Greetings from the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit, where Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell is scheduled to speak later today. I ran into FRC head Tony Perkins a few minutes ago and asked him how O'Donnell came to be on the program.
"Karl Rove helped me do it," Perkins said.
"Huh?"
"Karl Rove helped me do it," Perkins repeated. "When I saw him attack her on the night of the election, I decided I wanted to have her come and speak."
Perkins says he was particularly interested in O'Donnell because the FRC was the first big national organization to endorse her. "That primarily was driven by her opponent," Perkins says, referring to Republican Rep. Mike Castle. "The establishment put such a bad candidate on the field, and she rallied conservatives."
"The reason those in the establishment are coming unhinged over her election is that their political models don't work in this cycle, when you factor in the tea parties," Perkins continues. "They can't figure that out, and it's causing them consternation." A brief pause. "And I want to increase their frustration."
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Karl Rove. Show all posts
Friday, September 17, 2010
Pat Buchanan asks, "Is the Republican establishment losing it?"
Is the Republican establishment losing it?
Is the party leadership capable of uniting a governing coalition as Richard Nixon did before Watergate and Ronald Reagan resurrected in the 1980s?
Observing the hysteria and nastiness of Karl Rove and the GOP establishment at the stunning triumph of Tea Party Princess Christine O'Donnell, the answer is no.
This party is not ready to rule.
Consider. In its grand strategy to recapture a Senate that George W. Bush and Rove lost in 2006, the GOP Senate leadership endorsed all its own caucus members for re-election, if they chose to run, then picked out all its favorite candidates for the open and Democratic seats.
Conservatives and tea party activists, however, had other ideas. They began to pick their own candidates. And, again and again, the Senate's chosen were rejected in favor of tea party challengers who had the endorsement of Sarah Palin or South Carolina's Jim DeMint.
Arlen Specter was rejected by the Pennsylvania GOP and left the party. Rand Paul routed Sen. Mitch McConnell's man in Kentucky. Charlie Crist was challenged by Marco Rubio in Florida. Crist, too, departed. Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination in Utah. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in Alaska to a little-known fellow named Joe Miller.
But Delaware was the stunner. Rep. Mike Castle, a former two-term governor who had been winning elections for 40 years, was a certain victor in November.
Challenger O'Donnell, however, ended all that.
Yet, though her conservative credentials are far superior to those of Castle, O'Donnell was made the object of a wilding attack by National Review and The Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, who lashed out at Palin and DeMint for "irresponsbility," and Rove, who on Sean Hannity's show went postal as soon as the returns came in.
Now, on paper, O'Donnell is a far tougher sell in Delaware than is Castle. But her defeat is not certain. Not in this volatile year.
And what is the justification for the savagery of the attacks on her, from her own?
My take:
To answer Pat's question, it isn't just the ruling class Republicans who are unnerved by Christine O'Donnell's capture of the Senate nomination in Delaware. The ruling class political alchemists, such as Karl Rove, are in the same predicament.
What's the predicament? Furious that the federal government grows bigger, more powerful and more voracious through one presidency after another, grass roots voters rallied to the insurgent Tea Party and challenged party-anointed candidates, as Buchanan notes.
If this continues, political passion will replace the slicing and dicing that the well-paid Rove types practice for a living.
Journalists in Washington, especially, rely on the slicers and dicers for leaks, tips and advance word on new polls and findings of interest to news consumers who follow politics closely. In other words, other livelihoods also are at risk if the slicers and dicers lose their central place in the candidate selection and election process.
The result is an all-out assault against Christine O'Donnell, whose smiling face represents a significant new threat to the slicers and dicers and their media allies.
Is the party leadership capable of uniting a governing coalition as Richard Nixon did before Watergate and Ronald Reagan resurrected in the 1980s?
Observing the hysteria and nastiness of Karl Rove and the GOP establishment at the stunning triumph of Tea Party Princess Christine O'Donnell, the answer is no.
This party is not ready to rule.
Consider. In its grand strategy to recapture a Senate that George W. Bush and Rove lost in 2006, the GOP Senate leadership endorsed all its own caucus members for re-election, if they chose to run, then picked out all its favorite candidates for the open and Democratic seats.
Conservatives and tea party activists, however, had other ideas. They began to pick their own candidates. And, again and again, the Senate's chosen were rejected in favor of tea party challengers who had the endorsement of Sarah Palin or South Carolina's Jim DeMint.
Arlen Specter was rejected by the Pennsylvania GOP and left the party. Rand Paul routed Sen. Mitch McConnell's man in Kentucky. Charlie Crist was challenged by Marco Rubio in Florida. Crist, too, departed. Sen. Bob Bennett was denied renomination in Utah. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost her primary in Alaska to a little-known fellow named Joe Miller.
But Delaware was the stunner. Rep. Mike Castle, a former two-term governor who had been winning elections for 40 years, was a certain victor in November.
Challenger O'Donnell, however, ended all that.
Yet, though her conservative credentials are far superior to those of Castle, O'Donnell was made the object of a wilding attack by National Review and The Weekly Standard, Charles Krauthammer, who lashed out at Palin and DeMint for "irresponsbility," and Rove, who on Sean Hannity's show went postal as soon as the returns came in.
Now, on paper, O'Donnell is a far tougher sell in Delaware than is Castle. But her defeat is not certain. Not in this volatile year.
And what is the justification for the savagery of the attacks on her, from her own?
My take:
To answer Pat's question, it isn't just the ruling class Republicans who are unnerved by Christine O'Donnell's capture of the Senate nomination in Delaware. The ruling class political alchemists, such as Karl Rove, are in the same predicament.
What's the predicament? Furious that the federal government grows bigger, more powerful and more voracious through one presidency after another, grass roots voters rallied to the insurgent Tea Party and challenged party-anointed candidates, as Buchanan notes.
If this continues, political passion will replace the slicing and dicing that the well-paid Rove types practice for a living.
Journalists in Washington, especially, rely on the slicers and dicers for leaks, tips and advance word on new polls and findings of interest to news consumers who follow politics closely. In other words, other livelihoods also are at risk if the slicers and dicers lose their central place in the candidate selection and election process.
The result is an all-out assault against Christine O'Donnell, whose smiling face represents a significant new threat to the slicers and dicers and their media allies.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
GOP establishment takes a drubbing; Karl Rove drubs himself
It was an amazing bit of television. Almost instantly followed by an amazing bit of scoop.
Mere minutes after Fox News had reported the victory of conservative activist Christine O'Donnell over Establishment Congressman Mike Castle in the Delaware GOP U.S. Senate primary, former Bush Deputy Chief of Staff and Fox News consultant Karl Rove was in place on Sean Hannity's TV show to analyze.
Or…well…something.
The normally rational and analytical Mr. Rove had vanished. In his place was someone who looked like Karl Rove, sounded like Karl Rove…but spoke like the last guy out of the hoped-for-victory-party of the landslide losing candidate for Register of Deeds in NoPlaceville, Texas.
What on earth was Rove thinking? He was bitter, angry, cutting, demeaning, mean-spirited…and those were the nice things he had to say about O'Donnell. It's as if the scene were 2000 and an aide to the just-beaten-by-George W. Bush Senator John McCain took to the Hannity show and said:
"Well, Bush has had a drinking problem, has p….ed off any number of friends, reporters and others with his drunk-as-a-sot rich boy behavior, and that doesn't count that everybody knows he's dumb as a post. Which is why they gave him that baseball team as a favor to his father, and he dodged time in Vietnam because his father had the whole thing fixed. So this victory will be a problem for Republicans. Not, Sean, that we're bitter over this loss."
I have no idea what Karl Rove was thinking when he sat down in front of the Fox cameras to speak with Hannity. But I know this.
All by himself Karl Rove has just given Christine O'Donnell a huge leg up on this election. In seconds he has made her look like what Americans absolutely love -- the underdog who has been unmercifully unfairly treated by the powerful and well-to-do. AKA: What we call here at The American Spectator the Ruling Class. Or, if you prefer, The Establishment.
And now, Carl Cameron of Fox News is reporting the National Republican Senatorial Committee will not be helping the official nominee of the Delaware Republican Party for the United States Senate in her Senate campaign.
So, in other words, having helped the losing incumbent Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, the losing incumbent Robert Bennett in Utah, swallowed hard at the victories of Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky, the NRSC will not be helping O'Donnell because she beat the pants off a liberal Establishment Republican Congressman?
If this is true, there is but one question:
Is the Republican Establishment suicidal?
Mere minutes after Fox News had reported the victory of conservative activist Christine O'Donnell over Establishment Congressman Mike Castle in the Delaware GOP U.S. Senate primary, former Bush Deputy Chief of Staff and Fox News consultant Karl Rove was in place on Sean Hannity's TV show to analyze.
Or…well…something.
The normally rational and analytical Mr. Rove had vanished. In his place was someone who looked like Karl Rove, sounded like Karl Rove…but spoke like the last guy out of the hoped-for-victory-party of the landslide losing candidate for Register of Deeds in NoPlaceville, Texas.
What on earth was Rove thinking? He was bitter, angry, cutting, demeaning, mean-spirited…and those were the nice things he had to say about O'Donnell. It's as if the scene were 2000 and an aide to the just-beaten-by-George W. Bush Senator John McCain took to the Hannity show and said:
"Well, Bush has had a drinking problem, has p….ed off any number of friends, reporters and others with his drunk-as-a-sot rich boy behavior, and that doesn't count that everybody knows he's dumb as a post. Which is why they gave him that baseball team as a favor to his father, and he dodged time in Vietnam because his father had the whole thing fixed. So this victory will be a problem for Republicans. Not, Sean, that we're bitter over this loss."
I have no idea what Karl Rove was thinking when he sat down in front of the Fox cameras to speak with Hannity. But I know this.
All by himself Karl Rove has just given Christine O'Donnell a huge leg up on this election. In seconds he has made her look like what Americans absolutely love -- the underdog who has been unmercifully unfairly treated by the powerful and well-to-do. AKA: What we call here at The American Spectator the Ruling Class. Or, if you prefer, The Establishment.
And now, Carl Cameron of Fox News is reporting the National Republican Senatorial Committee will not be helping the official nominee of the Delaware Republican Party for the United States Senate in her Senate campaign.
So, in other words, having helped the losing incumbent Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, the losing incumbent Robert Bennett in Utah, swallowed hard at the victories of Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky, the NRSC will not be helping O'Donnell because she beat the pants off a liberal Establishment Republican Congressman?
If this is true, there is but one question:
Is the Republican Establishment suicidal?
Thursday, August 5, 2010
GOP could hold six governorships and win 6 of 7 held by Dems
It must have been gloomy for Democrats when the nation's governors met last month in Boston for their annual summer get-together. The reason: If congressional races look bad for Democrats, the 37 gubernatorial contests are even worse.
A quick survey of the political landscape shows six of the seven Democratic governors running for re-election are polling under 50% and in danger of losing, while all six GOP incumbents seeking re-election are expected to win. In the 24 open gubernatorial contests, Republicans lead in 15 and are tied in three others.
More than half of Americans are likely to have a new chief executive for their state come November. Democrats are burdened by President Barack Obama's low approval ratings and, in some open races, by widespread public dissatisfaction with the state's retiring Democratic incumbent.
That's not to say the GOP has had all smooth sailing. In Colorado, plagiarism charges have crippled Republican frontrunner Scott McInnis. Less dangerously, Florida Republicans are locked in a bitter primary. But these are the exceptions.
The GOP's edge in statehouse contests could have major ramifications for a long time to come, including next year's redistricting of the House of Representatives. The more GOP governors, the stronger Republican dominance of the process will be. Eighteen of the 21 states that could add or lose congressional seats have governors' races this fall. There also will be a lot more Republican legislators after November to help draw redistricting lines for the coming decade.
A quick survey of the political landscape shows six of the seven Democratic governors running for re-election are polling under 50% and in danger of losing, while all six GOP incumbents seeking re-election are expected to win. In the 24 open gubernatorial contests, Republicans lead in 15 and are tied in three others.
More than half of Americans are likely to have a new chief executive for their state come November. Democrats are burdened by President Barack Obama's low approval ratings and, in some open races, by widespread public dissatisfaction with the state's retiring Democratic incumbent.
That's not to say the GOP has had all smooth sailing. In Colorado, plagiarism charges have crippled Republican frontrunner Scott McInnis. Less dangerously, Florida Republicans are locked in a bitter primary. But these are the exceptions.
The GOP's edge in statehouse contests could have major ramifications for a long time to come, including next year's redistricting of the House of Representatives. The more GOP governors, the stronger Republican dominance of the process will be. Eighteen of the 21 states that could add or lose congressional seats have governors' races this fall. There also will be a lot more Republican legislators after November to help draw redistricting lines for the coming decade.
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