Rove Vows to GOP Leaders: 'No Triangulation'-Bush Not Moving to Politcial Center

Roll Call and ABC News ^ | February 3, 2003 | Mark Halperin, Liz Wilner & Marc Ambinder w/Crabtree

[ewing]

Senior White House Advisor Karl Rove has sworn off the concept of 'Triangulating' his fellow Republicans, the approach to Congress once synonymous with the Clinton Adminstration. [and their top advisor Dick Morris]

At a closed door House Republican leadership retreat last Wednesday, Rove repeatedly stressed that the concept of political 'triangulation' does not work and said that President George W. Bush would not alienate House Republicans by moving to the center, leaving them isolated in efforts to rally the party's political base.

Republican GOP Leadership aides said that the comments worked to reassure lawmakers after the President appeared to burnish his 'compassionate conservative' credentials in last weeks State of the Union address by calling on Congress to dedicate more money to combat AIDS in Africa and develop hydrogen powered cars.

[Mo1]

BTW, I think Rove is terrific!

I know it's not popular .. but I do too

[afuturegovernor]

Bret Schundler, Matt Salmon, and Simon. There were others.

They lost because they were not good candidates. Bush did carry a number of Republicans in close elections across the finish line : Norm Coleman, Jim Talent, Saxby Chambliss, John Sununu, Wayne Allard.

[Wait4Truth]

I do not demand perfection, but I do demand honesty, loyalty, and sincere effort. I do demand that promises be kept. If winning means losing character and ethics then it is worthless to win. How you win should matter, even in politics.

If these are your standards for continued support of President Bush, I feel pretty good about you remaining in his court.

[Carry_Okie]

How can Bush go to Calif. late in the game to support someone who commits libel on statewide TV?

Little do you know about that story (one of many like it). Bill Simon wasn't the person who acquired and (supposedly) authenticated the photo. Candidates have campaign organizations that are supposed to cover such things. The man behind releasing that photo was Ed Rollins, Parsky's plant (and therefore a consequence of Rove's machinations). You are correct that it is Simon's final call to go with it or not. Still, if he had had decent support, it would have never happened.

AFTER the release of that photo, the campaign people (from Russo/Marsh) were posting the photo on FR to ask if it was doctored! (I was one of the people examining it to look for evidence of manipulation.) That's how incompetent they were about it. Simon bears ultimate responsibility, but IMO a GOP organization committed to getting him elected would have won the day. It wasn't.

[Carry_Okie]

They lost because they were not good candidates.

That's tautological reasoning. Bush showed up in California only once. You know better than to infer that the Bush people supported Schundler.

[Redbob]

"If what Rove did to conservatives in the last election was help I don't want any more of it. He screwed Bill Simon."

Wasn't just Rove.
Bush was a big friend of Riordan's, like he is of that RINO from Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge; Dubya couldn't stand the way Simon waxed Riordan.

[My2Cents]

Clearly, Bush is not an ideological politican, but he tends to be conservative in his instincts. But there are initiatives which come from his heart, and not from a well-defined political philosophy, which tend to aggrevate conservatives. His "faith-based" initiative, and his application of this to the AIDS initiative in Africa, come to mind. While Bush will not "trangulate," he will continue to lead from the heart, and this will run him afoul of the true-believers on the right.

[A Navy Vet]

President Bush is not a conservative; he's a moderate and even left of center on some issues.

[William McKinley]

Schundler was an exceptional candidate who ran a crappy campaign, IMO. I bet he is not done. Not quite sure about the others.

[RAT Patrol]

Thanks for the link, but I really would not call that a score card. It's a one-sided argument. Bush has done some bad things too. We need to make him feel the pressure, just like those lefties do, when he gets something wrong. If we don't, we are blind fools selling out our own freedom for hero worship.

[x]

There probably will be attempts to win over voters in the center. Bush can't afford not to try, and some of the proposals he's already made reflect this effort. What Rove is saying may be that Bush won't cave in to Democratic leaders, but try to win support in Congress and the country on his own, picking and choosing his own battles and tactics, rather than having them forced upon him.

[legman]

...(like getting W to seal the borders and deport illegals).

If what Rove did to conservatives in the last election was help I don't want any more of it. He screwed Bill Simon.

I disagree.

In both cases, he chose his battles well. We got where we are through incremental changes. We must return the same way. Choose your battles and win them one at a time. Simon was a loser when the "Dims" crossed party lines and helped nominate him on the Republican ticket.

[nonliberal]

Exactamundo! Republicans are so happy that one of "our guys" is in there that they have left their thinking skills at the door.

Tancredo 2004!

[nonliberal]

He screwed Bill Simon.

And Bill Salier, and Brett Schuldiner (NJ)

[Recovering_Democrat]

There is a decided difference, I think, between "triangulation" and "taking issues off the table". Clinton engaged primarily in the former, our current Commander In Chief does the latter.

I think the difference lies in where one's policy takes shape. Triangulation, I think, tries to find a workable tandem between two separate points of view. President Bush is more likely to find a conservative solution that'll pass--as conservative as possible, sometimes...as in the flawed Education bill or the Campaign Finance Reform bill.

I think both have MAJOR problems, some practical other Constitutional--but the fact remains, the President did have some victory here, and took away from the liberals a campaign issue.

[Keith]

Simon was a loser from day one, he only had a chance as Davis did everything he could to self destruct. It takes a long time to build an organization, and CA was written off long ago, with Rove having to focus on where he had the best chance to pick up the seats to return to majority.

And they did it...in an off-year, an almost unprecedented event...why do conservative seem to be so resistant to appreciating good fortune when it happens? And instead say, why couldn't we have gotten more?

sheesh.

[RAT Patrol]

What value is there in taking away campaign issues by embracing them as your own? I have never understood that. In the end, did you win or did they? People come and go; it's the ideals they leave behind we need to concern ourselves with.

[RAT Patrol]

Neither another Davis nor a Riordan nor any other Republican is ever going to win in California again unless the conservative and moderate wings unify. Bush should have stayed out of the primary. He only increased the bitterness between the two ideological sides of the same party.

You can have a huge Republican majority in your state and still suffer from this problem. The mushies love to sell the concept that they are more electable. But they need conservatives as much as conservatives need them. RATs vote RAT in general elections. They do like to play with Republcan primaries. But they only succeed because we allow it by our own infighting.

Primaries are and should be principled fights. But general elections should be about loyalty. That's the equation that works.

There are plenty of issues that divide RATs from other RATs as well as RATs from borderline Republicans. We should emphasize those divisions. Watch them squabble for awhile.

[VMI70]

"Bush Not Moving to Politcial [sic] Center" from the left-
-in many ways.