Maybe Karl Rove Has a Point

Human Events ^ | 2/6/2013 09:30 PM | By: David Harsanyi

[Perdogg]

Let’s put ideology aside for a moment.

Karl Rove, architect of the George W. Bush-era Republican victories, says he’s sick of fanatics running his party into the ground. So he’s devised a strategy to preemptively sink unelectable candidates early in the process. He’s formed a new super PAC to implement this strategy. It’s called the Conservative Victory Project, and it’s led by a guy named Steven Law, who was the head of another super PAC, called American Crossroads, which went something like 0-7 in the 2012 election cycle. (Not that anyone’s counting.)

Grass-roots conservatives, needless to say, are quite perturbed. “I’m filing the paperwork to form a super PAC to support freedom-loving conservative alternatives to (Karl Rove) on FOX,” tweeted former Rep. Joe Walsh. Surely, he won’t be the last to counter Rove’s efforts

[BillyBoy]

>> Well you have to admit, we’d be much better off if Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock hadn’t been nominated. They all took lead pipe cinches for the R’s, and gave them to the D’s. And yes, the people they beat for the nominations weren’t as conservative. However, if you want to be a purist, then don’t complain when your party is perpetually in the minority. <<

It's true we would have probably been better off had those candidates not been nominated. However, there's a good case to made that we'd be better off if Connie Mack IV, Ted Stevens, John N. Kennedy, Liddy Dole, and Lincoln Chafee hadn't been nominated

Those were all winnable Senate seats for the GOP, and the moderate establishment candidate lost it. They didn't lose because they were moderate establishment candiates, they lost it because they had baggage and made stupid mistakes on the campaign trail that cost us, and often had the misfortune of running in bad election years for the GOP (in Stevens case, he was already an unlikeable old RINO, but a bogus and baseless indictment from a liberal judge finished him off).

Likewise, Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, Todd Akin, and Richard Mourdock didn't lose those races because they were tea party conservatives. They lost because they had baggage and made stupid mistakes on the campaign trail, and were often running in bad election years for the GOP.

Whenever some RINO loses, freepers will proclaim "if we ONLY woulda run a principled conservative for that seat, we woulda won!!!", whenever some stanch conservative loses, the GOP establishment claims they would have defeated the RAT if we would have run a squishy moderate. Neither scenario is correct. Anyone on the ideological spectrum can lose with the wrong type of candidate.

In many cases where the GOP establishment points to the "scary" conservative as the reason Republicans did so poorly in that state, their RINO establishment candidate did even worse when they ran him. Christine O’Donnell did poorly in her U.S. Senate race, but when the GOP establishment insisted on running RINO Jan Ting for the U.S. Senate as the only "viable" candidate in Delaware, he did worse than O'Donnell did and couldn't even get 30% of the vote. Ditto in Illinois -- the GOP establishment loves to blame Alan Keyes "scary" conservative views for causing him to lose to Obama in a landslide (and ignores the fact that he was also an 11th hour replacement candidate from out of state), but they ignore the fact that when they handpicked a "viable" establishment centrist as their candidate for the U.S. Senate (Steve Sauerberg) he was a complete joke and did even worse than Keyes -- winning only 3 of the state's 102 counties and getting under 30% of the vote against an unlikeable Democrat who compared U.S. troops to NAZIs. We need better Senate candidates, period.

[sickoflibs]

Here's something no-one I bet posted on this thread(seems to be my job) :

The GOP losses of 2012 were also made much worse because a common misconception that 2012 was 2010 because they completely misread 2010 and thought it was a laster. Late 2010 early 2011 Rush told listeners that Obama didnt want to win re-election and might not run and I saw that repeated here.

So the GOP primary was a complete fantasy : a bunch of weak and flawed candidates told to make wishes about all the things they would do if they lived in completely different universe. "I would not even accept $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases"

So to win the primary like weak Mccain before him weak Romney repudiated his past ‘accomplishments’ and took positions he didnt believe in, a sure recipe for disaster for the general.
And the ‘conservative’ nutbag Senate elections blown have been covered here plenty already.
Romney wasn't much better than them with his 47% (am I the only one who sees the problem with him saying that?)

So GOP had an easy win. It was 2010 again. None of these F-ups mattered. Obama was toast. T-party+GOP would rule." I don't need to study for no stinkin test, I is too smart for zat"

BOOM!

THE GOP is F..ed up. One part wants to become Dems, the other part wants even bigger losses to Dems, 2012 wasnt enough for them. Lets all fight each other over it.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You don’t vote a conscious, because your conscious is not on the ballot. And related to eternity, God will judge you on how you STEWARDED your choice, and He will not hold you responsible of the choices were bad, but He might hold you responsible for making a bad choice in the phony name of self righteousness.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I used conscious instead of conscience wrongly, but you know what I mean.

[KansasGirl]

[We need more like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, less like Todd Akin or Chritine O’Donnell]

Everyone always forgets about Tea Party candidate and now Senator Ron Johnson from WI. He is another great example of when we have one along with Rubio, Cruz, and Paul.

[KansasGirl]

[We need more like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, less like Todd Akin or Chritine O’Donnell]

Everyone always forgets about Tea Party candidate and now Senator Ron Johnson from WI. He is another great example of when we have one along with Rubio, Cruz, and Paul.

[KansasGirl]

[We need more like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, less like Todd Akin or Chritine O’Donnell]

Everyone always forgets about Tea Party candidate and now Senator Ron Johnson from WI. He is another great example of when we have one along with Rubio, Cruz, and Paul.

[Mr. Know It All]

You don’t vote a conscious, because your conscious is not on the ballot.

Yes, there are candidates on the ballot. I get to pick one. That's a value judgement.

When people say, "Don't throw your vote away!" they really mean "use your vote for MY agenda!" If you want me to vote for the candidates you support, Mr. Wright, you will have to find candidates who can earn my support. Don't call me names because YOU have lousy candidates.

[Lakeshark]

I was not aware that the Menendez scandal broke in any full blown way before the election, I believe the media held it back (and actually still are), as is their style. Make up things about (R)'s, don't report anything bad about (D)'s. No one knew about Menendez before the election, it wasn't just the dems that withheld info, it was the media itself.

Unfortunately the media is like that, until we figure out how to take them out we will continue to lose. They loved Akin, he was the perfect face for their GOP (and conservative) narrative. Scientifically stupid, narrow minded, bigoted, and mean spirited. Of course that isn't all true, but the comment made it easy to say it that way.

Trust me, they will soon throw Menedez under the bus, and Christie will nominate a democrat who will help him in his reelection. The media will conveniently forget the continuuing sleaze of the rats, and all will proceed as normal.

Btw, once Akin made his ill fated decision, I backed him in spite of how I thought about him, and thought it ill advised to mention how silly he was on FR. I wish that the dumb 1%er purists here had taken your advice about banding together during the last election, we wouldn't be gnashing our teeth, pissing and moaning every week for the next four years as Bambi dismantles America..........private joke/jab for a certain chaplain I happen to like........:-)........

[ilgipper]

Akin would have been fine if he didn’t make that one screw up. He is a long time congressman and would have cruised to victory w/o the stupid remarks. I was very vocal here for him to get out of that race after his screw up, so my opinion of him is very low at this point...he was extremely selfish in that decision.

Angle is similar in candidate quality. She is trashed now because she lost her race, but she was up against the sitting Majority leader and it is hard to say anyone could have won. In both primaries, I would have voted for one of the other candidates, but neither was a terrible choice at the time. Angle’s problem was a lack of discipline, which is critical. That was not apparent in the primary run where she outran her opponents and stayed on message. I think that campaign also had a lot of infighting issues between her team and the national team...and I have no inside knowledge to know where the fault lied on that one. I do recall Angle bludgeoning Reid in their big debate, and then she went out the next morning and made a major flub at the next event. That totally killed her momentum against Reid.

McDonnell is a different story. I would have enthusiatically voted for her over Castle because Castle would have been a 10 year cancer in the Senate. As a House member he was left leaning, but that has little effect in a House votes. In the Senate won ‘Maverick’ can cause lot of damage, as we know all too well from McCain, Graham and the NE liberal Republicans in the Bush years. I’d rather be a seat down than have Castle. She was not a great candidate, but at least had conservative views. If Castle had an ounce of conservative beliefs, he would have been better, but he really was terrible.

So many comments around this issue are Monday morning quarterbacking. If Rubio had flubbed the general election and Crist won as an independent (which happened in AK), they’d all be cursing Rubio and ‘the Tea Party’ for losing a seat. He won. Lee won. Johnson won. Toomey won. Rand Paul won. All were base candidates going against the DC establishment. The record was roughly 7-2 for the tea party in that senate cycle. Singling out two who lost when we added 7 conservatives to the Senate is disingenuous. No group ever has 100% success in political campaigns, and we lost two while gaining 7. Angle could have won, and Johnson could have easily lost to Feingold, and the same crowd would be saying running an inexperienced businessman in a blue state was poison. It is all spin to prevent conservative candidates. Bottom line, our success rate was quite high in that year...and continued in 2012 with the addition of Cruz, Deb Fischer and several good House members. 2012 stunk all around, and the DC crew had almost no success with their preferred candidates.

[EternalVigilance]

Rove is pulling strings hard here in my state to try and make sure that our choices for the U.S. Senate next November are not conservative.

Just heard Congressman Steve King talking about it on WHO last night.

[xzins]

Did I tell you that I DID vote for Romney....that only because of Benghazi, not because I changed my mind on Romney.

I figured there was no way he would have let those men die without a rescue attempt as Obama had so obviously done. And recent testimony proves that the chain from CJCS all the way to zerO himself were lying and conniving all along.

Back to Akin and Rove,though.

Here’s the bottom line for me.

In any after action review, it is important to be honest about all that went wrong, so that all the necessary lessons learned are on file for future reference.

1. Was Akin’s comment wrong? Yes...no doubt about it.

2. Would it have been nice to have a replacement in the wings? Yes, it would have been. (BTW, I read someplace at the time that a primary defeated candidate might not have been eligible under Missouri law to be a replacement. I’ve never read if that’s true or not.)

3. Was the Republican establishment, led by Rove, counter-productive to join the feeding frenzy? Yes...I have no doubt.

If we walk away from this ignoring that last lesson learned, then we walk away from this unprepared for the future because we’re allowing personal opinion to cloud our judgment.

[Lakeshark]

recent testimony proves that the chain from CJCS all the way to zerO himself were lying and conniving all along.

A media cover up that continues today. Had they not done so, then moved on to praising him for his incredibible bravery and competence for saving everyone during the hurricane aftermath, Bambi loses.

If we cannot figure out how to neutralize the media, we are all toast, it's unfathomable what they get away with.

It's the media that prevents your strategy from working, we couldn't have gotten away with coming together around a (self) damaged candidate, it's just not possible to get away with what the dems do until the media is changed.

[Servant of the Cross]

2. Would it have been nice to have a replacement in the wings? Yes, it would have been. (BTW, I read someplace at the time that a primary defeated candidate might not have been eligible under Missouri law to be a replacement. I’ve never read if that’s true or not.)

Akin, who is running for U.S. Senate against incumbent Claire McCaskill, has until Tuesday at 5 p.m. to withdraw without a court order, according to Missouri election law. That law allows candidates to leave the ballot 11 weeks before election day, otherwise he would need a court order, which he can get up until Sept. 25. The Republican state committee would have two weeks to name a replacement, under the law.

A party nominating committee of a political party may select a party candidate for nomination to an office on the primary election ballot ... without restriction on whether they ran in the primary or not.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I agree with all 3 points, and would only add that I for one have never NOT realized #3.

I also think you are correct about the technicalities over point 2, about defeated primary candidates, though that was not the main issue. That could have been over come.

In fact ,speaking of point 3:
www.gone2012book.com

[spintreebob]

Billy, I agree most elections are lost due to strategic and tactical mistakes that have zero to do with ideology. Look at our IL. Both RINO Dold and TeaParty Walsh would have won if they had run smart campaigns. But they made stupid mistakes. Hopefully Walsh will learn from his mistakes. But so far, I see no indication of it.

Sick, you mention 2 factions of the party. I’d like to think that there is a 3rd faction: People who are both good on the issues and tactically smart.

At his open house today, Jim Oberweiss seems to have learned from his tactical mistakes of the past.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”Sick, you mention 2 factions of the party. I’d like to think that there is a 3rd faction: People who are both good on the issues and tactically smart.”

There are more than few here who will say they don't car if Dems win and get everything they want, that saying ‘no’ all the time to everything is more important than anything that happens to this country. There are a few that will even admit they want Dems to win and win and win so this country breaks out into civil war.

Back ~2004 to 2005 when Rs were in the majority and Bush was re-elected the liberals in the Dem party were completely demoralized I created an account on Democrat FR type website (not DU, an earlier one) to play with them.
Because I knew what their arguments were and what they were saying I was able to very successfully play ‘principled uber liberal’ in my posts.
My mission was to get them worked up demanding all sorts of liberal demands to the D party that would p.. voters off.
Then when the Dem party fell short of their expections (some I created) I would post that the Dem party are cowards and sell outs and that we (they) should stop voting at all.
My goal was to be as outrageous as I could without getting booted, so I watched carefully what the mods rejected.
It was really fun and I learned how to get inside the enemies (progressives) heads by understanding what they wanted.

In 2007 Pelosi took the House but she was smart enough to NOT do what I recommended, she played her hand carefully looking to 2008. If she had listened to the Dem crazies 2008 never would have happened.

More recently I did a couple of extra-normal vids posted on youtube making fun of Dems arguments because I know what they really are, and I pick the really stupid sounding ones.

[Impy]

I would be loathe to give Oberweis another crack at higher office.

[PhilCollins]

What were some of Dold’s and Walsh’s campaign mistakes? Which Republicans will run, in those districts, in 2014? I live in the 10th District. I asked Norm Hill, State Sen. Dan Duffy, State Rep. Joann Osmond, Lake Co. Clerk Willard Helander, and James Mitchell (a congressional candidate, in the 8th Dist. in 2008) to run for Congress, in the 10th District, and Duffy said that he’ll consider it.

[PhilCollins]

I didn’t vote for Oberweis, when he ran, statewide, but I’m glad that he was elected to the state senate. I hope that, in 2018, he’ll run for treasurer or comptroller.