Karl "The Architect" Rove: The GOP Must Stand for Something

WSJ ^ | May 15th, 2008 | Karl Rove

[The_Republican]

Tuesday's election results highlighted challenges for both Democrats and Republicans.

Republicans received a hard shot in Mississippi. Greg Davis (for whom I campaigned and who was a well-qualified candidate) narrowly lost a special congressional election in a district President George W. Bush carried four years ago with 62% of the vote. Democrats pulled off the win by smartly nominating a conservative, Travis Childers, from a rural swing part of the district who disavowed Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and hit Mr. Davis from the right.

This blow to the GOP came after two other special congressional election losses in recent months. Republicans lost former House Speaker Denny Hastert's Illinois seat and Rep. Richard Baker's Louisiana seat.

Both of those losses can be attributed to bad candidates. But that only shows the GOP can't take "safe" seats for granted when Democrats run conservatives who distance themselves from their national party leaders. The string of defeats should cure Republicans of the habit of simply shouting "liberal! liberal! liberal!" in hopes of winning an election. They need to press a reform agenda full of sharp contrasts with the Democrats.

Why is it tough sledding for Republicans? Public revulsion at GOP scandals was a large factor in the party's 2006 congressional defeat. Some brand damage remains, as does the downward pull of the president's approval ratings. But the principal elements are the Iraq war and a struggling economy.

Gallup's 2007 report found that fewer voters identify themselves as Republicans now than at any point in the past 20 years – despite the fact that less than a fifth of Americans agree with Mr. Obama's call to rapidly withdraw from Iraq. And while many Americans are concerned about the economy, most are satisfied with their own finances.

[woofie]

Tell me what did conservatives get out of it?

We got what liberals, independents, and all American nuts got... We got to not be attacked since 9/11 by vicious fanatical Muslim nazis who have no problem killing you and themselves in the name of Allah.We got to watch as their infrastucture and organization has been largely decimated in a foreign land whose wealth could buy them any weapon man can devise. We got to see some reasonably honest people struggle with a world that spiraled out of control as the country and Bill Clinton were lulled to sleep by a nice girl named Monica and we get to watch as those who think WE are the nazis beat a drum daily that our president is the bogeyman.

[R_Kangel]

"Care to take a guess ?"

I dunno, Some form of liberalese spoken by the controlling authority unless something is done on this side of the future I suppose.

[Richard Kimball]

I don't know what I'll do. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that I no longer have a party, and am in my "winter of discontent."

I could just sit it out. I'm in Texas in Chet Edwards district. There's no way Edwards loses. Governor isn't up in Texas this time. I don't think my vote would make any difference at all.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

The string of defeats should cure Republicans of the habit of simply shouting "liberal! liberal! liberal!" in hopes of winning an election.

As the mind-numbingly predictable postings of the Team Juan shills hereabouts amply demonstrate, however: it WON'T.

[george76]

polar bear is now officially “threatened,” the impacts on the American economy will be extreme and almost certainly not anticipated or understood by the public at large.

[Richard Kimball]

Wow, thanks. I was just venting, and almost deleted it without posting. I usually keep it under control, but this article just set me off for some reason.

[onedoug]

...must stand for something.... Yeah... Right....

[FreePoster]

Karl "The Architect" Rove: The GOP Must Stand for Something

Is that today's strategy? It sounds better than last summer's strategy of calling us a bunch of ignorant bigots. Stop blaming the war. Plenty of Republicans understand the war. If Karl Rove's buddy had been a conservative these past few years, the GOP would be united and strong. But it's a bit late now. McCain is already nominated. The GOP will be in a coma until he's gone.

[Lijahsbubbe]

Well it just seemed like a very nice summation. Maybe you should let it go more often!

[Luke21]

One of the finest posts I’ve ever read on Free Republic. Thank you for summing up why so many of us are sick to death of our own party.

[nathanbedford]

I have read 57 posts as well as the original article so far and not one post contains anything but Bitterroot and bile for Mr. Rove. As far as I am concerned every poster has been entirely too kind to the man who has crippled my party and who might have destroyed my conservative movement.

Kudos to Richard Kimball who wrote this:

I donated, worked the party floors, and spent HOURS AND HOURS trying to get people to understand that the Republicans COULD NOT WIN without fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and libertarians. We HAD to balance the interests of all three groups. We found out, after they got all three branches of government, that all they wanted to do was dole out pork to their buddies and SCREW THE MORONS WHO SENT MONEY AND WORKED THEIR BUTTS OFF FOR THEM.

Damn your eyes, Karl Rove!

[stockpirate]

With all of the Socialist RINO’s in the party it does stand for something. We call what they stand for SOCIALISM.

If we want the party to have different values we need to PURGE the party of ALL Socialists.

[Lancey Howard]

The GOP Must Stand for Something

The GOP is headless. It doesn't matter what the GOP "stands for" if nobody will stand up.

[Herakles]

“The GOP Must Stand for Something”

They made themselves into a duplicate Democratic party and then turned around and expected us to buy their crap by scaring us with bogyman stories about the real Democratic party. Then they did nothing expecting us to be overwhelmed by their gracious attitude of throwing us a scrap from the table now and then.

Maybe after this fall election they can take part in all that “retraining” they say is necessary for the American work force, which oddly enough, never occurs for politicians.

It appears they are to stone stupid to save their own arses.

[txrangerette]

A lot of people, including the great pundits and talk show hosts as well as the GOP establishment and President Bush, Rove, etc have not well understood the need to teach the public about what makes America work and what makes it great.

Rush and others have tried and accomplished some things along with aspects of the new media, but all you have to do to see the problem, the ignorance, is to look at how the internet, which is very advanced technology, is now used by MoveOn and Barack etc. for propaganda and fundraising etc for extremely left wing causes.

The so called Reagan Democrats bear no semblance to the ones who voted for Reagan. They can be easily fooled and manipulated into believing the Dem party is still their natural home. Reagan Dems for Hillary? Come on.

Rove is worried about the young people who flock to Obama and the hispanics who flock to Hillary. Rightly so. But the greater problem is people who should know better don’t seem to know better any more. I don’t think any of them saw this coming. That is, the Republican meltdown.

Where they could’ve picked up on it was anecdotally, by reading and listening to those who once were the bulwark of the party at the grass roots but now are disspirited and rapidly desserting. But they are political numbers guys and they haven’t seen the train wreck approaching.

Lots of folks seem to hate them all. I don’t. They are decent sorts who missed it. They aren’t stupid, just fallible. They meant well. They saw in their vision a GOP that was eating away at the Dems in pretty effective bites, for years. They saw it continuing.

It didn’t. I say voters have lost what they knew under Reagan and under the Gingrich inspired congressional revolution. It isn’t only that these people messed up and turned voters and activists alike off. They did, but while the activists understand what is at stake and why, the voters no longer do.

Something not foreseen, but foreseeable. Rush in his world was as helpless as Rove in his world to see the magnitude of the ignorance that was coming, much less to head it off.

Rove agrees with us on a lot of matters, if you want to get down to what has turned most of you off, but on some others he strays from the path. To me, that’s a seperate issue from the fact that even where we and Rove would agree, the voters have lost their bearings since an earlier time.

Leaving all of us staring at the edge of a vast abyss...

[backhoe]

I donated, worked the party floors, and spent HOURS AND HOURS trying to get people to understand that the Republicans COULD NOT WIN without fiscal conservatives, social conservatives and libertarians. We HAD to balance the interests of all three groups. We found out, after they got all three branches of government, that all they wanted to do was dole out pork to their buddies and SCREW THE MORONS WHO SENT MONEY AND WORKED THEIR BUTTS OFF FOR THEM.

Same here, neighbor. I hear you.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Greg Davis (for whom I campaigned and who was a well-qualified candidate) narrowly lost a special congressional election in a district....

Narrow??? I thought it was 8 points!! That ain't narrow.

[evad]

Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain 61%-32% among Jews. That's a shocking statistic for me!

Mee too.

I would have thought it would be closer to their normal voting pattern of 90-10.

[OneLoyalAmerican]

Greetings Richard Kimball:

A very succinct chronology of the betrayal.

Cheers,
OLA

[Kakaze]

Thank you,

Post #47, a near perfect description.

I was amazed last night as my 68 year old father said to me, " McCain, Rove and the amnesty crowd are why I tell people I'm no longer a republican".

So much time and money have been not spent, but invested by my family, that this stampede to the left is nothing but a full betrayal.

One other thing, the msm, has done a fantastic job of spinning the fact that there are now fewer republicans than before. They have the general public so entwined in the two party system, they assume you must have left the g.o.p. to become a democrat.....nothing could be farther from the truth!

Most conservatives are just politically homeless at the moment, but that will change.