith based initiative, he stated that the people he talked to would laugh at him when he left the room and that the Admin never took the Faith Based policy seriously nor would they push for it’s passage.
For more on an assessment of Rove, and the threat he poses and has posed to the Republican future:
Dysron, Quack or Mole, and Karl Rove, Revisited.
Gingrich, whether you always agree with him or not, has shown the capacity to lead people to a point of view. Rove has never demonstrated such an ability. His whole approach is tailored to what people have previously been led to believe by other people.
William Flax
Thank you for your post.
It shows how spoiled we’ve become as a nation when we take for granted that we have 4.5% unemployment, great economic growth, and we haven’t been successfully attacked in six years.
And John Kerry wanted to raise our taxes, postpone the elections in Iraq, and pull our troops out!
no
Perhaps you are right but I don’t get that from “The Bush campaign failed to wage a campaign based on ideology, said Gingrich”. The ‘center’ is not ideological. The Reagan Democrats were those who heard the sucking sound and jumped to Perot. Today they are still more concerned with the economic well-being of their families than something like Gingrich’s ideological Contract with America which Newt hardly pursued after the election.
It will be very interesting to see 1) what the economy looks like next year at this time 2) what the ‘experts’ think about the economy (ranging from actual investors to pundits to media reports about what it actually is and 3) how that factors into an election with 2 non-incumbents challenging. All the usual economic electoral predictors could concievable be dismissed.
Usually, an ‘incumbent’ (pres or VP) is running and the economy is usually one of the top factors as to whether he (no she’s yet) succeeds.
But w/ no incumbent (similar to 1974? as most recent, w/ Ford not really being an incumbent?), we’d have to be almost 40 years distant from that situation (1968).
So how useful would most economic model predictions be for predicting the outcome given the largely changed economic environmet? Declining unions, expanding boomers, service sector vs manufaturing vs outsourcing, demographics, etc.
Unfortunately, given the absence of reliable information (and reliable candidates) the media will likely help skew the information the public receives to favor the dems.
You’re right.
Right now, gas prices are the issue du jour because the media can’t find anything else bad to report on the economy. But if gas has gone down by this time next year, what will the issue be then?
Hey wonder what Kerry's voter approval number would be today. Think it would reach 50+?
Obviously, that is a matter of opinion. My opinion is that Newt is a moron because he made this statement.
:::shrug:::
Progressive minister?
stated that the people he talked to would laugh at him when he left the room
How does he know? And how does he know they weren't laughing at him because he is 'progressive'.
Hadn't heard that.
There's deportation, and deportation. Catching someone sneaking across the border and sending them home I wouldn't count as the real thing. Catching someone who's working and living here illegally and sending them home I would count.
There is so much demagogery on all sides of this issue it's not funny. I'm not buying this Bush claim for the above reason, just as I don't buy the screams of "amnesty" at anything short of of martial law to catch illegals.
“How does he know that...”
Got me, I think the man’s name was David Kuo, his book was released right before the 2006 elections, and I say “progressive” because he was asking that general taxpayer funds be used to finance Churches community services.
As I recall, some of the aides who were in the room didn’t think it was a good thing that the high level folks were laughing at the man when he left and they told him.
Here is what he said during a 60 minutes interview:
You name the important Christian leader, and I have heard them mocked by serious people in serious places,” Kuo told CBS Television’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday October 16.
Kuo, who left the White House in late 2003 after a brain tumor and subsequent seizure caused him to have a serious car accident, told Leslie Stahl that the mocking included the Rev. Pat Robertson being called “insane,” the Rev. Jerry Falwell being called “ridiculous” and comments that Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family “had to be controlled.”
Now I don’t buy into this man’s story, this is purely for informational sake, this the genesis of the man’s original post about “Laughing at”.
An Esquire Magazine Article, a 60 minutes interview, and book by a fmr office holder in the “Faith Based” program.
Caveat Emptor.
well ya better start "buying" ‘cause one more muzzie explosion ‘round here and every illegal and muzzie swingin’ dick will have to pack up his koran and go back to whatever hellhole they originated from.
My ancestors didn’t risk life & limb to emigrate to this country LEGALLY just so a bunch of camel jockeys could come here, terrorize our women & children and make hamburger out or our families. And the illegals will have to go home and GET IN LINE just like everybody else. No more cutting-in-line!
And anyone who doesn't like it; can have a good cry over it.
cyaaaaaaaaaaaa
He is absolutely on the money here! 2006 was all about running elections on local issues, trying to "run from Bush on Iraq", where Democrats ran as either more conservative or just as conservative without a scent of "GOP corruption" and Abramoff. Rove / RNC / RSCC (E. Dole) didn't nationalize elections on ideology (SCOTUS, GWOT etc.) but instead were trying to hold onto selected seats like Chafee's (and before that Specter etc.) while barely, if at all, providing support to some true conservatives (Santorum etc.)
The ‘center’ is not ideological.
What he means by "center" is people who voted for Reagan (including his "heir" Bush-41 in 1998) but then were lost by Bush-41 to Perot and Clinton. I was trying to explain Perot vote to some of my friends, but they felt "betrayed" by Bush-41 and it was an outlet for them to vote instead of sitting home. Newt wants to bring this "center" back into the party by explaining to them (again) what conservatism is and getting them into the movement, instead of moving toward the soft, liberal "center" as is being misinterpreted. "Big Tent" is very successful Reagan's idea, but it meant to get people into the movement by them embracing conservative ideology and it led to landslide elections, not squeaks based on vote-against-my-current-opponent-because-he-is-so-and-so, not his and his party ideology. 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections were mano a mano, not ideological, unlike Reagan's 1980 and 1984 (and mid-term Gingrich's 1994). We can lose these mano a mano elections big, or win by a squeak, but they aren't advancing the movement, and therefore legislations and judicial appointments.
Gingrich’s ideological Contract with America which Newt hardly pursued after the election.
Sorry, but Gingrich pushed through and passed into legislations 6 of 10 points in Contract, and completely changed the dialog of the country, despite Clinton's veto threats and daily assault by media... and on others was later stabbed in the back repeatedly by either some of his jealous or ungrateful House "comrades" like Boener, and definitely by Senate and Bob Dole who saw him as potential competitor in upcoming primaries of 1996 - that was when Dole caved on budget in 1995 during Clinton's government shutdown.
Ideologically and strategically Newt is unsurpassed as the closest to Reagan among the current GOP leadership. His tactics are often misinterpreted or misunderstood and often simply colored with personal animus for different reasons.
I didn’t know Condi has a penis.
yes, I agree. Bush and Rove were not interested in the long term health of the party. (In fact, they are probably pulling for Hillary in ‘08, just as Clinton was probably for Bush in 2000.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.