Tag Archives: Karl Rove

TN Delegate Shares Convention Experiences

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Paul BoydFresh from his plane after attending the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Paul Boyd stopped by the Midtown Republican Club to regale us all with details we didn’t get to see behind the scenes.

Our Shelby County Probate Court Clerk enjoyed it very much.

“About 7 minutes after I got on the Convention floor I ran into Karl Rove,” Boyd said. He also enjoyed talking to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, Tony Perkins, Dan and Craig Romney, Chuck Todd and Luke Russert.

“The first day I attended a seminary hosted by pollster Frank Luntz. He said in talking to the undecided voters anger will not get it. He was also hilarious,” Boyd said.

“The Tennessee delegation was invited to a screening of the movie ‘Dolphin Tale’ which was produced by Fed Ex Fred Smith’s daughter. Your Tennessee Republican delegation was well represented by our Governor, Bill Haslam. The people of Tampa rolled out the carpet for Tennesseans.”

Boyd comes away from the convention feeling “we are in a good position to win. Florida, Ohio and Virginia are the most critical states we need,” he said, “but we might have a chance with Colorado, Nevada and Wisconsin.

“But it is going to take hard work.”

Ads Subtract

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Yesterday we had the Obama ad where he tries to explain his “you didn’t build it comment.” There is also the ad mocking Ann Romney using her horse as MS therapy that the Democrats said they pulled, but is still showing. It’s pretty pathetic.

Well, other ads Team O is making aren’t adding to his stature as a candidate. The Obama ads are so bad, even MMSNBC makes fun of them:

Fortunately the Romney team and the RNC have been quick to put together ads that are effective like this one:

Lucky for us, Obama’s gaffes are writing the copy. So are the bad economic numbers that even he can’t clean up enough to show any progress.

American Crossroads PAC, led by Karl Rove, produced this good one:

Holder Out in the Cold?

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Jim Geraghty in National Review online’s Morning Jolt asks: “Does someone in the White House not want Eric Holder to hold on?” And concludes “So . . . Attorney General Eric Holder could end up having a bad, bad week next week.”

He explains:

House Committee and Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa told BuzzFeed today that he expects 31 Democrats will join Congressional Republicans in finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents relating to a botched gun-running investigation.

Issa, who has risen to national prominence as the point of the Republican spear in investigating alleged Obama administration wrongdoing, called for a committee vote on contempt next week in advance of a full House vote on Holder’s conduct in the so-called “Fast and Furious” operation, in which a federal agent was allegedly killed with a gun the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allowed to be trafficked.

For what it’s worth, I’m hearing rumblings that Republicans in both the House and Senate think that Attorney General Eric Holder is . . . well, lying through his teeth in his testimony on Fast & Furious, and that this is worth going to the mattresses over.

Another interesting observation came from a second look at this anecdote that came out last week
:

The Axelrod-Holder battle is described by author Daniel Klaidman in the forthcoming Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency.

“After the session ended, Axelrod made a beeline for the attorney general. Obama’s senior adviser was incensed. It had gotten back to him that Holder and his aides were spreading the word that he was trying to improperly influence the Justice Department.

Axelrod, who knew all too well that even the hint of White House meddling with Justice Department investigations could detonate a full-blown scandal, had been careful not to come close to that line. ‘Don’t ever, ever accuse me of trying to interfere with the operations of the Justice Department,’ he warned Holder after confronting him in the hallway. ‘I’m not Karl Rove,’ he added, referring to George Bush’s political consigliere, who had been accused of pressuring Justice to fire politically unpopular U.S. attorneys.

Holder did not appreciate being publicly dressed down by the president’s most senior political adviser. Determined to stand his ground against Tammany Hall, the A.G. ripped into him in full view of other White House staffers. ‘That’s bull—-,’ he replied vehemently.

The two men stood chest to chest. It was like a school yard fight back at their shared alma mater, Stuyvesant, the elite public high school for striving kids from New York City. White House staffers caught in the crossfire averted their eyes. Jarrett, whose office was nearby, materialized as things got hot. Petite and perfectly put together as always, she pushed her way between the two men, her sense of decorum disturbed, ordering them to ‘take it out of the hallway.’”

Boy, that’s an unflattering portrait of Holder, isn’t it? And not that much more flattering of Axelrod, although he at least can come across as the indignant victim of Holder’s campaign of leaks and lies.

Say, who comes out looking best in that anecdote?

Oh, Valerie Jarrett, huh? One of the Obamas’ closest and most trusted friends, huh? Say, author Ed Klein, just how close are the Obamas and Jarrett
?

“We haven’t seen anything like this in modern presidential history,” said Klein. “One person who is the best friend of the First Lady and the soulmate of the President, who is the last person to leave the Oval Office after a meeting, goes upstairs to the family quarters, has dinner with the President. Goes on vacation with them. Has his ear. Is de facto president of the United States.”

Hmm. So just as it appears that Eric Holder might be in real trouble on the Hill — and that the DOJ internal investigation increasingly looks like a joke, still no word of its completion a mere 15 months after it was announced — a story that makes the attorney general look bad leaks, and that same story just happens to make the “de facto president/soulmate of the president” look good.

Think somebody within the administration wouldn’t mind seeing Holder go?

Rove’s Hot Air

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Karl Rove came out for windmills. Get this: “Renewal of federal tax credits for wind energy can save U.S. jobs and reduce dependence on foreign oil, according to Karl Rove, an adviser to former President George W. Bush. ‘We’ve got a growing economy that’s increasing energy consumption and wind energy should be part of the solution,’ Rove said Friday on a panel at a wind conference in Atlanta. Extending the so-called production tax credit ‘should be a priority.’”

PACs for GOP Willing to Spend $1 Billion

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Yes, billion with a B and GOP as in Republican donors.

Even though Obama indicated he’d raise a billion himself, he’s having trouble getting it. This recent attempt to raffle off dinner with the president for sending in $3 appears pathetic and below the office of the presidency. Mitt Romney is doing it, too, but he isn’t the president. Obama’s trolling for money anywhere he can find it. Last week he muffed an appearance at a Colorado fund raiser, coming in after 1 a.m. and stumbling through his delivery. Fewer people attended than were expected, but hey, he’ll do anything to get it. What’s next? Busking outside Broadway shows?

According to Politico:

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections – twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

“The intensity on the right is white-hot,” said Steven Law, president of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. “We just can’t leave anything in the locker room. And there is a greater willingness to cooperate and share information among outside groups on the center-right.”

Yes, the intensity on the right is blazing. The media doesn’t tell you that because they want you to be discouraged. The polls also will work to that extent. But there is blood in the water and it will be worth every penny to oust Obama from the presidency.

Perry Should Withdraw

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I am a Perry supporter. I think his record in Texas is good, his tax plan excellent, his ideas on the economy, defense, energy and Obamacare all good red meat conservatism. From the beginning I liked his view that he wanted to make “Washington as inconsequential in our lives as possible.” His outsider status and promise to cut Congress’ schedule also seems to be what the nation needs right now.

However, his fumbles distracted the public from his policies. Perry started out with a public solidly behind him. He should have avoided the first few debates. He now admits that back surgery in July effected his performances; he lost his energy towards the end of debates and said things that riled the base. His advisors wanted to play on his strengths as a campaigner who did well one on one and ignored national exposure. He neglected to press himself on Fox shows and to pepper talk radio with interviews. Cain did just that and skyrocketed in popularity.

Then Perry had his forgetful moment. I admire how he persevered after it. It was truly admirable and showed a lot of character. Lately his debate performances have been good, but he has been fatally tagged and can’t escape it. Part of it was cooked in the cake at the beginning; Southerners – and particularly Texans after GW Bush – seem to earn disdain from the East and West Coasts no matter how brilliant they may be. It is said Perry had the Bush people working against him. Karl Rove, for instance, never gave him a break. It added to his problems.

Now that Sarah Palin basically endorsed Newt, Perry’s last hope is gone. Before the next debate he should withdraw and throw his support behind Newt Gingrich. Gingrich will need all the votes he can get to stop Romney. Newt’s not perfect, but perfect should not be the enemy of the good as they say. Perhaps Gingrich will return the favor by placing him in a cabinet position should he win. Gingrich likes Perry and even wrote the forward to his book “Fed Up” for him.

I just don’t see Romney winning against Obama. I hope I am wrong should he be the nominee. Team Obama has been doing opposition research on him for years. Anything Romney has ever done or said will be trotted out. Then he will be marginalized, the Alinsky way, by being made fun of on Saturday Night Live, the Daily Show, etc.

Newt’s no angel, but he is more of a conservative than Romney. He can also verbally squash his enemies and the media. He’ll do it, too. He wants the presidency and will fight for it.

Media-cracy Means Mediocrity

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How is it we Republicans find ourselves about to nominate a person who is the Father of Obamacare, a disciple of global warming, a Wall Street capitalist who put thousands out of a job and a flip flopper on abortion? Are we daft or lemmings?

It’s hard to believe it may happen. But, according to analyst Michael Barone after last night’s debate, Mitt Romney may have just won the nomination.

“At about 10:28pm tonight, as Mitt Romney pivoted from a question on tax loopholes and started in with, ‘the real issue is vision,’ I had recorded this thought in my notes, ‘He just clinched the nomination,’” Barone recounts on the Washington Examiner website “Beltway Confidential.”

Just take that in for a moment. One quote about vision after one inconsequential Iowa caucus victory and the Republican half of the country might as well stay home because it’s all over.

No wonder people question the candidates that seek the nomination. They haven’t come up organically but with a lot of manure being spread around by media cultivators.

Perhaps that was the allure of Herman Cain. He got popular because he wasn’t part of a party machine and didn’t get the backing of the Washington “conservative” divas like Barone, Bill Cristal, Karl Rove or Anne Coulter. The latter clearly prefer Romney and directed a lot of their ink that way. They have been pummeling various candidates, trying to persuade us that only Romney is electable. Sure enough, Cain left, to the consternation of his followers, before a vote was even cast.

This technique is still working because as other candidates have come up, pundits have knocked them down. Gingrich may have been the latest victim of that as he saw his top polling status tumble, and Santorum will soon experience it, too.

No matter the fact that Rick Perry has run a big state well for eleven years and has positions that line up with the conservative base, he has been knocked down because he failed the debate test. No matter that the presidency is not a debating endeavor, Perry’s good record has been destroyed by these analysts. He managed to be reelected three times in Texas – I guess there are no half way decent contenders there, is that it? – something Romney could not do after one term.

Friday on his radio show Rush Limbaugh gave the best advice any person can ever give another. That is, be guided by your own perceptions and values and refuse to let others influence you. It used to be an American virtue, a form of individualism that defined us. We weren’t mobs to be manipulated. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

While conservatives rail against the influence of the mainstream media, we have set up our own version of it. What made these people experts? They were disastrously wrong with McCain. Karl Rove was disastrously wrong in handling the Bush administration as he has admitted. Instead of battling back at a media poised to twist anything they could, Rove waved the white flag and let them attack. After eight years of being bloodied, Republicans got rewarded with Obama.

Now it seems that our voters are listening to these “experts” again. It is frustrating to watch as they encourage other candidates to get out of the way and let Romney snag the nomination uncontested.

If we want to have mediocre candidates and mediocre government let the media decide what we want.

Questions Still Swirling

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Although Herman Cain has gone on Fox to deny the story that he made inappropriate sexual moves on women, there are still a lot of pieces of the puzzle that don’t fit.

Around the blogosphere, there are many thoughts about this. Patterico’s Pontifications lays out some of them.

For instance, Karl Rove (and others) have said he and the Cain campaign had known about Politico’s info ten days before publishing. He wonders why they were so unprepared for it. Notice that when Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon appeared on Geraldo Rivera’s Fox show Sunday night, he was evasive, refusing to categorically deny or support the charges.

Others find that Cain’s denial confirms the basics of the Politico story. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post asks, “So Cain knew about the allegations but didn’t follow up to see what the outcome was?” The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein asks, too, “How can Cain go from claiming he was unaware of settlements to saying it involved three months salary, within a matter of hours?” Yes, that seems contradictory.

Allahpundit tweeted, “Interesting phrasing in Politico’s lede last night: ‘At LEAST two female employees.’” Are there more? Ace of Spades says he “heard there was a long and numerous history here.” Patterico blogs that’s “why unelected businessguy tends to have trouble in campaigns. Such candidates have not received the same vettingas people who have been governors or senators. And they tend to be unequipped to go into war room mode when accusations like this appear.”

Who did it? Some say Romney might have to wrap up the nomination. He has tried to give an aura of inevitability to his campaign and hustle it on through since he’s not really very conservative.

RealClearPolitics’ Sean Trende says “the fact that it is being dropped in October suggests there is worse to come.” It could be a death by a thousand cuts strategy. A continuation of accusations trickling out could build sentiment against Cain. National Review Online editor Rich Lowry added, “I think Cain seems quite sincere and believable, but he also makes you a little nervous about what he might remember next.”

Seems we haven’t heard the last of this story.