Palin politics: Mistaking the little pond for the big pond

By Richard K. Barry

Although Sarah Palin is remaining coy about her intentions to run for the Republican presidential nomination, many of us continue to talk about her. I suppose that is a part of her grand strategy, which is, we must admit, working. I mean the part about us still talking about her.

Given the fact that she is doing none of the things a candidate conventionally needs to do to run a credible campaign, people who understand how it is typically done are raising questions.

Maybe this means she has no intention of running, but what if she does?

As evil as Karl Rove may be, no one disputes his experience as a campaigner. When asked if Palin could wage a non-conventional nomination campaign with any degree of success, his response was:

Her people think so.

They've talked with people about it, whom I talked to, and they've been explicit about it - that she doesn't need to go to Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, press the flesh and go to all these local events in order to cultivate local leadership. She can talk to people over that. She doesn't need to cultivate the fundraisers and the bundlers, because her mere presence in the race will generate the cash needed for the campaign.

Rove added, rather ominously, that she was ignoring the "niceties" at "her own peril."

Scott Conroy, however, at Real Clear Politics takes issue with Rove on this, claiming that doing things the old-fashioned way in Iowa may not matter that much. Consider, he says, that Rick Santorum, Tim Pawlenty, and Newt Gingrich are getting praise for their organizational efforts there yet going nowhere in the polls. Rick Perry, Sarah Palin, and even Chris Christie, none of whom is even declared, are doing better.

This, he suggests, tells a different story.

First of all, if we are just talking about Iowa, Conroy might be right. Although I was always of the impression that Iowa was all about retail politics, that in smaller races like this it was all about meeting people and pressing the flesh, maybe Palin's brand is such that she can get away without all of that in Iowa. I might even cede the point.

But is there any way a candidate can run a credible campaign for the nomination across the country by running a top-down effort that does not rely on strong organization?

All of Karl Rove's experience tells him that it is not possible. There is just too much work involved, too many fundraising bundlers to organize and stroke, too many opinion leaders to lobby, too many volunteers to care for and feed, too much effort required for a successful "Get Out the Vote" campaign, and on and on.

Maybe that's Palin's problem. She has never been good at understanding the scale of things. Iowa may be an important race in the early days of the GOP nomination, and if she got in she might do well there, but America is a much bigger country and doing things the old-fashioned way in primary after primary is probably still necessary.

Relying on your brand alone to win in Iowa, where a lot of GOP voters may already love you, is different than winning over the long haul.

This is classic Sarah Palin politics: mistaking the little pond for the big pond.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Karl Rove's delusional wishful thinking

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove's columns in The Wall Street Journal, like his various public utterances (usually on Fox News), are for the most part a hilarious litany of shameless spin. While they often provide useful insight into mainstream Republican thinking -- and, if you read carefully (as Jon Chait regularly points out), between the lines, insight into Rove's own partisan agenda, trying to push the party this way or that, while also trying to be as optimistically pro-Republican as possible, the facts be damned -- it's awfully hard to take them seriously at face value. Because they amount basically to a huge quagmire of bullshit.

Well, Rove was at it again yesterday, arguing/"arguing" that Obama is "likely to be defeated in 2012." Why is that, you ask? (You did ask, right? No. More power to you.) Oh, well:

The reason is that he faces four serious threats. The economy is very weak and unlikely to experience a robust recovery by Election Day. Key voter groups have soured on him. He's defending unpopular policies. And he's made bad strategic decisions.

But is that all true? And will he really be brought down? Well, the economy is certainly a potential problem politically for Obama. No one denies that. But actually Obama is not nearly as unpopular as Rove suggests, and it's very likely that core Democratic (and pro-Obama) constituencies will return to the polls in 2012 after sitting out in 2010, letting (pro-Republican) older white voters dominate the midterms.

Ah, but Rove notes that Obama's support among those core Democratic constituencies -- Latinos, young voters -- has effectively collapsed since his inauguration, while blacks may not vote in the numbers they did in 2008 (potentially turning swing states like North Carolina against him) and while, overall, Obama's approval has collapsed pretty much across the board.

Uh-oh.

But not to worry. Rove is just trying to fool us with numbers. They actually mean far less than he claims. As Chait explains:

I really enjoy the use of statistics here. Rove begins by announcing that Obama's approval has dropped since his inauguration -- when it was an obviously unsustainable 67% -- to 45%. (Which puts Obama very close to an even proposition for reelection, not the likely loser Rove paints him as.) A drop from 67% to 45% is a decline of 22 percentage points. Rove adds more numbers as if these are additional revelations, each one a fresh nail in Obama's reelection coffin: He's dropped 25% among men! 24% among the elderly! 23% among independents!

This is how Rove's delusional "analysis" works (though surely he himself knows better). We're meant to think, reading Rove, that Obama's popularity is collapsing, but really his numbers have simply come down to a normal level from their Inauguration highs. That was bound to happen, not least with the economy struggling (what with the mess he inherited from Bush), the tough struggle over stimulus, the bailouts, and health-care reform, Republicans engaged in an all-out campaign of obstructionism (no to all compromise) and propaganda (Birtherism, etc.), and, yes, his own errors and missteps (because no president is perfect and everything is magnified).

So, actually, even 45 percent isn't bad. It puts him in a strong position, not least given the horribly weak Republican presidential field. (He won't be running against, say, an Eisenhower or a Reagan).

Could he lose? Of course. But is it "likely," as Rove suggests? Not even close.

Karl Rove doesn't like Donald Trump -- imagine that

By R.K. Barry

Need any more proof that Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving to Democrats?

All you need to know is that a Donald Trump candidacy, with its whack job birther nonsense, scares the crap out of Karl Rove.

As ThinkProgress put it: 

By firmly planting his flag on the right-wing birther conspiracy, real estate mogul Donald Trump is single-handedly driving a deep wedge into the Republican party. His improbable popularity in the polls has motivated some high-profile Republicans to jump on the birther bandwagon while leaving others fighting to deny him any future relevance. President Bush's former adviser Karl Rove let Fox News' On the Record host Greta Van Susteren know that he falls squarely in the second camp. Utterly aghast at his full-time peddling of the birther conspiracy, Rove labeled him a "joke candidate" of the "nutty right" who will never be elected by Republicans or the American people.

The only thing I can say about this is: who among us would have thought that it would be Donald Trump, of all people, who would drive the wedge between crazy right-wingers and the more pragmatic, effective and campaign savvy elements of the GOP? Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann? Sure. Donald Trump? Wow.

It's actually kind of fun to watch Rove's disgust as he talks about Trump.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost)

Mitt Romney is toast

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

According to a spokesman, "Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered."

According to that spokesman, "Romneycare" isn't like the Affordable Care Act (i.e., "Obamacare," according to Republican propaganda) because it's a single-state system, not a national one, and because "[a] one-size-fits-all plan for the entire nation just doesn't work." States, he asserted, should have "the power to determine their own healthcare solutions."

There is much to recommend Romneycare, once the sort of thing Republicans supported, but the argument that states should all have their own individual systems is silly. Moreover, the two systems are "essentially the same," as Yglesias noted last year -- Romneycare even includes a dreaded individual mandate, now the main target of opponents of the Affordable Care Act -- and Romney has been all over the place distancing himself from the Affordable Care Act. He's obviously landed now on the federal/state distinction, but that won't get him anywhere in today's GOP. Indeed, Karl Rove said last month that Romney basically needs to admit that his heath-care reform in Massachusetts was wrong and that he should apologize for it. Apparently that's not about to happen, not with Romney adamantly defending the Obama-like system that bears his name.

Prediction: Mitt Romney will not be the Republican nominee for president in 2012. He's toast. And, try as he might to protest his sufficiently right-wing cred, he's just making it worse for himself. He did a very good thing in Massachusetts, something he should be very proud of. Don't expect Republicans, and particularly the base, to give him the benefit of anything. They'll destroy him, and that will be that.

(Yes, that's the easiest prediction I've made in a long time, maybe since I picked Christine O'Donnell to lose the Delaware Senate race in a landslide. I don't claim to be a crystal ball. Some things are just obvious.)

Rove warns Republicans about Birthers

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Poor Karl Rove. What is he to do? He's just so worried about his beloved GOP:

Former Bush adviser Karl Rove is calling on GOP politicians to avoid falling into the "birther" movement trap and to stop fueling rumors that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

"Within our party, we've got to be very careful about allowing these people who are the birthers and the 9/11-deniers to get too high a profile and say too much without setting the record straight," Rove said Wednesday night on Fox News.

"We need the leaders of our party to say, 'Look, stop falling into the trap of the White House and focus on the real issues,'" he said. Spending time and energy on -- and getting media attention for -- comments about where the president was born is a distraction that discredits the lawmakers and candidates making the remarks, he said.

Hold on... my sides are splitting.

This is the genius who thinks that the key to Republican electoral success is to play to the extremist right-wing base and to get that base to turn out in massive numbers, right?

And he does know he's a Republican, right? And that Birtherism is huge in the Republican Party? (I mean, if you take the Birthers out, what's left?)

You know what they say about reaping and sowing and making beds and all that. Poor Turd Blossom, living a nightmare of his own devising, is just getting what he deserves.

It's not alright, Jack

"We've lost sight in Washington of what Congress is for, of who Congress serves. It serves the people of the United States. Instead, we've found it serves Chinese sweatshop owners, Russian gangsters — Congress is now serving those interests. The thing is it has become accepted now, so part of our political culture now, that it's normal. Your average citizen doesn't have the voice you'd expect him to have because these voices are much louder and much better financed."
— J. Michael Waller, director, Institute of World Politics

By Edward Copeland 

It's slightly confusing that jailed former lobbyist Jack Abramoff has inspired two 2010 films about his escapades and that both have Casino Jack in the title. I've yet to see the fictional feature starring Kevin Spacey and directed by the late George Hickenlooper, but the documentary Casino Jack and the United States of Money by Alex Gibney, the great documentarian behind past gems such as the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room has made an excellent nonfiction version. On top of that, Gibney also directed or co-directed THREE other 2010 documentaries I've yet to see, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, Freakonomics and My Trip to Al-Qaeda. He also executive produced the phenomenal No End in Sight and was a consulting producer on the exquisite Who Killed the Electric Car? Busy man and from the films I've seen him make so far, a damn fine nonfiction filmmaker as well as a prolific one.

Even if you followed the tale of uberlobbyist Jack Abramoff closely, Gibney's film will keep you riveted as it tells the story of his life and various malfeasance through interviews with many of the associates who were involved in his schemes, either as victims or perpetrators. You also get handy reminders of what a true character the man really was, dating all the way back to his days as he took over the national college Republicans to spin them in a more conservative direction with friends such as Karl Rove and Grover Norquist.

It's also funny to remember his interest and obsessions with pop culture, such as when he grew tired of his secular Jewish rearing and decided to become orthodox based on, of all things, seeing the film version of Fiddler on the Roof. Then there is the obsession he and other college Republicans had with the movie Patton, repeating the famous speech George C. Scott delivers in the film, only replacing every German or Nazi reference with Democrat. Longing for spy games at heart, when an Angolan adventure goes awry, Abramoff even turned to movie producing, financing the Dolph Lundgren hoot Red Scorpion.

However, lobbying proved far more lucrative to Abramoff than show business ever could have been, ethics and laws be damned. It led to the the top our system of legalized bribery (and some instances of not-so-legalized bribery) as he peddled influence on Capitol Hill, mostly with Republicans though Democrats cashed in on his largess as well. The shocking parts are watching as he enlists Indian tribes as clients to promote gaming on one hand and charges them huge fees while on the other hand helps forces out to stop the Indian gaming movement if it interferes with specific clients. Rest assured though, Abramoff and his associates were making money on both sides of the equation.

Casino Jack and the United States of Money tells Abramoff's story in a sleek, informative way and it's still unbelievable that only member of Congress, Bob Ney, R-Ohio, went to jail for his involvement with the man, even if he did help shove Tom DeLay out the door. Gibney saves his suckerpunch for the epilogue though, when you realize that as bad as the system is and as horribly as Abramoff abused it, it turned out to be small potatoes compared to what the lobbyists for the titans of Wall Street have and continue to accomplish.

The result should really be more depressing than it is, but it's made too well and entertains too much for much sadness to seep in.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

Did Karl Rove Create the Crusade Against ACORN?

Americablog:

One other aspect of this story that's fascinating. The Rove-led effort to fire New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was initiated after he wouldn't press charges against ACORN. Yes, Rove started that.

--snip--

So, Rove started the GOP obsession with ACORN, which continues to this day. Rove saw a potential political issue, but the U.S. Attorney didn't see any wrongdoing. Iglesias got fired. Let's hope Rove finally goes to jail.

TPM Muckraker has more about the Rove emails.

DB readers may recall that Karl Rove came to Stillwater for a Bachmann fundraiser.