Karl Rove’s idea of electability: GOP elites keep getting it wrong

BIZ PAC Review (West Palm Beach, Florida) ^ | February 8, 2013 | Jonathon Moseley

[Moseley]

Republican insiders want to force Republican voters to choose more “electable” nominees than examples like Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, so Karl Rove launched the American Crossroads super PAC to counteract the tea party.

Undeniably, better candidates are better and worse candidates are worse. Unfortunately, that meaningless platitude illustrates the problem. GOP elites have no idea who is going to win an election, and there are several reasons I say that.

First, the establishment wants fiscal conservatives who downplay social issues. But drunken sailors are more restrained with money than establishment Republicans, the tea party complains. The trouble with fiscal conservatives is they aren’t fiscally conservative. Insiders evade scrutiny of massive over-regulation and soaring debt by scapegoating social issues.

Second, Rove’s type of candidate really isn’t qualified, because trust is the No. 1 qualification. If I trust how a politician will vote, why do I care what he used to do? Congress is not a resume fashion show. Rove’s preferred candidates fail the most important electoral test with Republican voters.

Third, is the Republican establishment any better at identifying “electable” candidates than Republican primary voters? Marco Rubio couldn’t win, the establishment told us. “Some [Florida] insiders whisper that Rubio expects to lose,” Real Clear Politics reported in June 2009, “but is running statewide to establish himself for a future race.”

Rand Paul wasn’t electable, the Karl Roves told us. Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Paul’s 2010 Kentucky race caused “squeamishness” among worried insiders. Now both Rubio and Paul are suggested as possible candidates for president in 2016. In fact, Ronald Reagan was unelectable, according to GOP elites in 1980.

What’s going on here? In 2010, O’Donnell won 40 percent of the vote for Delaware’s U.S. Senate seat. In 2012, Mitt Romney, the most establishment candidate in decades, won the exact same amount of the Delaware vote for president. Romney enjoyed a united party hungry for victory. O’Donnell fought uphill against a harshly divided party. Exit polls show that 16 percent of Republicans voted for O’Donnell’s rival, Democrat Chris Coons, helping him win the election. Yet both Romney and O’Donnell got the same percentage of Delaware’s vote.

So are we focused on the wrong things? Maybe candidates aren’t the biggest problem. Could it be that GOP insiders really stink at running campaigns? Are insiders out of touch with the voters? Insider theories don’t seem to work in real life.

In 2008, GOP moderate, war hero and Senate veteran John McCain got about the same vote in Delaware for president as O’Donnell, who had almost no money. Moderate Delaware GOP Chairman Tom Ross declared O’Donnell unelectable. But Ross lost his own 1998 race by 27.2 percent to 72.8 percent in moderate New Castle County.

The entire establishment enterprise assumes that GOP insiders actually know in advance who is electable and why. That key assumption deserves some closer scrutiny and deeper thought.

[Moseley]

Rove’s idea of electability: GOP elites keep getting it wrong

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Putting Karl Rove aside for a moment....I think the concern among many is that in some instances.....some perfectly winnable US seats in red states were lost because the GOP nominated some loose cannons. Please GOP candidates, NEVER mention the words abortion and rape in the same sentence.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

It's good to see the GOP-e finally being honest about their contempt for conservatives ... maybe now the latter will stop drinking the former's Kool-Aid every election cycle.

[ifinnegan]

Great article.

I and a few others were making these points on another thread the other day.

Key point take home message:

Insider theories don’t seem to work in real life

Made it big to make it clear.

Next question is: do the insider/elite know their theories don't work?

I think they must because it is so easy to assess -- Mitt Romney being the best test case.

So they are using this argument essentially as a subterfuge for retaining as much control and power as they can.

[JustSayNoToNannies]

Please GOP candidates, NEVER mention the words abortion and rape in the same sentence.

If asked, they need to have an answer - one that doesn't involve ill-informed theories about uteruses magically 'shutting down.'

[muawiyah]

Even more perfectly electable seats were lost because we had a loser at the top of the ticket.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Maybe so....but Romney easily carried IN and MO so the GOP US Senate candidates in those states must have been exceptionally weak.

[Moseley]

some perfectly winnable US seats in red states were lost because the GOP nominated some loose cannons.

Are you SURE that's the reason? If the Party is attacking their own nominee, why should voters vote for that nominee? Are you sure it's the loose cannons or the Party establishment firing artillery on their own troops?

[US Navy Vet]

Are you ALWAYS this Clueless or do you work at it? The WORTHLESS GOP-e BACKSTABBED EVERYONE of their Non-Hand picked candidates. Missouri, Indiana WERE VERY Winnable. Delaware on the other hand was(and still is) a LOST cause(too Blue, too STUPID)!

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

Initially I thought Mourdock was vastly preferable to the decrepit Lugar.....then Mourdock put his foot in his mouth handing the seat over to the Democrats. Missouri is even more inexplicable. Sarah Palin and many conservatives supported an attractive candidate, the former state treasurer Sarah Stedman, but it looks like the Dems played games in the primary crossing over to vote for the weakest of GOP candidates assuring the re-election of the highly vulnerable Claire McCaskill.

[vekzen]

Politics is war. Democrats and their acolytes in the media, educational, and labor establishments are great at one thing: DEMONIZING Republicans. We need to fight fire with fire and DEMONIZE Democrats. Milquetoast Republican candidates who think they can win by being more reasonable and having better policy positions are laughably naïve.

[vekzen]

Politics is war. Democrats and their acolytes in the media, educational, and labor establishments are great at one thing: DEMONIZING Republicans. We need to fight fire with fire and DEMONIZE Democrats. Milquetoast Republican candidates who think they can win by being more reasonable and having better policy positions are laughably naïve.

[deport]

Elections are strange events sometimes for reasons we can’t really pin down. I’m not going to look up the numbers but Romney got more votes across the CD 18 race than did West. That I don’t understand even with the CD district lines being redrawn.

[Servant of the Cross]

Even more perfectly electable seats were lost because we had a loser at the top of the ticket.

i.e. Rove faves: Connie Mack IV; Denny Rehberg; Heather Wilson; Rick Berg; George Allen; Tommy Thompson ...

[muawiyah]

The Senate candidate for the Democrats in Indiana got out more Democrats to vote for him than the Republican candidate did Republicans.

if you bothered watching the main debate between Lugar and the new guy back in the primaries you'd found they were not far apart at all on any issues ~ still, you'd had to agreed that Lugar was a drooler. I am pretty sure he'd lost this time too.

Vance Hartke once won the race for Senate while Republicans won every other office on the ticket.

That's how evenly divided Indiana elections can be.

In Missouri neither of the TEA Party backed Conservative candidates won the primary. Instead, the fellow the Democrats ran campaign advertising for won.

Rence Preibus, faced with a dilemma ~ to support a Conservative, or give up the race, gave up the race.

I don't think Consevatism was the problem, but we are not yet rid of Rence ~ and he's long overdue or a departure from party affairs.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

I don’t about the rest of you, but I would like to start winning elections again. How we lost US senate seats in IN, MO, MT, and ND-—ALL states Romney easily carried is totally beyond me. Yes I want conservatives, true conservatives who believe in traditional Republican principles likes fiscal resonsibility, limited government, lower taxes, pro-business, and policies fostering economic growth and energy independence. But we need to nominate responsible conservatives who can articulate these policies and attract people to the cause rather nominating people who seem to go out of their way to alienate people and turn people off.

[Ohioan]

A very telling point can be made by contrasting the Tea Parties' victory, in 2010, with the Republican Disaster, engineered by the analytically dysfunctional Karl Rove, in 2006!

Rove is all about memorizing old data. He has no clue as to how to actually change people's attitudes & perceptions on issues. Hence he has Republican candidates chasing after Leftist voters, rather than even trying to ween Leftist voters--many of whom are simply misled innocents--away from failed policies.

The kindest thing one can say about Karl Rove is that he is incompetent.

William Flax

[PhilDragoo]

Steve King announced on WHO Des Moines 1040AM last night Karl Rove is targeting him.

Harkin will not run next year.

Harkin of "heap o' dung" infamy, grinning like a hyena with Daniel Ortega and Kerry who served North Vietnam.

Karl Rove who bashed Sarah Palin and let Bush's poll numbers tank.

Karl Rove who saddled us with unspeakable losers McCain and Romney.

Steve King presents on every issue as the principled conservative: fiscal, social, defense.

Second Amendment, sanctity of life, border, you name it.

Rove's idea of a good time is John Boehner caving like a spelunker.

I can't see Rove and Boehner welding on their Cat in an Iowa field--

--yet they do seem to produce considerable manure.

KARL ROVE BUS TOUR OF DEMOCRAT MONOPOLY

[US Navy Vet]

“I don’t about the rest of you, but I would like to start winning elections again.” It’s EASY DO NOT Let GOP-e run things and we will.

[mosesdapoet]

n the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled Karl Rove’s idea of electability: GOP elites keep getting it wrong, Moseley wrote:
“some perfectly winnable US seats in red states were lost because the GOP nominated some loose cannons.

Are you SURE that’s the reason? If the Party is attacking their own nominee, why should voters vote for that nominee? Are you sure it’s the loose cannons or the Party establishment firing artillery on their own troops?”

Glad you posted that because it is right on the money. The worst example was the Aikin response.

But the way that could have been handled is Aikin clearing the air by Aikin continuing “ My personal beliefs of what God permits on this subject will never come up with any legislation that will pass my desk if elected. At least I profess a belief there is God who issued the ten comandments one of which is “Thou shalt not steal” another is “bear false wittness” . I also believe being elected to office does not give one a license to steal. The democrats booed Gods name at their convention.....etc etc...

Rove talk show supporters all jumped on Aikin
One of the worst was Cunningham who by the way was surprized and didn’t know he was dumped from WLS.. If he read his reports from his syndicator he’d have been aware

Now back to Mr Rove
First of all guys like Rove and others ignored the mechanics of basic campaigning. They allowed the M.ainline S.ocialist M.edia drive the issues and are still doing so they learned nothing from their disasters.I find it inexcuseable for Rove to allow his boss GWB get continuosly trashed without responding.

These people I call them GOPES because it rhymes with dopes right now are falling into the same trap. Limbaugh and Levin, God bless them ...realize that what Limbaugh calls the LIV’s (low intelligence voters) actually believe that Obama is offering the proverbial “olive branch” to Republicans when actually he is proceeding on his path to complete socialism. AND THEY CAN’T CALL HIM A LIAR .

This administration came up with a policy on energy which had driven up the cost on everything. It was on the tongue of every black, white. yellow,and brown skined person living in the US....IT WENT UNTOUCHED in the 2012 campaign....WORSE YET IT IS STILL GOING UNCHALLANGED

Now the GOPES are buying into the “demographic” argument offered by the MSM. Here you have an issue staring at them straight in the face affecting every man,woman,and child of every skin color and you can’t bring it up and they talk about “demographics” being pushed by the socialist media .

They should be decrying the philosphy of “demographics” by stating they’re Americans first not Afro-Americans. not Hispanic-Americans and not-Asian-Americans, or “White”-Americans. The counter charge should be these are socialist tactics neing pushed by the hypenated Demo-coms. Democrats in socialist/fascist clothing. Let alone not mention the booing of God’s name during their convention then belittle those Republicans who express a religious conviction even to the point of suggesting that those that do shouldn’t run for political office.

Rove and his RINOS are wrong for the Republicans .