A message to Dems: Get off your butt, forget the cult of Rove, and start contesting the election.
Most of the best tips and ideas for this site, I’ve gotten from readers. But I cannot tell you how many times I have had readers write in in the midst of some complete debacle for the White House and/or the GOP claiming that despite appearances the entire episode is another carefully and brilliantly planned scheme of Karl Rove’s. I could find you emails like this when President Bush was getting his head handed to him about Social Security or during his post-Katrina meltdown. This is, in a sense, the bigger victory Rove has managed over Democrats: his ability to get deep inside the heads of many Democrats and make them think that no matter what the situation or what the available facts suggest, Karl Rove must be on top of the situation and it must be playing to his advantage. The only question is finding out precisely how.
Don’t get me wrong. I think the man is a blight on the country, one who consistently uses amoral tactics and often immoral in his goals. But he’s no genius. And I think his political gifts are actually quite overstated. The GOP has had a damn good run for the last six years. But I don’t think that’s mainly because of Karl Rove. I think it’s largely because of 9/11 and a pretty effective policy of exploiting it for narrow political goals.
Yesterday, I noted that the RNC is banking on oppo research and personal attacks on Democratic candidates to get them through November in one piece. As a sign of what’s to come, they’ve put in charge of the effort one of their number involved in not one but two recent cases of Republican campaign corruption and criminal conduct.
So, yes, be ready for anything. But it is also hard to think of another time when the incumbent party stood before the country with more of a record of failure, incompetence and corruption as the Republican party of President George Bush does today. That’s more than enough to run on, if only the decision is made to really contest this election on the issues before the country, to, in a word, fight.
