Posted on 11/15/2006 11:39:25 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Re#75 Yep. The Enemedia still wields a h*ll of a lot of clout over the squishy middle. See, e.g., "Macaca". Rove and Mehlman did fine. The GOTV effort does not include independents. They are the idjits that fell for the presstitutes' lies. Heck, control of the Senate fell on less than 6000 total votes out of millions....
I feel the same way! I was in shock to watch what was going on and then the picture of him and Clinton at the MLK Memorial made me want to throw up. Why is he giving that man credibility?
And BTW, doesn't that defy the odds somehow?
You summed it up perfectly, MojoWire. A lot of good people lost in PA because they were perceived as Bush lackeys. Everyone is tired of Bush. I predict he'll move left and push through his immigration fiasco. If he allows the Democrats to force a retreat/defeat in Iraq, he will go down in history as a failure, IMHO.
The only thing I want to hear from Rove is how he lost his weight.
But NOW WHO THE DICKENS did I hear they said they were replacing Melman with!!
Whhhhhoo??
Some " EX-H.U.D. " Official!!
Some "Senator who had a SLOW START"...in politics!!..
Whhhhoooooo
Ahhh Yes...repeating the faults & failures of 06 for 08 again!!
Damn Right R.B.!!
What the dickens DID happen with the so-called "Evil Genius" that had HAD the DNC shivering in their pants!
"...Puff! the Majic Dragon!..lived in the woods..and smoked too much of that funny stuff! and believed all his hype instead of ACTING form everyone else's Goood!!!!!..
Well...PUFF..went the way of all mythical creatures-and slowly faded away--but Retired with millions and milliooons!! While his followrs only got the screwwwwwww!!..."
They got caught up in corruption (Clinton War Room). But, they allowed the dems to appear Lilly White and pure because they didn't have a war room, or, just let dem corruption go unanswered- Sandy Berger stealing docs-exc. They didn't work very hard for a Conservative agenda. They did nothing to remind people of what they were about as opposed to the dems -(and especially the Iraq war).
They (Pubs) were gaining ground in the polls toward the end, but, they should have started the intense campaigning much sooner.
Polls were showing that people thought the economy was awful-dems are better economically exc... Right before the election- That should tell the powers that be that PEOPLE WEREN'T GETTING THE MESSAGE.
Our side tore itself apart over immigration and other issues-but-there was no clear message about what Repubs were offering vs dems - until the very last month br the election-too late for it to sink in.
President Bush had better learn how to Channel the spirit of Ronald Reagan- or- the Repubs are going to be out for a long time. While not a total disaster in itself(pubs out of power)- the thought of the Clintions being back in -is chilling-Especially now that we are at war.
It seems that both parties - Dem and Republican- are terrified of the Clintons.
It's going to be a long two/possibly 6 years.
So... what's new?
tHE PICTURE ALTERATOR FORGOT TO CHANGE trunk TO funk ON THE END OF THE CAR!
Well spoken BigSky.
Yep. Although the gerrymandering made the numbers tougher to move. Again, this was with W in the 30s-low 40s and Foley/Macaca/Iraq quagmire 24/7. Tough to fight a "time for change" meme. The saddest part is we are probably talking about less than 100,000 total votes to have kept the house and senate. In Ohio alone, the GOP got less than a million votes than in '04.
That said, we lost and I am bummed. Not as bummed as Rove though. He set out to try to neuter if not destroy the 'rat party nationally as he did in Texas and, alas, '06 happened. *sigh*
You mean other than his ties to Jack Abramoff? Besides his hiring his wife to run a PAC, paying her $140K? (Over 26% of the total money raised by the PAC) Besides breaking FEC rules on reporting the value of services? Besides being for term limits but not stepping down and being a 6 time Representative?
Then here is what Rush has to say:
J.D. Hayworth is from Arizona. Now, he's one of the Republican freshmen of '94, and he won that race by a very slim margin, because it's a Democrat district.
He kept it up until Tuesday. J.D. Hayworth led -- and this is Arizona, this is a state that is really up in arms about illegal immigration. J.D. Hayworth led the fight in Congress on the Republican side against illegal immigration.
He lost. Now, the details of his loss are being totally misrepresented by the Drive-By Media. He ran against a Democrat who was parroting and echoing everything J.D. was saying. He was making himself out to be an even bigger anti-illegal immigrant guy when he wasn't.
But the message. Who's going to know that?
The Drive-By Media is portraying this as anybody who was really pro-anti-illegal immigration got swept away. They're trying to kill this issue, the Drive-By Media, as they always do. They're trying to massage and write that J.D. Hayworth lost because he came across as nativist, racist, too strident, and anti-Mexican. Now, what message does that send Republicans? If they're the usual weak-kneed Republicans, "Gosh, that's a losing issue. I can't do what J.D. did. I'll lose, too. The media will write that I'm a racist and that I'm a nativist and that I hate Mexicans." So you can't assume that Republicans are going to be voting against this, either.
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