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Vintage Karl Rove

By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2006
Posted on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 01:21:00 AM EST
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Raw Story reminds us of Karl Rove's (to be polite) over-confidence or (to be more accurate, take your pick) disingenuousness or state of denial:

Rove said that he was reviewing 68 polls a week, and that "unlike the general public, I'm allowed to see the polls on the individual races," as opposed to public polls reported in the media.

"You may be looking at four or five public polls a week that talk about attitudes nationally, but that do not impact the outcome," Rove said.

Rove claimed that the polls "add up to a Republican Senate and a Republican House."

"You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math," Rove said. "I'm entitled to 'the' math."

Full transcript of interview which can be heard at NPR.

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    Vintage Karl Rove | 6 comments (6 topical)

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    Entitled is right (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by David at Kmareka on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 07:25:10 AM EST
    Rove is entitled, all right.  And he stuck fast to his math, even when it didn't add up.  Perhaps he will soon cry foul and claim the Democrats rigged the election.  Perhaps he will claim they employed weapons of math destruction.  Perhaps Bush--now that he has subtracted Rumsfeld--should take away Rove, as well.  The nation has been divided far too long.

    Rove (4.00 / 1) (#4)
    by Slado on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 08:40:20 AM EST
    What was he supposed to say?  Yep we're going to get "thumped".

    He'd pulled miracles out of his hat before but unfortunately he'd gone one to many times to the well and this time he came up short.  In past elections republican policies where favored by the majority and his task was to get that majority to the polls to push the president and republicans over the top.

    This time democratic (as much as it pains me to say it) policies where favored and democrats got more of their voters to the polls, repulicans were tired of their leadership and democrats thumped the republicans.  No one, not even Rove was going to keep this from happening.

    Time to get ready for 2008, McCain vs. Guliani and reliving the Clinton years.

    Can't wait.

    Can't wait. (none / 0) (#5)
    by Edger on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 08:57:22 AM EST
    John "we don't torture" McCain. Oh Yeah.

    [ Parent ]
    actually..................... (none / 0) (#2)
    by cpinva on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 08:07:03 AM EST
    polls don't affect the outcome, of anything. last time i checked, polls don't count, only real votes do. what people say to pollsters, vs what they actually do, in the privacy of their homes or voting booths, isn't necessarily mutually inclusive.

    i feel certain mr. rove will survive, and live to sell his campaign tricks to other republicans.

    mr. rove will survive (none / 0) (#3)
    by Edger on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 08:19:26 AM EST
    Karl's parting shot.

    Why people thought Rove was a genius (none / 0) (#6)
    by rwb on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 11:10:32 AM EST
    I think people gave too much credit to Rove's magical political powers. But he did bring modern statistical methods to politics (I'm sure he wasn't the very first to do so, but he was the most important), and for a several election cycles, these methods gave Republicans an advantage. Datamining and microtargeting are well-understood in marketing, and Rove took the market-tested methods out there and applied it to political marketing and GOTV.

    This allowed Bush to win in 2000 despite losing the popular vote. (That and the Supreme Court, natch.)

    The problem that Rove faced this time was 1) datamining and microtargeting techniques can be used by anyone, and Democrats used them a lot this time around, removing that competitive advantage, and 2) people were really sick of Republicans, and even if historical data showed that Catholic unmarried snow-mobilers were a good group to target based on previous voting patterns, it didn't help because the underlying circumstances had changed.

    The genius of microtargeting is that it focuses your efforts on every person who is likely to be persuaded to come out and vote for your candidate. But the actual actions of Republicans over the past few years have invalidated the historical data that was used to craft the campaign messages and GOTV efforts.

    This is why so many of the public messages sent by Republicans in ads and in speeches seemed tone deaf. Two years ago and four years ago, it might have made strategic sense to call Democratic candidates terrorist appeasers and big spenders and worse. But for the carefully microtargeted voters they were reaching out to, I think these messages just rang hollow this year. And there was no way for Rove to make that shit smell good.

    Maybe Rove could have changed strategy, but really, I think he was stuck trying to sell a pig in a poke.

    When he bragged to the NPR guy, he was just making sure the enemy (as he sees them) saw no chinks in his armor. It was pure bluff. He knew they were destined to lose, and all he could do was try to limit the damage.

    Smart guy? Yes. Genius? No. Total scum? Absolutely. It's amazing he wasn't fired, too.

    Texas whuppin' (none / 0) (#7)
    by PJS on Thu Nov 09, 2006 at 05:44:00 PM EST
    Karl is a cockroach. He'll survive, but great to see him and his cronies take a texas whuppin' at least once.

    Vintage Karl Rove | 6 comments (6 topical)

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