Posted on 11/04/2010 4:30:30 AM PDT by Dr. Scarpetta
There is a singular event that shoved the Republican Senate car over the cliff.
That event was the primary victory of Christine O'Donnell. This morning she used a phrase that is right on the money. That description is "Republican Cannibalism."
I personally hold Karl Rove to blame, followed closely by Senator John Cornyn. Rove is an establishment Progressive Republican of the first order.
Following O'Donnell's message of values victory in Delaware, Rove started slinging mud in her direction because he realized she was a woman that couldn't be bought & sold on a D.C. street corner.
It was Rove who almost exclusively undermined an untested Republican. When challenged, he became entrenched, making it a media story.
Coming out of a surprise primary victory, everyone would obviously be questioning O’Donnell’s candidacy.
It's the "Man Bites Dog" story. Rove turned an opportunity to help create an up-and-coming political star into much less.
The bottom feeder Rove chose for his personal aggrandizement to put blood in the water. The sharks had a feeding frenzy.
The result was that yet another "Traditional Values Candidate" was beaten by her own political party, & the momentum of several other races was slowed.
It gave Reid & others the chance to further paint traditional values candidates as kooks. The Republican cannibalism resulted in the Senate leadership failure to get behind Republican nominees.
The cannibalism by a self-professed REPUBLICAN strategist, wrapped up is his own glory led to lost momentum by MIller, Fiorina (albeit her real defeat was the unfortunate infection), Buck, Angle & Rossi.
His poor choices contributed to a decay of no less than 15 percent-point in Delaware. Had Delaware been advocated by Rove, rather than diminished, today we would be looking at a three-seat Senate majority, & a Republican Governor in CA.
(Excerpt) Read more at stgnews.com ...
Her campaign was all about conservative principles.
Karl Rove has been all about conserving the establishment at any cost.
Bears bumping and repeating.
By the way, I donated $250 to O'Donnell via Jim DeMint. But I was never under the illusion that she was anything other than an extreme long shot.
What has she said she will do now? What do you think she should do?
Christine O’Donnell won the Republican primary in DE and Karl Rove immediately went on FOX and trashed her. His actions then and in the following days of weaving in his anger towards her at every opportunity thru the national media certainly did provide fuel for her opposition. Even had COD won that DE senate seat, I would have always remembered what Rove did and no amount of spin will erase my disgust and memory of his ongoing attempts to sabotage her campaign. I wonder whether Rove is still even a Republican and I understand that he was at one time a RAT so maybe he has reverted to where he is most comfortable. I am also curious as to whether Delaware Republicans will hold primaries in the future. Will candidates for office now go directly to independent runs, not only in DE but all over the country? Who needs the opposition of their own party along with their other opponents? DE has probably affected the voting process outside their state far more than is now realized. The refusal of Republican candidates in Alaska, Fla, and Delaware to accept defeat with no adverse consequences from the party is an open invitation to a third party to step in and provide a disciplined and viable alternative. The GOP had best pay attention to their unelitist voter base who realize that they can make their own rules for choosing and electing candidates.
She ought to paint Karl Rove to be the establishment, anti-conservative weenie he is.
Invoking Reagan's 11th is ridiculous nowadays on this forum
What do you not understand that Rove did it on TV...not on FR...and there is a difference. You can't make excuses for him! He screwed up ... his behavior was inexcuseable, IMO. If you see it differently, so be it, but you won't change my opinion.
Rove might be a "good guy"...when things go his way. It isn't about COD...it's that Rove made a fool of himself...on TV...and I think it revealed character flaws.
It's one thing to correctly see that many of the lifetime GOP pols are not friends of conservatism.
But what we saw in the O'Donnell campaign as well as (to a lesser extent) Angle, Buck, and Paladino, was the attempt to exalt political naivete as a outright virtue.
That concept, to put it mildly, failed.
Good point. We will be watching her to see how she continues to handle her loss to an evil Democrat.
It is possible that Castle would have lost this race, too.
It still is a shame that Christine did not enjoy the full and enthusiastic support of the entire Republican party. Rove, Castle, and others held back when it is not a time to hold back, IMO.
Don't hold your breath. "Conservatives" gave the Dems control in 2006, and are determined to keep them in power at the expense of moderate Repubs (RINOs).
That's one of the reasons we are doomed.
BTW...excellent post but not many here will agree.
She may well have lost anyway. But Rove’s attacks certainly didn’t help.
You make some great points. I don’t want the “Tea Party” movement, or the Conservative movement, to make heroes out of the politically abused. I want us to make SMART choices, as well as conservative ones. I think we can go forward and use what we have learned here in the future, I hope the GOP has learned as well. We can have good, electable candidates that ARE conservative as well, we shouldn’t have to settle. The next elections may not be as “easy” for Republicans as this one was, with this historic wave. We have to be smart.
2006 wasn’t the voters’ fault. It was the Republican Party’s fault for forgetting why they were sent to govern.
Agreed, it was a mistake, but I disagree that there is much difference between grass roots or pundits trashing Repub candidates.
Both are harmful.
We wore that topic out on this thread:
The key phrase.
If we lower our standards, we have no business bitching about the left's pandering to the laziest impulses in our citizens.
We have tons of talent and the best ideas. We have the luxury of being choosy, or will if we make the party welcome to the best of our nation's people. What a message to send to the country--we're the party of the best, and look at our candidates for proof of that.
What can the party of Barney Frank and the community organizer put up against that? Nothing but fear and pandering.
She may well have lost anyway. But Rove’s attacks certainly didn’t help.I think they are 2 separate issues:
1. Rove's behavior and what should be done about it.
2. Why Christine lost.
It's important for us all to truly understand why Christine lost, so that we can avoid that kind of loss in the future.
As for the first question, I think we're all here agreed: he should lose all respect and all position of authority everywhere.
Agree or disagree with what Rove said (I disagreed), he simply doesn't have the power attributed to him in this article.
He is a Fox commentator. He has no position of authority in the Republican party. Those who do are far more to blame than Rove is (NRSC, etc.).
People on our side who claim he has some kind of power over elections are just as misguided as those on the left who do the same thing.
Nope. "Conservatives" thought Republicans and GWB could snap their fingers and change things. I knew it was foolish then, but no one wanted to listen.
We didn't have to worry about a government takeover of healthcare, or of a trillion dollar plus deficit, or ROE's in the wars that guaranteed defeat, or abandonment of Israel, or our tax cuts being taken away, or the EPA destroying our energy supply, or terrorists being given all the rights of a common American criminal, or any of a thousand other things that Pelosi and Obama have foisted on us.
"Conservatives" didn't realize how good we had it, or how bad it could get.
Now, after this tsunami (more like a high tide), we are about the same place in the House, and nine Senators down. I doubt conservatives will ever regain the power they had in 2004.
You can't be both an objective political strategist on a broadcasting network and the promoter of the party and he was stupid to even try.
Not even a worm like Carville would have maligned a Democrat selected in the primary the way Rove did O'Donnell.
Rove isn't smart. He is only vindictive and power-hungry.
-——It’s important for us all to truly understand why Christine lost——
Rove et al were always correct..... she never had a real chance of winning the race in Deleware as it presently exists.
The messenger is being killed because the message is unacceptable.
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