Karl Rove’s odd advice for John McCain

August 7, 2008

Back in April, in a WSJ column, Karl Rove urged John McCain to be less reserved about his personal life and background, and run more on his biography. “[I]t is clear,” Rove wrote, “that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.”

Four months later, Rove recycled the exact same point in another WSJ column.

Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.

The Republican Party’s convention next month is Mr. McCain’s biggest chance to improve his posture. The best minds in his campaign should be carefully working on its script. Everyone knows conventions are show, but voters want to see if a candidate can put on a good one that rings true.

Rove’s right-wing ideology is obviously pretty far out there, but I’m generally inclined to think he’s at least aware of current events. After reading a column like this, it’s hard not to wonder if he’s been watching the presidential race at all.

Rove has McCain’s strategy entirely backwards. McCain isn’t a private person at all — as the Weekly Standard’s Dean Barnett put it, “You know how you can tell really private people? They spend 26 years in public life as a politician. They also do things like host Saturday Night Live where they sing Streisand tunes before a national TV audience.”

“McCain offers little biography”? McCain has been offering little but biography. He’s been running ads with interrogation footage taken while McCain was a prisoner of war. He launched a “biographical tour,” during which McCain highlighted his family history. He’s even run campaign videos spotlighting McCain’s experiences growing up.

Is Rove watching the same McCain as the rest of us?

The difference between this column and the one in April, however, was the suggestion that McCain should do more to share “his faith.” That’s not unreasonable advice, given that rank-and-file evangelicals aren’t exactly enamored with the McCain candidacy, and if his support doesn’t improve, his chances of winning will become even more remote.

But there’s a catch. For one thing, by all appearances, McCain simply isn’t particularly religious. He could fake devout spirituality, but the faithful would almost certainly notice his insincerity.

For another, if he does start to emphasize his faith, McCain may have to explain why he’s theologically incoherent.

Long-time readers may recall that last year, McCain kinda sorta switched Protestant denominations. In June 2007, McCain identified himself as an Episcopalian. By September 2007, he identified himself as a Baptist. Asked about the switch, McCain ultimately told reporters, “I don’t have anything else to say about the issue.” He clearly made a denominational switch, but decided he doesn’t want to talk about it. Why not?

Even at the time, some in the faith community balked at McCain’s bizarre remarks.

“When I read that I said ‘You gotta be kidding,’ ” said David Jeffers, a lay preacher and author of “Understanding Evangelicals: A Guide to Jesusland,” who said by not being baptized by immersion, Mr. McCain is out of step with the church he attends in Arizona.

“It’s your words, sir, that’s why we’re contending with it,” he said, adding the issue is not whether Mr. McCain feels more comfortable as a Baptist. “We have a problem with you trying to say ‘I’m a Baptist’ while you’re in the middle of the heartland of Baptist country.”

Complicating Mr. McCain’s explanation is the fact that, despite his church attendance, he never bothered to correct the record during the last 15 years in several authoritative sources, including the Almanac of American Politics and the newly released CQ’s Politics in America 2008, both of which list him as Episcopalian.

His campaign didn’t return a message seeking comment yesterday.

Why doesn’t McCain take Rove’s advice and share “his faith”? Because it’s a subject he knows nothing about, and if he tried, he’d embarrass himself.

“He could fake devout spirituality, but the faithful would almost certainly notice his insincerity.”

Like they noticed that St. Ronald Reagan attended church what nine times while President? If people weren’t dying he wouldn’t have had any reason to go at all.

Rove actually just wanted to stick a shiv into Obama by claiming that HIS campaign is ONLY about biography, ignoring completely Obama’s campaigning on issues.

  • Way. Too. Sweet.

    The wingnuts can eat a lot of shit, but asking them to vote for a guy who’s not religious, after GWB (who they view as extremely religious) will be tough.

    And Karl… should we ask what happened with his first marriage?

  • Man, when a conservative gets mocked by the Weakly Standard, you *know* they’re off the deep end.

  • I’ll send a small, shiny object to the first person who can post YouTube video of McCain at a town hall answering the following:

    “I understand you are a Baptist. Would you tell us about the experiece of your baptism?”

  • Privacy is just a new word for “never doing anything good in public”.

    In other words, in public McCain is an agnostic Republican, but privately he is a religious Democrat.

    For the last two days “Hardball” has been hijacked by Mike Barnacle and Andrea Mitchell trying to apologize for the public McCain. Two days ago they said he was attacking Obama because he was given bad information by his staff. Apparently they misled him about Obama’s position and actions.

    Yesterday McCain, the patriot, has been forced to act more right wing than he actually is.

    There appears to be an effort to not only excuse McCain but to imply that once elected he would act more reasonably than he indicates right now.

  • Rove actually just wanted to stick a shiv into Obama by claiming that HIS campaign is ONLY about biography, ignoring completely Obama’s campaigning on issues.

    A statement like this also implies legitimacy to Obama’s “biography.” Considering the narrative-biography that a good number of Americans believe states that he’s Muslim and raised in Indonesia, I’d say it’s a very slick and sublte statement.

  • BuzzMon raises a good question, whether McCain feels comfortable taking advice from the man who smeared him so mercillessly in 2000.

  • Turdblossom 2000: “Are you referring to John McCain fathering black children for South Carolina in 2000?”–Buzz Mon

    Turdblossom 2008: ” we should be proud of McSame because he has an adopted child from (Africa, Asia(?)).

    Tudblossom now says to recognize the child that he said in 2000 was a BASTARD child.

    Don’t ever say tha Turdblossom blows with the wind. He just BLOWS!

  • Yep BuzzMon & Racer X, that was my point. You know if this were another Bush v. McCain contest we’d be hearing that McCain helped the VC torture his buddies while having an affair with one of his captors.

    And of course fathering lots of Vietnamese children via brutal rape.

    There are dead things in ditches that have more shame than Rove.

  • Do you think, given the chance, Rove would really love to do a push poll accusing Obama of fathering a black baby? (Smirk)

  • Is Rove watching the same McCain as the rest of us?

    Sure, he’s just lying about it as usual.

  • Rove sees only the little pictures running in his brain. I think they involve Cindy McCain in some kind of beauty contest with him as a judge.

  • Rove has exactly one tactic, which is to accuse the opponent of doing exactly what Rove’s candidate is doing. He’s trying it here. One has to wonder if he’s ever even noticed that it’s his only tactic?

  • He could fake devout spirituality, but the faithful would almost certainly notice his insincerity.

    Seems to me that Bush has gotten away with it for a while now.

  • I think the point of Rove’s op-ed was to highlight the existing biographical focus of the McCain campaign. He’s not giving advice, he’s helping channel the PR. (Any real advice Rove has he’ll impart behind closed doors.) Pointing at the Faith angle is an attempt to shore up a weakness by pretending it isn’t a weakness – the usual Rove MO.

  • Part of the occasionally recited Covenant in my (former) Baptist church was that members would “abstain from the use and sale of alcoholic beverages.” I wonder how this squares with the Hensley/McCain family business?

    McCain from Episcopalian to Baptist. Another flip flop?

  • My discomfort in talking about my biography stems from my experience as a POW in Vietnam, after I was shot down in one of the most heavily defended piece of sky in history.

  • ringrid (re # 20) -religious because he’s a MAVERICK Baptist.
    Sheesh, you don’t know how this works yet? McCain can use all of Cindy’s alcohol-derived money and still be

  • ringrid (re # 20) McCain can use all of Cindy’s alcohol-derived money and still be -religious because he’s a MAVERICK Baptist.
    Sheesh, you don’t know how this works yet?

  • Isn’t McCain almost an extreme extrovert? Can you be an extrovert and private too?

    And revealing more biography does run the risk of revealing the parts that you would like not to have revealed.

  • Please believe that I am a Christian and believe in God but here goes…

    Even King James and his gang commissioned to write the Bible built a very powerful argument in terms of terror in the book of Genesis.

    “Of every tree of the garden thou may-est freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest there of thou shall surely die. “

    Here, a King James version Simon and Schuster 1936 version known to be the authorized version at the “Instigation” of King James 1604 to 1611.

    Here, forty or fifty learned men of the Church of England are some what contracted to account to reproduce what they think is the word of God.

    Here, to be even more philosophic but could not possibly describe the incredible challenge, was a tremendous time in discovery, when everyone living person on the planet had to change in believes that earth was not the center of the universe. Absolutely a common sense truism that was difficult or even totally unacceptable to change. Today America can call them Neo-Con Republicans. That thirty percent that all of a sudden will never accept change even with logical deduction and reason that is true beyond any doubt.

    King George today is contracting out another huge group of learned men and women. From the Supreme Court into and through the secret mechanics of the government system while trying to discern the tree of knowledge, George Bush slips all controversy into the secret book of National Security Secrets. CNN reveals that George Bush deliberately made up letters and documents that brought America to war. But can America see these things these records possibly made with not just bad Judgement but all out fraud. All to be buried after generations past to be forgotten where likely evil prospers with the powerful raw convictions that translate to war for another hundred years.

    This is whats funny about some leadership, one that says we have to sacrifice to win. Well that sacrifice could very well mean a deliberate fraud is perpetrated and hidden by the Neo-Con. But, the red hot and controversial mass media embedded with complicity is the sword of today’s axis of evil. Oh but they say why that’s absurd. George or the Republicans would not lie, but doing things within the law is O.K. even it looks morally corruptly absurd profiteering tax dollars from the electorate and condemning mankind to decades of war, being complicit with the very culture, Wahabbi, supplying them with the money all the while they know that Arab Wahabbi think Americans are infidels that need to be wiped off the earth, for me they are doing a good job which is the scary part. Worse Americans find itself sourrounded with a broken system with characters that may go through a fake justice system, resign, or simpley get off with a pardon.

    The whole thing stinks…

  • He could fake devout spirituality, but the faithful would almost certainly notice his insincerity.

    They don’t care if he’s sincere about it. They just expect to be pandered to.

    Republicans are PROS when it comes to feigned spirituality, and so far the evangelicals haven’t seemed too upset by the obvious lack of any real conviction from the GOP.

  • Maybe McCain should have the audacity to write not one, but two autobiographies about himself.

  • All the comments about McCain pretending spirituality or devoutness like Reagan and Bush miss the key point. Maybe they weren’t religious — though I think Bush really is, a warped religion but sincere — but they understood how religious people thought, and talked. They could ‘talk the talk’ and convince a congregation they meant it.

    McCain can’t do that, and his overwhelming “I AM JOHN McCAIN, I DON’T HAVE TO ASK ANYONE ABOUT ANYTHING” ego keeps him from admitting his weakness and correcting it.

    And because he can’t he also can’t fluff off his divorce, his wife’s beer distributing, etc.

  • His wife’s beer distributing? Huh? That’s a talking point? Beer Distributing? You mean offering beer for consumers is a bad thing? I can see where you could say something if Cindy was ashamed of her country, or for the first time she was proud of it, or if she had this doom-and-gloom worldview like Michelle Obama, but Beer Distributing? Wow, that’s f’ing great.

  • Chad (re # 29) – No, Dude, nothing wrong with beer distributing….
    UNLESS having anything to do with alcohol (like selling it) is against your claimed religion.
    Kind of like a Catholic Women’s Health Center (complete with chapel) that does voluntary abortions.
    It don’t fit.
    Does that make the picture of McCain being a Baptist & beer thing any clearer for you?

  • You can’t control the way you were born, be it as a Lutheran like myself or a Baptist, or Muslim or whatnot. How’s about Obama being deeply religious but still supports partial birth abortion. I guess that doesn’t matter because Jesus loved killing babies right? Before you criticize McCain’s religion, take a look at your guy too.

  • Racer X
    “And Karl… should we ask what happened with his first marriage?”

    Is there a juicy story there? I haven’t heard anything about that. I did hear somewhere that he doesn’t even believe in God and there are all those rumors about him having White House liasons with the gay reporter Guckert, who was spending the night. I would love to hear anything that was said about his divorce.

    Damn, I just realized you meant McCain’s first marriage. I was hoping for a good one about Rove.

  • Sorry, meant to say, before you criticize McCain’s religious hypocrisy, take al ook at your guy too.

  • You gotta love these fake Christians. They can scream bloody murder about a woman having the right to choose to end a pregnancy, but every last one of those hypocrites is for the war and the death penalty. They pretend to worry about something that doesn’t exist yet, but they are bloodthirsty as satan when it comes to war, guns and killing criminals.

  • I think many of you are reading too much into this. Rove creates his own reality, and by extension, the reality of the GOP. The way they think the world ought to be becomes the way it is, because Rove says so in print or on camera.

    Obama is arrogant, insincere, elitist and possibly a secret Muslim, because Rove says it’s so.

    McCain is spiritual and private and thoughtful…because Rove says he is.

    And while we all pick nits and point out the obvious lack of evidence to Rove’s claims, he’ll go off and spin his new reality, just like we were promised/wanred he would.

    Period.

    And until the media, as a whole, stands up and proclaims Shenanigans, he’ll continue to hold this kind of power over the poor pathetic sheep in the Republican Party, who will then continue to give up their constitutional rights and freedoms for a little bit of that old-time religion in the White House.

    Period.

  • Patrick (#34) “fake Christians”? screaming bloody murder over a woman’s right to choose? With that rational, you’re saying that “real Christians” are for abortion. I don’t think it says anywhere in the bible that life is something that can just be thrown away on a whim. Maybe women should take responsibility for their actions and practice birth control and safe sex instead of whoring around and getting free passes.

  • Chad you don’t even know there is no such thing as partial birth abortion…that is a republican talking point term having no validity…repeating it shows how shallow you are. “Late term abortions” are exceptionally rare and usually not elective but required for health reasons. Learn something boy…you are so bent with trying to dump on dems that you’ve just closed your mind and jump from one subject to another refusing to change when confronted with truth o reality.

    You know what Michelle Obama was referring to…you know she loves America…you know these things but try to find anything to twist into making her objectionable. Leaving out that Cindy McCain was actually charged with obtaining illegal prescriptions for pain meds or the fact that her wealth depends on favorable legislation that her husband helped provide she is just like Michelle in loving America.

    You don’t want to grow…you don’t want to progress, you want to blame and hate and so set about looking for a reason to justify it. You’re a sad individual who refuses to learn and just waits for another chance to try to attack. It’s insulting to tolerate your ‘insights’ and fortunately there are few here at your level.

  • Chad, I am glad you favor birth control. That is certainly the responsible thing to do. We do have alot of irresponsible people in this country though. And mistakes do happen. I don’t think people are fake christians for being against abortion. I can honestly understand both sides of this arguement. I grew up Catholic, went to Catholic school and was against abortion myself, until I reached adulthood and realized that the church doesn’t have all the right answers. You can believe in and honor God without thinking that abortion must be illegal in all circumstances. When I refer to fake christians, I mean people who say they are believers and the most important issue to them is criminalizing abortion, but then they are in favor of killing people in all of the other scenarios…death penalty, war in Iraq, killing Muslims in general, hating gays, not giving a damn about poor people. That is what a fake christian is. Jesus was all about helping poor people and teaching kindness to others. Only caring about abortion and ignoring all these other points is very hypocritical and is not living God’s will.

  • Remember when you said this Steve?

    I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about all of this, and he said I was overly concerned with facts and truths. Republicans win elections because they don’t care — in a case like this, the only thing anyone will remember is the stunt/prop, not the fact that they were blatantly lying and blatantly wrong.

    That may very well be. Indeed, it probably points to a vicious cycle — Republicans make up a lie. We point out how insane the lie is, and feel better about being smarter than Republicans. Voters, not knowing better, believe the lie. Satisfied with the reward, Republicans feel encouraged to make up a new lie, which again leads us to point out how insane the lie is….

    Rove does not care that it is a total lie. He is trying to construct an artificial identity for McCain.

  • Chad said: “Maybe McCain should have the audacity to write not one, but two autobiographies about himself.”

    Maybe if McCain’s first autobiography had sold well the publisher would have asked for a second.

    Critizing talent now are we?

  • Patrick, supposed ‘fake christians’ don’t care about other issues you say, but in fact, conservatives tend to give more to charities than liberals. This according to this study:

    In Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism (Basic Books), Arthur C. Brooks finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.

    Actions do speak louder than words.

  • Maybe McCain should have the audacity to write not one, but two autobiographies about himself. — Chad, @27

    Definitely. One for Baptist and one for Episcopalian readers. You pays your money…

  • …practice birth control and safe sex instead of whoring around and getting free passes.

    OK. Let me get this straight:

    You want less government intervention except when it comes to women’s sexual rights? I’m quite certain you wouldn’t want intervention for your monthly Viagra script. But if a woman concedes to your Viagra-powered advances, she’s a whore because you refused to wear a condom?

    Oh wait. You’re here just to get your Johnny Mac spammer points yes? I’d say you’re well on your way to getting that “Straitjacket Express” foam sun visor at the very least.

  • Chad, that part about conservatives being more generous is nonsense. I have alot of friends and associates that are conservative. They are among the stingiest people I know. They would never give a dollar or even a quarter to a homeless guy on the street that asks. They call me a sucker for doing it, but I get a very good feeling from it. I wish I could afford to give more than I do. I would really question the source where you got that. Most religious people that I talk to, with the exception being many of my Catholic relatives all think criminals should be killed. You know very well that is not what Jesus would do. How many of your religious friends have you heard say we should nuke Iran, just because they are sick of hearing about them. If you are an honest person, you will admit that you have heard that too and that conflicts with the teachings of Jesus. Those people are fake christians.

  • MsMuddled, no, she’s a whore because she doesn’t care if he wears a condom or not. Viagra is not a form of birth control, not sure if you know that or not.

    Women can have all the sex they want if they’re smart about it and practice safe sex and contraception. It’s called being responsible. Should we reward the irresponsible and give them a free pass? Hey, go ahead and do whatever you want, drive drunk, the government should stay out of my drinking and driving habits.

  • For another, if he does start to emphasize his faith, McCain may have to explain why he’s theologically incoherent.

    Which is why he declined the invitation to CNN’s Compassion Forum back in April, I would assume.

  • she’s a whore because she doesn’t care if he wears a condom or not

    That’s quite a generalization, Why lay the entire responsibility of both safe sex and birth control on women? And even stoop to calling us whores for moments of passion just as likely to happen from either side? I just don’t get that. It’s usually done in twos. What is the man’s responsibility in all this?

    And if it is a woman’s responsibility, is it also her responsibility to find this information on her own, or would you support government-sponsored education to teach her? I would think you would agree that for abortion needs to be reduced, responsible education is certainly pertinent. Yet, I always hear the right condemning that too, as if merely discussing birth control options is sinful enough. Where else would they get this information? Especially if coming from parents such as I imagine you would be, who would rather jump off a cliff than talk about sex with your daughter. Plus you would probably forbid your child from researching this on the internet too. So how could she become informed?

    And yes of course I know what Viagra is and isn’t. I see the commercial for it 100 times a day on any given channel.

  • Sorry to feed the troll. But I believe Bush has taken away a woman’s responsibility for birth control. He recently decreed most forms of birth control which are used by women as abortions. IOW if you take the pill and have sex during that cycle, you have had an abortion. So if you are a woman who opposes abortion, you cannot have sex with your husband while taking birth control. Women must rely on the men they are with to be responsible with wearing a condom properly and to stop, if it tears. I guess they can still make sure he isn’t using one he just pulled from his wallet. But it seems they don’t have too much they can do.

  • Maybe Rove is thinking about negative ways to portray Obama in the context of faith, which could get very ugly, and maybe already has according to Michael Kieschnick who wrote a few days ago in a post titled Most Dangerous Political Ad Ever” that “McCain’s new ad … operates at another level as well … I think the ad is trying to tell far right Christians that Obama is the anti-Christ. In their mind set, the anti-Christ comes along as a wildly popular figure, and must be defeated and indeed killed by the true faithful in order that the second coming of Jesus can happen.”

  • Gosh, I sure was hoping that SOMEONE would bring up religion in this campaign.
    I mean, politics in this country just can’t have enough folks telling us how religious they are, then bombing the hell out of some country, promoting hate and discord here at home, and generally ignoring all the basic tenets of most of the religions of the world.

    If John McCain is a Baptist OR an Episcopalian, I’ll eat my shorts. There is only one religion for this guy…..power.

  • Ah… So much brain power going
    to waste while our soldiers are
    ordered to gather shells on the
    beaches in far away lands while
    our national treasury is drained
    because our citizens, who love
    our country so dearly, can’t be
    bothered with trying to determine
    what’s true; regardless of how
    painful the truth might be. –In
    short, we’ve abandoned America!
    It took brains, dedication and courage
    to put this country together, and
    no attention to boogiemen was
    ever supposed to scare us into
    conviction without trials. Now
    that’s all dead and gone we might
    just as well start peddling indulgences
    again.

    The force will leave you shortly.
    Amen!
    Rove? Get the lights baby!

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