There’s a suspicion on the part of many Dems — including me, from time to time — that Karl Rove’s influence is felt in almost every move made by the Republican Party and its national candidates. The concerns are generally unfounded.
But once in a while, Rove really might be pulling certain strings behind the scenes.
For example, Marc Ambinder noted yesterday that John McCain’s “bio tour” and Rove’s advice for McCain seem to coincide quite nicely. Rove was asked in mid-February during a Q&A at the University of Pennsylvania what he would advise McCain to do. Rove said:
“McCain needs to focus on defining himself. First and more important, McCain needs to understand that no one in the country really knows who the guy is. He’s a war hero and ran for president eight years ago. But they don’t know a lot about him. He needs to seize the opportunity to reintroduce himself. […]
“He should take a biographical tour to the places in the country that have made him who he is. Go to the Naval Academy and talk about the values he learned there. Then he should go to Pensacola, Florida and Corpus Christi, Texas where he was trained as a naval aviator, and talk from the heart and the call to service. Go to Meridian, Mississippi and Jacksonville, Florida and talk about what he learned about leadership commanding the largest naval air squadron in the United States. He should go to wherever it was that he first stepped foot back in the United States after the Vietnam War and meet with his POW buddies and talk about what he learned about character when he sat in that cell in hell. And he should give a speech in Sedona, Arizona and talk about the people and places in his hometown that affected him.”
And what has McCain spent the last week doing? Well, let’s see, McCain made appearances in Meridian, Pensacola, the Naval Academy, and Prescot, Arizona (which is near Sedona), all as part of a “biographical tour to the places in the country that have made him who he is.”
What’s more, when the moderator at the event suggested that McCain should call Rove for guidance, he responded, “Who says he hasn’t?”
This is interesting for a couple of different reasons.
First, we already knew that Rove has at least some role in advising McCain, so this isn’t shocking news. It does, however, reinforce the notion that McCain is effectively running to offer the nation a third Bush term — he’s running on a platform of Bush’s Iraq policy and Bush’s tax cuts, and he’s getting advice from Bush’s top strategist.
Second, and more importantly, there may be an ethics problem here. In February, Rove outlined a “bio tour” strategy, which the McCain campaign appears to have adopted almost in its entirety.
But according to Nexis transcript I pulled up this morning, Rove was on Fox News this week praising the idea of the tour and heralding its success.
“[McCain] is where he is because the focus is on where the controversy is, and the controversy’s on the Democratic side. So he’s very smartly using the time to both get himself organized and to begin to lay some big meta- themes, some big sort of — you know, a firmament, foundation underneath his candidacy, for example, starting with his “biography tour,” which I think is coming off — it looks like it’s starting off pretty well and it looks like it could come off in a way that will help add to the knowledge that the American people have about him.”
In other words, Rove went on national television to praise his own idea, and neglected to disclose that he’s offered McCain advice.
To borrow a phrase, it’s clearly time for a bloggers ethics panel.