Rove Sells Election Spin; Some in GOP Aren't Buying

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[Sub-Driver]

Rove Sells Election Spin; Some in GOP Aren't Buying

By Kenneth T. Walsh 25 minutes ago

White House political architect Karl Rove is back on the offensive, offering an aggressively positive spin on last Tuesday's elections.

He is telling GOP operatives and organizers that things weren't as bad as they seemed and that the news media have been exaggerating the extent of GOP losses.

"There was a rush to say there was a huge wave against the Republican Party," says a Republican strategist who is close to Rove. "That was premature."

For example, Rove says many races went down to the wire--there were 35 House contests in which the winner got 51 percent of the vote or less--suggesting that the country is still closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. In the 18 races decided by 8,000 or fewer votes, the GOP won 12 and lost six, Rove says. Rove argues that there was a bad "environment" for the GOP, one marked by stories of scandal and corruption, intensified by the unpopularity of the Iraq war and President Bush.

Rove estimates that 10 House seats were lost to the GOP specifically because of one-time scandals and that those losses weren't due to any flawed strategy on his part. Rove also says the results were not outside the norm in which a president's party generally suffers losses in congressional elections in his sixth year. In addition, Rove tells glum Republicans that the party "saved" eight to 14 GOP candidates because of its vaunted 72-hour plan to get out the GOP vote.

[Wuli]

Rove's reputation was built up more by the left's virulent hatred of him than anything else.

[FFIGHTER]

Rove pack your bags, and go home. You became obsessed with power and inflated your self-importance. You reveled in your own grandeur and false-sense of intelligence. You turned a blind-eye to the most important aspect of power, using it, and governing with it. With power you do not avoid the fight, you lead it. You set the agenda, you dictate the direction and focus of the debate; instead of allowing your opponent. You gain strength through your accomplishments, through principles, policies and convictions, not through the avoidance. Leaders lead, they do not acquiesce to poll numbers. You do not avoid controversy by avoiding it.

[LexBaird]

It's what he does.

Shall we play a little game of "Spot the Professional PR Hack"?

[justshutupandtakeit]

There are few things less valuable than Monday Morning quarterbacking but we will have a lot of it the next few months.

You are asking for imagination and there is little of that in the GOP.

Unless the Treason Media is exposed and neutered (and we have done quite a bit of that) we have very little chance of having conservatives elected because of its portrayal of them as troglydytes and Neanderthals in thrall to the anti-Abortion fanatics.

I am not sure who you mean by x41 and x43 throwbacks.

[justshutupandtakeit]

So you are NOT blaming Rove for everything?

[justshutupandtakeit]

It is sad but the vast majority of the blame for the GOP defeat can be laid at the feet of the Treason Media and the gullibility of the voter.

[ModelBreaker]

For example, Rove says many races went down to the wire--there were 35 House contests in which the winner got 51 percent of the vote or less--suggesting that the country is still closely divided between Republicans and Democrats. In the 18 races decided by 8,000 or fewer votes, the GOP won 12 and lost six, Rove says.

I ran the national numbers myself last week and I came to the much the same conclusion. In addition to the numbers Rove presents, in contested house races, the D's outpolled the R's by about 3.5%. What that means is that about 1.75% of the folks who voted for W in 2004 voted for a dem in the house races in 2006 (this ignores turnout effects, which would, I suspect, make the 1.75% flip even smaller). This was no more a landslide than W's race was a landslide in 2004. It was, like 2004, a very close election and the house is very closely divided today, just like it was two weeks ago.

In addition, Rove tells glum Republicans that the party "saved" eight to 14 GOP candidates because of its vaunted 72-hour plan to get out the GOP vote.

He's right. But I calculate the number of "saved" seats a little higher. The following is from a post I made last weekend:

"The Republican GOTV effort probably saved us a huge defeat. Of the Republican seats that we held on to, 15 were decided by 3% or less and 21 were decided by 5% or less. Generally, our GOTV is worth between 3% and 5%. So if anyone is thinking their efforts on GOTV were in vain, remember this year and think how much worse it would be if the rats had taken 21 more seats than they did."

So my numbers suggest the saved seats were between 15 and 21. Rove's analysis is probably better than mine.

[crazyhorse691]

After reading the posts on this thread I can state that the roadkilled Rove is being burnt on the altar of loserville. This is EXACTLY the way the DUers reacted to Kerry's loss in 2004.

[Recall]

This is just a temporary break while they "spin" the bull on what happened in the midterm. I think we will be seeing that "magnificient bastard" phrase again when they open the borders. What looks like a big loss will actually help get the neocons what they want. They will credit Rove for taking this loss to get to the big prize.

The extreme Right isn't Christians..it's Neocons. They Neocons are the globalist, the open border big business crowd who have hijacked the party. They are just as bad for the Right as the Liberals are for the Left.

[John Lenin]

Rove is right, all you naysayers are taking out your butts. The War is NOT popular and W's stand on immigration was the icing on the cake. We are lucky we didn't lose 1/3 more seats than we did.

[BunnySlippers]

Is this on the "Rove You Magnificent Bastard" ping list? :)

[Gideon Reader]

Losing is losing.
In national elections there is no such thing as a second place winner.
You are either in the legislature or not. Either in the majority or the minority.
All else is BS.

[pgkdan]

Of course I'm not blaming Rove for Allen's loss. That's Allen's fault, Rove has his share of blame elsewhere. My remark was meant to point out how absurd it is for Rove to be saying that the news media have exaggerated the extent of the GOP's losses.

[Peach]

And now there's a thread on FR that Kofi Annan at the UN says that global climate change is as dangerous as WMD.

My head could explode some days when I hear this crap.

[Doohickey]

megalomaniac

n : a pathological egotist

[pgkdan]

. I know one thing, the day after the election the President did not seem like he had just lost the House and Senate IMHO.

Color me with the same crayon! I was amazed and then infuriated with Bush's performance at that press conference...add to that Tony Snow's comments on election night about now having a Congress they can work with to pass their immigration bill and the firing of Rummy and I don't know if I'll ever get over my current disdain for the President and his people. Well...I probably will get over it to an extent but I'll never be the Bush supporter I once was.

[My2Cents]

Kofi Annan at the UN says

Why do we support that corrupt institution? Part of me would love to see Bush say over the next two years, "To hell with all of you!", and pull out of the UN, nuke Iran, publicly include the Democrat Party in the "Axis of Evil," etc. and so on.

[kuma]

I think you are not to far from the mark. It is sad to see the stereotype of Big Business Republicans having so much real life breathed into it.

This would explain the monetary support of the Chafee race and lack of support for conservatives who would not tow the line.

[Peach]

I'll go you one better. Every part of me would love to see that, My2Cents. I think we could sell tickets to watching the liberal weenies self destruct.

[Recall]

I voted straight Republican because I'm in Tennessee and
we didn't have a choice.lol

However, I admit it seemed the only ones benefiting from the war was Haliburton. I also wondered if terror was such a problem why our first response wasn't controlling our borders.

I'd like to see the Dems sit on the immigration issue until 2008.