After Mitt Romney, nobody had a worse election than Karl Rove. The “architect” of George W. Bush’s victories, Rove was looked at by many Republicans as even more pivotal this year than Romney. With outside conservative groups raising $1 billion — more than the Romney campaign — Rove was expected to engineer another Republican triumph both in the White House and in the Senate. He himself controlled hundreds of millions of dollars through his two political groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Yet not only did his presidential candidate lose, but so did every Senate candidate he backed in a close race.
On election night, he underwent a bizarre meltdown on Fox News and then suffered the even greater humiliation of Donald Trump’s tweeting, “Congrats to @KarlRoveon blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.” Ouch.
Comments
the republicans need to do what the democrats do, they need to stop talking about the deficit, the budget, just go along with all the spending. This election proves that the american people don't care about that, high gas prices, high food prices, high unemployment,high deficits, who cares.
The last time we balanced the budget, Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was President. It is a just wrong to suggest that Republicans run a tighter fiscal ship than Democrats, especially when you consider how Reagan ran up defecits. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesglassman/2012/07/11/the-facts-about-budget-deficits-how-the-presidents-truly-rank/
The truth is that America is becoming more dependent on the government for assistance, and this is the prime Democratic constituency. Any Republican who is angling to break the umbilical attachment of this group is going to lose. Obama mastered the art of special interest pandering, and it delivered victory to him decisively. Thus we continue our slide into European style welfare statism, and the slow growth, high unemployment and increasing dependency that comes with it.
Oh, honey, that's not the truth. That's talking points. The truth requires facts to back it up. If "European-style welfare statism" equates to slow growth (better than finanical bubbles, btw), high unemployment, and increasing dependency, then you have to show that it does. But, in fact, it shows quite the opposite. The Scandinavian countries and Germany belie your conclusion. Britain wouldn't be in a mess if it hadn't gone for conservative austerity measures. By all European accounts, your conclusions are incorrect.
The problem with the Republican Party is one of a 1950's viewpoint of the world in the 21st century. The R's made the argument as do some commentators such as O'Reilly that American's have become dependent upon government. The American public on the other hand doesn't view itself as dependent it veiws itself as entitled to what it has paid for. SS, Medicare aren't programs that are purely give aways, people paid into these programs and rightfully expect their benefits. Corporate America while enjoying huge profit margins have failed to share this wealth with their employees whether through wages or benefits. Productivity skyrockets wages stagnate. The public looks to government to even the field. The R's basically drove out the unions so who else shall the public look to but govt.
Either the R's become fiscally responsible with the tax code, recognizing what the public wants and making the public understand the need to pay for it or it will simply sit on the sidelines bemoaning the size of govt. Govt. is here to stay the question is do we pay for it? Neither party wishes to confront the bill. Neither party wishes to bring DOD spending under control.
America can afford to do what it does. It merely requires that it being willing to foot the bill. Right now the R's would rather protect the wealthy and whine than to "man up" and take a principled position.
This comment has been removed.
Please let's stop rehashing this. It was an election. One guy won. One guy didn't.
And Donald Trump is not an expert on anything...except maybe bankruptcy...so why are we even mentioning him?
I have my views on why Obama won. Others have theirs. What amazes me is that we are still talking about it as if it were some remarkabe upset. It would have been news deserving of analysis if the incumbent lost. He didn't.
It seems the news is that some of the people ignored Rove's campaign spending. Is that very different from ignoring other TV ads and telemarketing calls? I don't buy everything they market in this country.
Let's assume that on both sides of the election, voters saw through the negative ads and over the top marketing and voted with hearts and minds. And let's assume that, on both sides of the election, the sterotypes that the campaigns have of voters is a figment of their own dementia and not a reflection of truth.
Did I vote Dem because I get handouts? In other posts, I have ranted against public higher education and aid to underwater homeowners. So maybe Karl Rove does not understand my motivation as well as he thinks he does.
We have perhaps 18 months to rearrange the politics of this country. If we do not then we may see a sorry repeat of this past election. I still hear commentators assert that negative campaigning works. Ask Karl. I am near 70 years old. In college I was told by one of my conservative Republican professors that by this age I would become like him. And in some ways I might have. But the Republicans are still cheerleading for war. They’re still resentful that all Americans want to live decent, healthy lives without regard to class, wealth, race or social status. The military-industrial complex still works its magic only outdone by the Chinese. In the old days, though, they hadn’t been taken over by the flat-earth literal-biblical anti-science wing of the party. Those folks were probably around at that time but few people believed that their self-proclaimed special knowledge entitled them to make national policy. If Republicans ask me to be fiscally conservative…I can do that (in my own way). But when they ask me to be a resentful, demeaning hater…sorry, I’ll pass on that.
Singlemom: exactly what was the excuse for removing my comment?
I did not know being informed of who has removed your comment was an available option. Where do I sign up for that?
How about reposting it? The person who got it deleted may be gone. I don't always agree with SingleMom but, somehow, I don't see her as the vindictive type.
Much excellent analysis in this article.
One caveat: Rove engineered the stealing of two elections for W.