Letters to the Editor
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This ain't that hard..
Karl Rove is no genius-- because it doesn't take a genius to understand American politics and the real level of political education of the American populace.
Most Americans are middle-class. Middle class people tend to know a lot about what affects them (their job, fantasy football, what's going on in the office) and desire any course that maintains the comfort level of the status quo, along with a chance to get rich. Republicans understand this perfectly. They know that outside that box, you can tell people anything, and if you say it with enough authority, they'll believe it.
In 1995, as an environmental activist, I had access to polling information that showed before the infamous "Logging Without Laws" salvage rider, that basically let the US Forest Service log wherever they wanted, that 80% of the American public believed that NO TIMBER WAS SOLD OR CUT on the National Forests-- a practice that has been going on since the beginning of the last century.
In 2001, after the very successful Roadless Initiative campaign run by the Heritage Forest Campaign, where over 1 million people sent in comments in favor of stopping logging in the last remaining wild places in our National Forests (not the entire territory involved), the poll numbers came back-- 80% believed that National Forests were not logged at all. The same figure.
About this time, GWB was ready to assume the office, and naturally I was terrified. I realized that even a coordinated movement, with STRONG response (the Roadless Initiative gathered more public comment to a government agency than ANY other initiative in history) would make no headway against a deliberate disinformation campaign by the government.
This applies cross-issue. I haven't been involved with the abortion issue, but I'm willing to bet that most people have no idea that Roe vs. Wade only applies to the first trimester, and has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the famous "partial birth abortion" issue that the Right has used to undermine this basic women's right.
Karl Rove is no genius for realizing that he can lie to the American public and get away with it. He just figured out that he had to accept the statistics.
As long as we run individuals for public office on nebulous concepts of "character" and "morals", we'll see more Karl Roves. We as an electorate have to get serious about our responsibility to be informed.
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Touche
"No one writes odes, creates newsmagazine covers or sells political biographies based on micro-targeting and the techniques of Election Day phone banks."
What about Internet newsmagazines that play the contrarian role?
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If the Democrats lose the Jews...
then that's all she wrote. The US will be a one-party state (it already is, in many respects). I think Rove is a genius, but if liberals want to pretend he isn't in order to feel better about themselves, it will only redound on them with more election losses. They still can't come to terms with the fact that Bush is a clever man and an excellent politician. ("No, Bush is a stupid liar!") I thought the Dems would take the House--at least the House!--in November, but campaignnetwork.org tells me otherwise. Maybe if the Dems coldly and dispassionately assessed their opponents, the electorate, and the worldwide climate, they could become a factor again...instead of a child having a tantrum for another two years.
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C'mon! Do You Have To Be A Genius??
Who wants free money?
Wow. That was easy. I get up in front of a crowd, claim I'll reduce your tax rate to practically zero and -viola!- I just got 101% of the vote! Where'd that extra one percent come from? My good friends at Diebold who rigged, er, I mean to say "helped" voters cast their votes for the "correct" cadidate.
When I'm in the South I'll go on at length about welfare reform and ask, in somber tones, if it's really fair that drug addicted child rapists get $2500, no, make that $5,000 a week in welfare checks while honest white folk, er, I mean to say, good Christian Southerns are going broke paying taxes? Is that fair my white, over taxed brothers and sisters??
"When I'm elected President I'll reform welfare so those coloreds, er, I mean so those lazy bums of all races (wink, wink)and drug addicts will be forced to get one of the millions of high paying jobs that exist all around us! And I'll lower all your taxes!"
Yeah.
Playing the race card in the South and promising free money to the poor really takes a political genius.
Those tactics surely t'ain't never been tried before in this country, now have they?
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Another Bowl of Mush From Mr. Shapiro
This nonsense that if Karl Rove didn't exist, "he'd have to be invented," seems designed to neutralize the effects he's had on politics, first in Texas and now nationally. He's much more than a marketer--he has connections throughout the party, and he has encouraged the "dirty tricks" wing of the GOP to the point that that is almost all the party has to offer, election after election.
Take a look at Al Franken's "Lies" and see if you don't think Mr. Rove is a good bit more toxic than Mr. Shapiro's "ah, that's just politics" meme would lead you to believe. Is it just a coincidence that phone records of those involved in the New Hampshire phone-jamming case in which a couple of low-level Republicans are either in jail or on their way indicate numerous calls to the White House on election day?
Is it any coincidence that push polls, smears, and untraceable rumors always seem to follow in Rove's wake?
Is it any coincidence that an innocent state employee in Texas answering a hypothetical question about whether a hypothetical government official who was using Texas residency to avoid tax might be violating the law was fired immediately when that hypothetical official turned out to be Rove?
Shapiro has made these "everything's fine, in fact, Rove is good for the Democrats" statements before in Salon--it's simply not analytical, nor is it well-supported. Rove is a dangerous political animal, and his particular ruthlesslessness mixed with utter cunning has been devastating for our national dialogue and our national policy.