More Rove

David Weigel | August 13, 2007

It's amusing, the way Karl Rove decided to go out via an interview with Paul Gigot. The WSJ's editorial page editor makes like a Transformer and morphs into a funnel for Rove's thick, brown gallons of horse crap.

[E]ven with a unified Democratic Party and the war, he argues, [2006] was "a really close election." The GOP lost the Senate by its 3,562 vote margin of defeat in Montana, and in the House the combined margin in the 15 seats that cost control was 85,000 votes.

Actually, it was lucky for Bush that the dozen or so races Republicans barely won didn't go the other way. The swing against Republicans was massive, as best shown by Democrats who ran rematch races against Republicans. In 2004 Nancy Boyda ran for a seat from Kansas and lost by 15 points to Republican Jim Ryun. In 2006 she won by four points—a nineteen point swing. New Hampshire Democrat Paul Hodes lost to Charles Bass by 20 points in 2004 and won by seven in 2006. This was a party coming back from big structural disadvantages and clobbering a well-oiled political machine. Rove's argument is loser talk, and not even convincing loser talk.

What about that new GOP William McKinley-style majority he hoped to build--isn't that now in tatters, as the country tilts leftward on security, economics and the culture? Again, Mr. Rove disagrees. He says young people are if anything more pro-life and free-market than older Americans, and that, despite the difficulties in Iraq, the country doesn't want to be defeated there or in the fight against Islamic terror.

But none of that is Rove's doing. The point of his attended re-alignment was to grab young voters on these points of agreement and pull them into the GOP. The opposite has happened: In some polls, young voters are more pro-war than they are pro-Republican. Social Security privatization was more popular with young voters before Bush took his spin on the Wheel o' Incompetence. That brilliant 2004 embrace of gay marriage bans? Dynamite for locking down older voters, and nearly as effective at making the young disgusted with the GOP.

Oh, and this is a fun Gigot question:

And what about Jeb Bush in 2012?

Rove, sadly, decides to pass on helping the most blundering political dynasty since the Duvaliers ooze back into the White House.

Comments

|8.13.07 @ 10:25AM|#

Actually, Jeb Bush (sans l'affaire Schiavo) was a good governor and would certainly have been ten times better than his weak brother in the White House. However, whether I like him better than George is irrelevant now--no more Bushes. Or Clintons. Or anyone else who even has the same last name as the last, oh, fifteen presidents.

|8.13.07 @ 10:29AM|#

And what about Jeb Bush in 2012?

Kill me now.

VikingMoose|8.13.07 @ 10:30AM|#

And there we have it, gentle readers.

You have read it hier first.

ProGLib has sworn off BUSH. No more bush for him.

We have dispatched the roving (ha!) reporter to find out from the various Libertatian Constituencies what the potential fall out will be.

Stay tuned!

|8.13.07 @ 10:30AM|#

no more Bushes. Or Clintons. Or anyone else who even has the same last name as the last, oh, fifteen presidents.

Who here favors a constitutional amendment to ban any child, spouse, sibling, parent, or first cousin of a former president from serving for at least 25 years since he left office? *raises hand*

|8.13.07 @ 10:31AM|#

Cesar,

Are you advocating some sort of kin limits?

Stephen The Goldberger|8.13.07 @ 10:37AM|#

Tonya Harding 08

thoreau|8.13.07 @ 10:42AM|#

Tonya Harding? Nonsense! I'm casting my vote for DONDEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

|8.13.07 @ 10:48AM|#

Are you advocating some sort of kin limits?

Yes, yes I am. We don't need an elective monarchy in this country.

|8.13.07 @ 10:54AM|#

Term limits and kin limits. I'm in.

|8.13.07 @ 11:02AM|#

After Hillary, we get Jeb. After Jeb, we get Chelsea. After Chelsea, one of the Bush twins. After...

rho|8.13.07 @ 11:13AM|#

After Hillary, we get Jeb. After Jeb, we get Chelsea. After Chelsea, one of the Bush twins. After...

That's just... disgusting. I just got the piss shivers.

iowan|8.13.07 @ 11:20AM|#

After Hillary, we get Jeb. After Jeb, we get Chelsea. After Chelsea, one of the Bush twins. After...,/i>

No, not the bush twins, it will be Jeb's son, the strikingly handsome, half-latino young man that is as smooth in his twenties as any professional pol you'll ever see.

iowan|8.13.07 @ 11:21AM|#

oops on the italics

No, not the bush twins, it will be Jeb's son, the strikingly handsome, half-latino young man that is as smooth in his twenties as any professional pol you'll ever see

Chuck|8.13.07 @ 11:22AM|#

PL--

Gotta disagree with you on Jeb. We've had worse governors, but I would only rate his performance as "good" in disaster response. The damage that Jeb did to the state university system will take many years to repair, he ran and hid while legislative leaders waged open warfare on each other (remember Johnnie Byrd vs Jim King?), and his management style showed an arrogance and intolerance for dissenting views that make brother George look like Gandhi by comparison.
Talk about your unitary executive...W probably copied the idea from Jeb.
His "outsourcing" of state government functions followed the Russian model, and now millions more are going to have to be spent to clean up the messes his no-bid contractors created and then walked away from.

I can't imagine Jeb as POTUS.

|8.13.07 @ 11:30AM|#

Plus, just from a diplomatic standpoint, how can expect any level of respect from foreign countries with a POTUS named "Jeb."

|8.13.07 @ 11:30AM|#

...how can WE expect...

GILMORE|8.13.07 @ 12:06PM|#

He says young people are if anything more pro-life and free-market than older Americans

Not according to 10 years of opinion research ive done. I'd like to see some kind of data behind this.

younger people are more pro choice, open minded about gays, and less 'free market' than older americans... doesnt take a lot of poking around to find evidence of it.

|8.13.07 @ 12:10PM|#

I find it funny that the guy who says we need to stay in Iraq till the job, is done is quitting the White House before the job is done.

|8.13.07 @ 12:37PM|#

Rove, sadly, decides to pass on helping the most blundering political dynasty since the Duvaliers ooze back into the White House.

Worse than the Kims in North Korea?

|8.13.07 @ 1:16PM|#

If we have another Bush or Clinton after Hillary, I've had it with this country.

|8.13.07 @ 1:39PM|#

TrickyVic

I suspect he may have been "asked" to leave.

|8.13.07 @ 3:44PM|#

From the interview:
And what about Jeb Bush in 2012? Mr. Rove first says with a tone of skepticism, "Ask Jeb." Then he adds, "You better get a younger man. My wife would kill me."

From Weigel:
Rove, sadly, decides to pass on helping the most blundering political dynasty since the Duvaliers ooze back into the White House.

Not exactly the same...

|8.13.07 @ 6:20PM|#

William McKinley-style majority

Well, he does share one thing with my very distant relative. They both got the US bogged down in foreign insurgencies for dubious reasons.

|8.13.07 @ 6:45PM|#

ProGLib has sworn off BUSH. No more bush for him.

Ummm, I think he was swearing off "voting for anyone with the last name of Bush". NOT at all the same thing as "swearing off bush.