Karl Rove’s ‘apocalypse strategy’

May 11, 2006

Now that he’s given up all those pesky policy responsibilities, [tag]Karl Rove[/tag], assuming he’s not indicted, is turning his attention on the midterm elections. Or, more accurately, what he’s going to do to smear as many Dems as humanly possible during the midterm elections.

This fall’s election season is going to make the past three look like episodes of “Barney.”

The conventional notion here is that Democrats want to “nationalize” the 2006 elections — dwelling on broad themes (that is, the failures of the Bush administration) — while the Republicans will try to “localize” them as individual contests that have nothing to do with, ahem, the goings-on in the capital.

That was before the [tag]GOP[/tag] situation got so desperate. The way I read the recent moves of Karl Rove & Co., they are preparing to wage war the only way open to them: not by touting George Bush, Lord knows, but by waging a national campaign to paint a nightmarish picture of what a [tag]Democrat[/tag]ic [tag]Congress[/tag] would look like, and to portray that possibility, in turn, as prelude to the even more nightmarish scenario: the return of a Democrat (Hillary) to the White House.

Newsweek’s [tag]Howard Fineman[/tag] added that the GOP’s money will be poured not into defending Republicans or touting a conservative agenda, but rather into “painting [tag]Democrats[/tag] as the party of tax increases, gay marriage, secularism and military weakness.”

In other words, desperate [tag]Republicans[/tag] are going to go negative and aim to eke out a victory through fear and smear. What a shock.

As Digby asked, “Can someone please tell me how this differs from any Republican campaign of the last 25 years?” Exactly. Does any serious person believe the GOP plans to approach the election cycle as one of substantive policy differences? High-minded debate?

Please. We’re talking about a party that sent out official direct mail from the [tag]RNC[/tag] in 2004 suggesting that Democrats wanted to ban the Bible in Arkansas and West Virginia. It’s the same party that compared Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden in 2002 and mocked injured troops’ Purple Hearts during the Republican National Convention.

Fineman suggests Rove will pull out all the stops to implement an “apocalypse strategy.” The implication is [tag]Rove[/tag] is capable of something different.

Read about Karl Rove’s rise to power with George W. Bush and how he may be waging his final campaign.

read it here:

http://www.thoughttheater.com

  • You left one out: They’ll do all of the above, while bemoaning the Dem’s lack of civility.

  • It doesn’t matter if Rove is indicted, he’ll still be perfectly free to exercise his pernicious influence in the 2006 election. Fitz is too late, thanks to the successful stonewalling by Libby, Miller, Cooper, etc.

  • Any Democrat who can’t beat Rove’s bag of tricks doesn’t deserve office. Rove has nothing.

  • Democrats have been subjected to all this before. If they haven’t learned how to fight back, by now, they deserve what’s coming. I blame the elected Democrats, particularly those sucking longest on the fattest federal tit, the most and I sincerely hope they get what’s coming to them. I want to see a whole new crop of Democrats — uncorrupted by the Bush Crime Family, Democratic “leaders”, and DC campaign “managers” — take over. Otherwise it’s same-old same-old and the titanic U.S. is going down (while the multinational corporate rats and bazillionaires jump ship, of course).

  • I’m scared – Rove and his party do still have tremendous credibility with the public these days. And everybody knows how satanic the liberals really are; all it takes is a little reminding. Bush’ll be back up to 60% in no time.

    Uh-huh.

  • So, Karl’s goal is to make voters believe that Democrats are worse than Republicans. I wonder if that’s possible.

  • I think it might be instructive to look at the Nebraska Governor’s race, specifically the GOP primary Tuesday. Unbelievably popular former Husker football coach and three term Congressman was “swift boated” by his opponent in the last two weeks of the campaign on such issues as “Tom wants to give a free education to all the kids of illegal aliens and he wants to shut down all our rural schools.” Tom refused to respond to the attacks.
    Osborne, who never got less than about 85% of the vote in his three congressional races lost 50-44 and was beaten in his own district. Osburne is a conservative republican, for sure, but he appears not to be the least bit beholden to Rove, et al. He refused to take any contributions over $1000 and I am told he rebuffed corporate donations. Here’s an excerpt from the Kansas City Star:

    “Osborne placed a self-imposed $1,000 limit on individual donations and refused campaign contributions from corporations and political action committees.
    “He doesn’t have to answer to anybody that way,” said Jim Pillen from Columbus, a former Nebraska defensive back who has helped the campaign. “It’s incredible. Nobody else in the United States would have the courage to do that.”
    Osborne said he received about 6,000 contributions that averaged around $300.”

    I know this was a GOP primary, but the same principles apply as this November. Tom’s opponent was the hand picked successor to the Nebraska Governor who Bush picked as Secretary of Agriculture in 2005.
    We sit back and think the polls showing the people are sick and tired of corruption, etc. etc. and then when it comes time to vote, they respond to fear and loathing all too often.

  • I think you are right in essentially asking what else is new. Karl Rove and his boss have pursued a partisan political agenda of politicicing national security and smearing opponents from the very beggining while continuing to campaign against such nasty tactics by anyone else.

    Does anybody know how much Karl Rove is paid, and under what justification his partisan political activities are paid for with taxpayer money?

    As for the Impeachment issue ask any Republican what the chances are that even if the Democrats win every seat that is even remotely in play, that the President could be convicted in an impeachment proceeding without signifcant numbers of GOP votes. The chances are about zero % since conviction requires a two thirds majority.

    As for whether articles of impeachment might get brought, is the worst think that could actually happen that the Democrats might impeach the President? While making this two faced argument, how many Republicans have apologized for impeaching Clinton on far far weaker charges and promised never to do it again?

  • They have six months to rehab their image, but how can they if they have to explain a scandal a week? Or sometimes it seems like a scandal a day. Karl Rove has his own scandal to face, and I have always believed that he is not as smart as people give him credit for. It is never smart to make enemies, and he has many.

  • We have to hope the Democrats stand tall against Rovian tactics.

    We have to hope that Americans will remember they don’t trust the Republicanites anymore.

    And we have to stop shying away from positions we should stand on, like equality before the law (gay marriage), willingness to hold elected officials accountable (invesitigation and impeachment), and fiscal sanity (taxes).

    I don’t know where the military weakness crap comes from. It’s Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld who are weakening the military (especially Army and Marines) with their under-resourced wars.

  • You mean Karl Rove is finally taking the gloves off?

    That’s the great thing about these sleaze masters. What kind of smear job can they pull off that they haven’t done already? We’ve taken their worst, and can handle it.

    What we have to worry about is some Hail Mary desperation move like bombing Iraq, or planting a nuclear device “discovered” in New York, or maybe turning up Bin Laden, or possibly even allowing a terrorist attack in the US and declaring martial law. Those are about the only options left.

  • PK, you make an excellent point, which is why the democrats need to provide voters with a reason to go to the polls. good candidates and good campaigns will outweigh virulent crap, but scaredy-cat candidates and lacklustre campaigns won’t.

  • Contrary to the suggestions of almost everyone imaginable as regards the ’06 midterms, the Democrats cannot play the “standing-tall” role any longer.

    Consider, for a moment or three, the type of warfare waged by huge armies on the European continent—and in the regions around Turkey—during World War One. This was the era of “trench warfare;” standing up on open ground and charging the enemy’s lines usually meant becoming a target for a rifleman, or a mortar crew, or a machine-gun squad, or an airplane.

    Dems cannot simply stand up in the open and assault the GOP trench-lines again; they’ve been beaten repeatly in trying to do this. For 2006, they must adopt their opponent’s strategy, and defeat Rove with the only weapon for which he has absolutely no defense—his own. For every slanderous portrait that Rove paints, the Dems should counter with two such portraits. When Rove paints two, then the Dems counter with four. Rove, three—Dems, six—and right down the line.

    Oddly enough, I think that this would be the straw to break the Republikanners’ collective backs—once, and for all. The gods know full well that the GOP has given all the canvas, paint, and brushes needed to bury Kid George and all his cronies from now to the other side of eternity, and then some….

  • Dems cannot simply stand up in the open and assault the GOP trench-lines again; they’ve been beaten repeatly in trying to do this. For 2006, they must adopt their opponent’s strategy, and defeat Rove with the only weapon for which he has absolutely no defense—his own. For every slanderous portrait that Rove paints, the Dems should counter with two such portraits. When Rove paints two, then the Dems counter with four. Rove, three—Dems, six—and right down the line.

    Or, to put it another way…

    “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That’s the Chicago way, and that’s how you get Capone.”

  • There are hints that today will be a Fitzgerald news day..
    Possibly Rove will have a personal “Apocalypse Now” .
    Those who sow nasty seeds of destruction should taste the fruit of their actions.
    The champaign is on ice in hopeful anticipation.

  • This is basic Pavlovian Conditioning 101. Bell… food. Bell… food. What Swiftboating does is creates an aversive response. “Kerry? Cleland? Clinton? Uggh…” That’s all it takes. An unconscious aversive response. How do you compete with that? WE NEED TO SWIFTBOAT THE REPUGS!

    It may be grim, but there is no way you can put forward a positive message when faced with a massive swiftboating. Their swiftboating will completely neutralise any message of hope and positivity we could possibly muster. All it takes is one little negative association to halt people from voting for the hopeful candidate. I hate to say it, but the only way the Democrats can win in November is to go even *more* negative than the Repugs. Americans desperately want a positive message of change– but if Democrats are stupid enough to try to deliver it, they’ll get their asses kicked.

    It’s time to go hard-core astroturf on corruption by DC Repugs. That’s our winner. Culture of Corruption, over and over and over again. Till everyone is just mouthing it unconsciously: “Repugs == Culture of Corruption. Repugs == Culture of Corruption”.

    Search your heart, you know it to be true. What’s the first thing most people think of when you say “Democrat”? Why, “tax and spend” of course– rot in hell, fucking Ronald Wilson Reagan. So how did he stick us with that? Repetition! How do we compete witht it? Repetition! Branding branding, Repugs = corruption, Repugs = corruption. Repugs are corrupt. Repug corruption is rampant. Repugs, corruption. What do you think of when you see “REPUBLICAN” on that ballot? Uggh… corruption! Of course. Only then will people hesitate before flicking that lever… and even consider flicking the Democratic lever.

    I think the only thing that will work against a swiftboating attack is a Judo move. You take all of the Repug’s aggressive attacks and you AIM THEM RIGHT BACK AT THEM! In other words, if the Repugs are planning to win by disgusting and outraging the public, then you need to turn that outrage and disgust right back on the Repugs! And there hardly anything about the Repug Culture of Corruption that isn’t outrageous and disgusting.

    So, we hit them back with exactly what they hit us with, but in an area that they are weak. No, we’re not going to accuse the Repugs of letting immigrants take their jobs or “letting the terrorists win”, or requiring every American to have gay sex, or anything so moronic. We’ll instead accuse them of taking bribes, paying for gay hookers with your tax money (how do you like that, Mr. and Mrs. Traditional-Values Christian?), selling off our country to corporate interests and foreign governments– you know, all the stuff they are actually doing! Rove wants to bring on the swiftboating? Fine… in your face, asshole! We need to scream via ads all day long about Repugs being unpatriotic traitors to their country. Do a Colbert; just say it. Because they are– they’re selling out America. I don’t care if that’s “unsavory”. If you want to win, you have to play rough. If we haven’t learned that in the last 20 years, then we’re idiots who deserve to lose.

    No, the Repugs don’t have “six months” to turn this around. Nobody follows politics until right before the election. Repugs have only 2 weeks, right around Halloween, to turn public opinion around, and it is very, very, very easy to do that. The huge, massive, enormous majority of voters have no idea for whom or what they are voting. All Rove has to do is scare them, create some hesitation or doubt, and people with a positive hope will stay home, and the people burning with revolutionary anger (i.e. the Fundamentalist Jackboots) will run screaming to the polls. Unless of course we create such a near-revolutionary wave of outrage and anger against the Repug Culture of Corruption that the general mood of disgust won’t keep people home, it’ll instead have them rushing out into the streets with pitchforks and torches. The entire Democratic message for 2006 must be: “THROW THE BUMS OUT”.

    Positive messages won’t work as long as Rove is around, because positivity is too easily FUD’ded. Repugs are using the age-old “FUD” (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”) strategy that corporate salespeople use. It works like a charm. You let your wonky competitor do all the groundwork, prepare detailed proposals, gain consensus among the purchasing team, and then at the last minute before the deal goes down, you go over the heads of the entire group and go straight to the highest-level and least-informed VP you can find, or to the CEO, and remind them that “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM”. “Do you understand this whole proposal your employees are putting in front of you to sign?” “Umm, no”. “Well, it could be risky, you don’t know, do you? But we are the safe choice. Buy IBM”. And then the word comes down from On High: “Boss Says Buy IBM”. All it takes is a little hesitation to derail the whole thing.

    “Conservatism” is simply fear: fear of change. The only thing that overcomes that fear, is outrage and anger at the status quo (the “conservatives” like Rove figured out how to generate that emotion among their base– via James Dobson). The vast majority of outrage and anger is potentially on our side right now– if we have the balls to exploit it. “Yeah, of course all the swiftboating has made me afraid of Democrats in power, but the Repugs are so awful that I have nothing to lose; it’s time for a change”– this is the emotion of which revolutions are made, and this country desperately needs a revolution at the polls in November 2006.

    The only way to overcome emotionally-paralyzing FUD is with emotionally-engaging revolutionary-level outrage and anger. Sorry, hope won’t do it alone. 2006 will be won on the strength of how agressively and persistently Democrats stay on-message about the Repug Culture of Corruption.

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