Just, wow.
In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when it was not yet clear who Bush’s opponent would be that November, Rove and his aides had begun to fear that their most dangerous foe would be then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
With his Southern base, charismatic style and populist message, Edwards, they believed, could be a real threat to Bush’s reelection.
But instead of attacking Edwards, Rove’s team opened fire at Kerry.
Their thinking went like this, Dowd explained: Democrats, in a knee-jerk reaction to GOP attacks, would rally around Kerry, whom Rove considered a comparatively weak opponent, and make him the party’s nominee. Thus Bush would be spared from confronting Edwards, the candidate Republican strategists actually feared most.
Unlike Kerry, who had been in public service for decades, Edwards was a political newcomer and lacked a long record that could be attacked. And, unlike former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who had been the front-runner but whose campaign was collapsing in Iowa, Edwards couldn’t easily be painted as “nutty.”
If that sounds implausibly convoluted, consider Dowd’s own words:
“Whomever we attacked was going to be emboldened [sic] in Democratic primary voters’ minds.
“So we started attacking John Kerry a lot in the end of January because we were very worried about John Edwards,” Dowd said. “And we knew that if we focused on John Kerry, Democratic primary voters would sort of coalesce” around Kerry.
“It wasn’t like we could tag [eliminate] somebody. Whomever we attacked was going to be helped,” he said.
Nicolle Wallace, the 2004 Bush campaign communications director, recalled at the Harvard conference that the campaign “refused” to even respond to Edwards’ attacks on Bush, not wanting to make him seem like a threat.
Edwards was selected as Kerry’s running mate and now is vying with Clinton and Obama for their party’s 2008 nomination.
Is Rove playing a similar game against Clinton? Is he trying to stampede Democrats into nominating her, having concluded that Obama, Edwards or someone else would pose a stiffer challenge to the Republican nominee?
The White House declined to make Rove available to comment for this article.
Is Rove playing a similar game against Clinton by trying to get her the nomination? Gobsmackingly devious!
Wait. Rove was afraid of the Silky Pony?
That, or envious of the hair.
*cough* *cough-bullsh*t-cough* *cough*
I wish I had money, so I could send it out to bloggers to NOT pay any attention to the NYT hack columnists. Seriously, they were just about dead in the water, nobody was paying them any attention. Now you’re throwing them free publicity? Why?
So I guess that makes Kerry the equivalent of a third string cornerback in the NFL.
Unh huh.
Push the game one level deeper: I, for one, would rejoice to see Edwards, the Democratic Quayle, nominated — and in reality that’s highly unfair to Dan Quayle, but the good hair, the sharp suits, and the tendency to blurt in ignorance is all there. Perhaps this is a gambit to get the Democrats to regard Silky Pony as “electable”, thereby insulting gigantic swathes of the populace? Play along for a bit, folks. This might be interesting.
Regards,
Ric
They’re reactionary enough to fall for it.
F-in brilliant. This should make Dems pissed that they can be reliably categorized as knee-jerk reactive…their consistency is their hate.
Alternate possibility: The R’s know Edwards is a lightweight tool of the nutroots and are floating this story so the D’s will nominate an easily-defeated opponent in 2008.
I’m addicted to coffee-flavored horchata.
You know, I wish that we could know one way or another whether this is true. But its printed in a paper, so that’s no help on whether it is fact. and Dowd recently turned on W, so maybe he is grinding an axe. Or pumping up his own acumen/resume, since he was the strategist for the campaign, saying, look how clever I was. Too many agenda.
I suspect that campaigns simply cannot predict how the other side will react to what they do or say. They figured Kerry was the weakest? Really? If they knew that Dean could be painted as nuts, why not stick with him? Or they knew he’d burn out? I dunno.
So assume that they had that perfect knowledge before – do they have it now? Surely they haven’t displayed any particular political savvy since the 2004 election. I don’t think it takes any particular skill to predict that Hillary will be the Democrat nominee – she has ALWAYS led the pack on that – she has the most money, the most experience in Presidential politics, and is married to the guy who is still the most popular person in the party.
And if she wins the nomination, she’s got a better than evenshot of winning the Presidency. Why would Rove want that?
Hillary has a better than even shot of winning?
Let me introduce you to her incredibly high negatives.
Those negatives will not go down in a general election, btw.
ack – time to watch a movie – don’t puzzle over the horchata thing – I was trying to talk on the phone and IM at the same time and, well, that could have been worse
This post is even better when read in the voice of Vizzini. Try it.
Imagine how demented you have to be to write garbage like that, imagine how demented you have to be to read and take it seriously. Is there a liberal anywhere within 25 miles of reality?
Evil Plot #3:
Hillary is given the nomination (inevitable), takes on Obama for VP (stupid, but gimme a second), and they lose the election by an amount minusculely exceeding pollster predictions. Upon the basis of this shocking! result, the press, fed on Democrats’ press releases (as ever), goes on a crusade against the secret ballot, condemning the sheeted-off voting machine as a coccoon of sexism and racism — which idea already gets air among “tough” Democrats; it just hasn’t gone wide yet, because there’s been no news event to spin it from. Event generated, the crusade succeeds (eventually, because they all do), and no Democrat ever loses another election outside Orange County, thanks to media and social pressures, and personal threats of violence, career destruction, and witheld nookie (which latter three account for about half the votes they get already).
Gaius tremble
Never for long.
Rove’s machinations had absolutely no impact on the Democratic primaries in 2004 and aren’t going to have any impact in 2008 either. Dreams of omnipotence aside, Rove didn’t attack Kerry in 2004 because Kerry was going nowhere until right before the Iowa caucuses. The Dems gave Kerry a look after Dean and Gephardt self-destructed and then nominated Kerry because he was a known commodity and a better campaigner than Edwards. And we were right, Kerry was a stronger candidate than Edwards.
As for 2008, Rove’s comments on Hillary made copy for about 48 hours and were then drowned by new news. Hillary tried to take advantage; Obama parried and that was about it.
I’ve written that Rove’s a political genius, but his time has passed. If he thinks he’s having an impact on the Democratic primaries, his time has REALLY passed–kind of like he’s the Brittany Spears of the Republican Party.
I had the same reaction as Jeffersonian.
Double-secret-reverse-strategery.
How are we supposed to believe any of this? Aren’t these people the horrible liars who steal elections with disinformation and lying lies told by lying liars?
I mean, when the left and the media (I know that I’m repeating myself) tell us that everybody in the Republican party is a lying liar who lies about the lies they tell, how can we trust the idea that they [the Repugs] found Silky Pony a threat and focused on Jon Carry as an effective strategery?
When you move a layer further and accept the postulate that the really far leftists (I’ve known a bunch of them) think that the right controls the media, how can you believe what this newspaper article is telling you? Corporate bigwigs are feeding this to you as disinformation, probably.
What a relief. I went to read the article, to see what brand of hallucinogen they’d been ingesting, and it turned out that they weren’t quoting Maureen Dowd, after all.
So, around the bend-ness is to some extent relative.
Comment by ef on 8/19 @ 10:00 pm : “This post is even better when read in the voice of Vizzini. Try it.”
That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all week. LOLOL!
“I do not think this post means what you think it means!”
I agree with *cough* *cough* *Robin Roberts*. Total BS.
Oh, yeah, her high negatives. I am sure that SENATOR Clinton is completely unelectable to office.
So does Rove get to pick the candidate or have we now learned our lesson?
Only the war room knows through intensive polling.
And we were right, Kerry was a stronger candidate than Edwards.
Ric: Kerry lost to Bush. Bush.
If Kerry is the “best campaigner” you have, perhaps it’s time to just hang it up.
Blaster: I know this is hard to believe, but New York and California are not the only states in the union. Really.
I believe they might have used this strategy. I don’t think it would have won the nomination for Kerry, but I do believe that whoever the GOP attacked would have been helped and seen as credible by the far-left fringe. Thus, if they truly believed that Edwards was more of a threat at that time (a calculas that would be different now, I think), this strategy would have made sense, and worked to some degree.
Again, this alone would not have helped Kerry win, Dean’s implosion, Kerry’s “war record”, etc., all combined to put Kerry over the top, but attacks by the GOP would have helped his credibility (particularly at a time when he was not doing as well in the primary) as a serious candidate who the GOP was afraid of.
Thus, I believe this may have been a true strategy, I just don’t believe it made as much of a difference as they imply. Had they attacked Edwards instead, maybe Edwards would have done better in the primaries, but Kerry probably still would have won the nomination.
My guess now is that the GOP would much rather face Edwards or Obama in the general election than Hillary – which may account for this coming out now – but I doubt it will have any real effect. The far left already would rather have Edwards or Obama than Hillary and yet Hillary is still way, way ahead in all polls.
But, in all reality, as much as I would hate for her to win it – out of all the dem candidates, Hillary would be the least bad in my humble opinion.
It’ll be hard for the dem’s to point to this as an example of Rove’s wickedness. To do so would show that they are automatically for whatever the president is againts & against whatever the president is for.
[…] Rove won in 2004….by *not* attacking Silky Pony. Posted by Ian S. […]
No matter what the Dems do now, they’ll wonder if they haven’t been manipulated into it by a Rovian Mind Control plot.
Rove, you magnificent bastard!
TW: “224; ambulances” An estimate of the transportation needs for the mental hospitals after the next election?
It’s the wilderness of mirrors, I tell you; black is white, white is black;
(There goes my segue from Kevin Costner’s JFK) Wallsten seems to have graduate from mere Democratic flackery at the Herald to sweet smelling crazy
at the LA Times. Look I admire Rove’s ability but wouldn’t it have been better in 2004 to take out Kerry; and let the plaid Che Guevara, Howlin’ Howard as the candidate. That’s how real evil, Nixon did with Segretti, the ibogaine on Muskie, the sinking of Humphrey which led to McGovern and the 49 state sweep. It was the scruples of the right, that we wanted a mildly saner candidate, in these turbulent times that made us wiling to burn Howard
Dean before his primal scream. Hillary is the most sane candidate out there
which is saying something in this coffee clatch from the bar scene at Mos Eiseley; if you saw the last Democratic debate. She’s less likely to have a State and Defense department manned by Soros’s CAP and a Justice Department
from CREW.
>>>I do believe that whoever the GOP attacked would have been helped and seen as credible by the far-left fringe.
You mean roughly 50% of the Democrat base/primary voters? I’m with you.
You mean roughly 50% of the Democrat base/primary voters? I’m with you.
I think it’s a mistake to think like that. I think the far-left fringe is about 7-10% of the population, maybe about 15-20% of the dem base. B/c they are the most vocal and most active, that is who we see the most of. b/c we pay are interested in politics we see their craziness. The vast majority of voters on the left or the right don’t have any real clue about the true craziness that is the left in America, and don’t understand just how large a part that far-left has in controlling the Dem party, through activism and money.
We assume the rest of american voters see these crazies’ words and acts, but the truth is, they never do. The far left is never reported on in the mainstream media, their most hateful words and deeds from blogs, etc., are never shown, so most of america has no idea about these people.
Thus, they see the more “moderate” face of the dem party and have no idea of what lays beneath it.
Indeed, as a follow-up to my above comment, I believe that the best thing we could really do is get more people to actually read posts and comments on sites like DU, KOS, etc., to see what these people are really about. Most people have never even heard of these sites, let alone read anything there. If people actually saw the craziness, it could only help defeat dems in general.
*I am sure that SENATOR Clinton is completely unelectable to office.*
Err, New York is not the rest of the country, skippy. I’m sure Hillary polls well in New York and California, maybe somewhat in the Northeast and on the Northwest coast. However, she will poll horribly in the vast majority of red states (as a woman AND as a politician), including Texas and I can’t imagine her having a chance in Florida.
Assuming the democratic candidate landscape doesn’t change prior to 2008, Hill will get the nomination and lose the election. She simply won’t have the crossover appeal and without a genuine important issue to run on, she’s going to be left hanging in the wind. Personally, I think the dems are going to have the same problem in 2008 as they did in 2004- no particularly good canidates. Hillary is Hillary, Obama has no experience and Edwards is a phony. The GOP has at least three candidates I think are viable (Guilliani, Romney and Thompson), all of whom I’d be comfortable with if they get the nomination and 2 of whom have significant name recognition. Yes, they have baggage but it pales in comparison to Hillary’s baggage.
I’m wondering why the following scenario isn’t being discussed more seriously:
Hillary knows her high negatives will prevent her from winning a clean majority in a two-candidate general election. BUT, she also remembers how third party candidate Ross Perot helped her husband get elected despite Bill’s 42% vote total in 1992.
By running “to the middle” she opens the way for a Democrat (Gore?)to run to her left or Independent (Bloomberg) to run, either of which could possibly keep either major party candidate from getting the required 280 electoral votes, thereby throwing the election in the House of Representaves.
And just whom, dear readers, would the Demo-controlled, Nancy Pelosi-led House hand the White House to on a silver platter????
Hillary has high negatives in NY, too. Not as high as the rest of the country, but the point still remains. She isn’t going to win Texas or South Carolina, but she doesn’t need to. She just needs one state from the red column to make it happen.
So, yes, I say she has a better than even chance of winning the Presidency if nominated. You can accept that “Oh Hillary can’t get elected” crap all you want, but she is a formidable candidate, and we’d best be prepared to run against her.
How nice for you. What was your name again?
As for the topic of the post, at some point the popular depiction of our political system and our political environment have popped loose of their rails and gone clattering across the countryside like the Ghost of the Old 97 trying to find its way to Spencer by heading for St. Louis.
This article is only the latest installment in the saga, which I half expect to find showing in black & white on TVLand with Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk as teenage detectives trying to solve the mystery.
I could go on, but I’ve run out of dated pop-cultural references.
One minor quibble, if I may.
When the House votes on whom to elect for President, the States will get together and vote among themselves as a single entity.
California may have 53 House Members, but in that particular case, California only gets one vote. Of course, it will probably go Blue, but that will be cancelled by little ol’ one-House-Member-at-Large Utah, which has voted Republican just as consistently as Washington, DC, has voted Democrat.
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#270
“If no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects the President from the 3 Presidential candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each State delegation has one vote.”
Last I checked, there were still all of those flyover states that would tromp both coasts, roughly 2-to-1.
And all a frog needs is a pair of wings to keep from bumping his ass when he hops.
When 45% of the populace won’t vote for you, no matter what the circumstances, and a largish chunk of what is left happens to be of an opposing political POV, you seem to think that she just needs to eke out a single red state.
You forget about the possibility of actually losing blue states.
During the 2000 election, all the Dems needed was ONE other state, and they could have blown off Florida entirely.
They couldn’t win the incumbent’s home state of Arkansas.
They couldn’t win the most recent Democratic President’s home state of Georgia.
They couldn’t win the Vice President’s/Presidential candidate’s home state of Tennessee (and when a candidate can’t even win his home state, that’s pretty pathetic).
They couldn’t win the House Minority Leader’s home state of Missouri.
They couldn’t win the Senate Majority Leader’s home state of South Dakota.
Those were the most powerful and most popular Democrats in the nation, and it wasn’t enough to hold onto the states that repeatedly elected them time and time again to those high offices.
What happens if Senator Hillary loses New York to Rudy? You think her negatives are high now? Wait until all of the dirty laundry of her part in the Clinton White House scandals comes to light.
Vince Foster? Why she would put up with all of the whoring and cheating and lying that Bill did, if not out of a sense of political calculation (clearly thinking that a divorced woman will never be elected President)? Why would America vote to give Bill access to the White House interns without the media scrutiny?
She may win the nomination, but she will never win an election. She’s no more electable than Teddy Kennedy is.
Yeah, let’s get Bloomberg or Gore to jump into the race because then everybody will think Hillary’s a moderate? Throw in Nader, so she will look really moderate?
GHWB didn’t lose because Bill Clinton looked moderate, he lost because he sold us down the river on taxes. Perot was right about government spending and wrong about everything else, but I still voted for the man. Because a message needed to be delivered.
Do you seriously think that I’d vote for Hillary? You have to get down to the two-percenters like Ron Paul or Tom Tancredo before I’d consider staying home versus voting against her.
The best part of this is that the Democrats can’t even acknowledge this possibility, as that would only serve to underscore the fact that their leading candidate has such negativity attached to her that the GOP would WANT her to win the nomination.
Deviousness heaped upon more deviousness.
Why would America vote to give Bill access to the interns without the media scrutiny? Entertainment. You forget, he got MORE popular after spooging in some fat girl’s face and lying about it. You think there is something new that is going to be dragged up about the Clintons? That suddenly, somewhere, the US is going to go, oh, yeah, something kinda funny about those billing records. That Hillary being cuckolded (whatever the female version of that is) is less distasteful to the electorate than Giuliani being the cuckolder?
Believe the myth if you will that 45% of the country wouldn’t vote for her under any circumstances. If that’s true, doesn’t matter who the Republican candidate is, or the campaign that they run. Why not Ron Paul in that circumstance?
I will say it again – Hillary will be the nominee. She has a better than even chance of winning the Presidency, and factor in a running mate like Obama, or a Southern governor like Warner, and you can see how the calculus differs.
The Repblican party didn’t believe that it would lose in 2006 – hand the reins to Pelosi? If they revert to their full stupid party history, and figure Hillary for an easy mark, you’d better get ready for a new Clinton Presidency.
Oh, yes, absolutely. We admit it! We’ve been caught! We’re terrified of Edwards, he’s the only one who can beat us! Nominate him, and we’ll be DOOMED!
Briar patch! BRIAR PATCH!
Yeah, that a pretty good Wife, I like it. Give me more than :-)