Posted on 07/28/2007 3:47:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- Karl Rove, President Bush's political lieutenant, told a closed-door meeting of 2008 Republican House candidates and their aides Tuesday that it was less the war in Iraq than corruption in Congress that caused their party's defeat in the 2006 elections.
Rove's clear advice to the candidates is to distance themselves from the culture of Washington. Specifically, Republican candidates are urged to make clear they have no connection with disgraced congressmen such as Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley.
In effect, Rove was rebutting the complaint inside the party that George W. Bush is responsible for Republican miseries by invading Iraq.
MCCAIN VS. THOMPSON
Sen. John McCain, trying to keep his sinking Republican presidential campaign afloat, scheduled a fund-raiser for the same day -- Monday -- that Fred Thompson is holding his first Washington money event. McCain's reception is in the same suburban Virginia neighborhood where Thompson lives.
McCain's $1,000-to-$2,300 per person "intimate lunch" is being held at the McLean, Va., home of Wes Foster. He is chairman and CEO of Long & Foster, a major Washington area real estate firm. Thompson is holding a reception that night at the J.W. Marriott hotel in downtown Washington.
A footnote: Alabama Atty. Gen. Troy King, McCain's state chairman, attended a private fund-raiser for Thompson in Mountain Brook, Ala., last Monday night. However, as an invited guest, King did not pay the $1,000 price of admission and said he was still committed to McCain.
PENTAGON EARMARKS
Sen. Tom Coburn, frustrated with the Pentagon winking at earmarks, wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates July 19 requesting a critique of all Defense spending items asked by members of Congress to determine whether they "are for necessary national security purposes or to satisfy the parochial self-interests of politicians and defense industry lobbyists."
Coburn has experienced difficulty in getting information from the Pentagon on more than 300 earmarks contained in the Defense Department authorization bill. Over the past five years, such earmarks have cost taxpayers $55 billion. Coburn has not received a response from Gates at this writing. He has failed to mandate such critiques by legislative action.
Earmarks cited in Coburn's letter to Gates include more than $40 million for 21st Century Systems Inc. (21 CSI), sponsored by Sen. Ben Nelson. In defending the earmark for a company that employs his son, Nelson claims support from the Pentagon.
Solicitations for a Sept. 12 fund-raising reception in Washington on behalf of ailing Sen. Tim Johnson give the impression he will be present at the event, but in fact there are no such plans.
Sources close to Johnson say he will not decide his schedule until he is back in the Senate, and there is no firm schedule yet for that. Johnson has not been seen publicly since suffering a brain hemorrhage last Dec. 13, but his staff has been raising funds for his re-election campaign in South Dakota. His campaign has $1.75 million cash on hand.
The $1,000-to-$2,300-a-ticket reception will be held at the home of Johnson's fellow South Dakotan, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and his wife, transportation industry lobbyist Linda Daschle, on Foxhall Road millionaire's row in Washington. It has been speculated that if Johnson cannot run, Daschle could attempt a political comeback.
GROUCHY GINGRICH
Contrary to reports that Newt Gingrich lost control in one of his temper tantrums at a breakfast last Monday sponsored by The American Spectator magazine, the former House speaker was variously described as "grouchy," "cool" and "arrogant" in assailing his critics.
Gingrich made clear he would not be seen anytime soon engaging in multi-candidate debates with opponents for the presidency, disdaining them, as he said Charles DeGaulle once labeled his competitors, as "pygmies." But he did not rule out an eventual candidacy.
A footnote: Republican leaders report that the most enthusiasm among grassroots activists is for Gingrich and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul.
I guess that's why Rove and Bush supported the career RINO Republicans in 2006.
Rove is in legacy building mode.
Harry Reid's shady land deals? silence. Nancy Pelosi's vineyards and her wages? silence. That crook (Jefferson, was it?) down in Louisiana? barely a mention.
Pelosi was investigated locally
Marc Grossman, United Farm Workers Union: "It is patently illegal for any grower to even discuss a union contract, which is the only way you can supply union workers, without the workers first having voted in a state conducted secret ballot election."
I asked Peter Schweizer, the Hoover Research fellow, if he had researched those facts before he called Pelosi a hypocrite.
Peter Schweizer: "It's really for her to explain why there is this inconsistency. It's not my responsibility to go and find out how every single particular circumstance is handled on the Pelosi vineyard."
The 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act is pretty clear, what Peter Schweizer suggests would be illegal. Growers like Pelosi can't just hire workers from a union, but workers can unionize on their own and then negotiate with growers after they have organized. Schweizer told me this morning he would call me back and clear this all up -- he hasn't. We've left several messages.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=politics&id=4804677
Apparently the union isn't big in the Napa Valley because wages and working conditions in its vineyards exceed union demands. This is not a defense of Pelosi. When false accusations are made and exposed, it makes the accuser look suspect. I wish we would check things thoroughly before launching an attack.
This "new tone" stuff doesn't have to be implemented when you're being targeted for destruction. The "new tone" works only when you're clearly in charge--and when it comes to the press, the Republicans are NOT in charge.
I thought Dems were the professional victims. It makes me cringe when we do it.
Our congressman Pombo lost to a rookie dem. Every commercial, and there were quite a few, was about corruption. He never fought it, the idea stuck in peoples minds, and he lost. The war, to my recollection, never even came up.
Hmmmmm.......let me guess. Ex-RNC'er Kenny Mehlman told you.
Right?
Couldn't have been Mel Martinez---there's no word in Spanglish for "genius."
Corruption is just a symptom for a lack of party discipline.
Republicans in Congress just ran hog wild because their own leadership refused to lock their heels, limit their excesses, reward loyalty and punish disloyalty.
This was their leadership in the Congress proper, in the republican party, and ironically from George W. Bush. The latter was the strangest.
I have come to the conclusion that President Bush, with a republican Congress, believed in a strange doctrine that lived, intermittently, in the late 19th Century Presidents.
Simply put, that the President should deal with foreign policy, and leave domestic politics up to the Congress. In domestic issues, the President is just the executive of the wishes of Congress.
To support this idea I can point to three things: the lack of Presidentially sponsored, ordinary domestic policy issues (setting aside the WoT laws); the lack of Presidential arm twisting and vetoes to new laws; and the frequent use of the Presidential Signing Statement, in which he stated how he interpreted the new law and intended to execute it.
But without the discipline and self controls from the Congressional leadership, the republican party, or the President, the Congressional republicans just behaved abominably, and were correspondingly punished in the election.
Probably Kenny. But it used to get repeated alot so who knows where I picked it up.
You don’t hear it so much since 2006.
Rove went to La Raza as GWB's emissary to personally reassure them that US laws would not be enforced for these invaders.
"Genius" Rove's understanding of laws as the glue that holds our democracy together is appalling, perhaps criminal.
CASE IN POINT: On another thread, kellynla wrote: "For those who think just refusing to allow illegals to gain employment, free medical care and welfare etc, they will voluntarily go home......take a look at MS-13, a violent gang that originated in El Salvador, involved in murders and maiming. The MS-13 gang members are here illegally looking for membership, no experience required but must speak Spanish. According to the FBI, MS-13 is operating in 42 states throughout America and expanding! "
It's an outrage that invaders and their cadres have ALL the rights. It's time Americans footing the bills for these invaders have OUR rights enforced by federal law.
We need Tancredo or Hunter to initiate legislation that would impose severe penalties for "hate crimes against Americans," crimes like stealing our identities, cloning our cell phones, fraudulently registering/voting, and looting the tax assets of Americans.
We need to be protected from these criminals. All of these crimes (and more) should come under legislation labeled:
"Hate Crimes Against Americans."
1 - Invaders' using illegal ID or documents
2 - Invaders' Federal income tax evasion
3 - Re-entry into USA after deportation
4 - Obtain/Operate vehicles with illegal ID
5 - ID theft/fraud - Social Security fraud
6 - Knowingly gaining employment fraudulently
7 - Recruiting other illegal aliens workers
8 - Transporting illegal aliens across the border
9 - Harboring &/or housing illegal aliens on American soil
10 - Endangering Americans by undermining US national security
11 - Registering/Voting using fraudulent documentation
12 - Conspiracy to violate federal statutes
13 - Uttering false statements to public officials
14 - Obstructing law enforcement
Nice to know Kenny took time from shopping for satin sheet sets at Bed, Bath and beyond to pimp (oops, I mean pump) up the RNC.
Polarization, in a country which has already demonstrated itself capable of Civil War over political questions, is very bad. If we ever fight another one, Karl Rove will rightly go down in history as one of its architects.That's an interesting take you have on this because my criticism of him actually goes the other way, that he spent too much time emphasizing the organizational side of the campaign and successfully kept Bush out of the political arena. That he is part of the "new tone" of making nice with the liberals.
Do you really believe that in 2006 the Republicans lost because they were too partisan?
Rove’s an expert that bothered to examined the data. You are some guy who mindlessly repeating what the Politically Corrupt “News Media” tells you to think.I don't know what you think I'm repeating. My problem with Rove is that I believe he successfully lobbied to keep Bush from engaging in political battles in 2006, that he was part of the "new tone". That hardly matches the media criticism of him, that he's some kind of right wing ogre. (I only which he was.)
As for his analysis now. He may be right that "corruption" had more to do with 2006 than Iraq. But that hardly touches on the question of how he himself performed in the 2006 election. I think his performance was piss-poor and because of that I'm not overly interested in his "analysis" of that defeat. Since he was the architect of it, I don't trust his ability to "examine the data" with objectivity.
whoops
I only WISH he was (not WHICH he was)
You obviously don't live in the 6th Congressional district.
I'd tell you to stop making yourself look stupid, but one is what one is.
L
“Harry Reid’s shady land deals? silence. Nancy Pelosi’s vineyards and her wages? silence. That crook (Jefferson, was it?) down in Louisiana? barely a mention...”
Does anyone seriously believe that the MSM’s non-stop, obsessive coverage of minor Republican scandals had nothing to do with the result last November?
The MSM has been called the “Press Party” and the Press Party enforced their will in the last election. The Allen Race in Virginia, the Weldon “scandal” in Pennsylvania, the Mark Foley psuedo-scandal are all examples of the warped coverage of the MSM.
The Republicans deserve brickbats for poor candidate recruitment, lack of party discipline (Tom Delay’s late formal withdrawal from his Congressional District) and a poor record on domestic spending. Even conceding these point s, the losses would not have been as wide and deep as they were absent the influence of the MSM. I believe with a more benign media environment the Republicans could have continued with a control of Senate and lost fewer seats in the House.
The Republican party has been called the “stupid party” with good reason. It is stupid to treat the blindly partisan MSM as even-handed arbiters. The Republicans need a need a media management strategy that recognizes the MSM for what it is: a de facto extension of the Democratic Party.
We should start calling them criminal aliens, because that’s what they are.
Hunter/Coburn’08!
The only place where there is more hatred for President Bush than the DNC is FR.
Pray for W and Our Troops
In a way, yes.
Jeb Bradley lost deep red NH-01 over Iraq and nothing else.
Hunter + Coburn = 30% of popular vote and 30 EV.
When you are in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging.
So stop, already.
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