Blame Rove
In 2012, these same people came back again, as overconfident and unchastened as ever. This time, they had most of the right-wing media on their side, regurgitating their views and attitudes to the exclusion of all others. Mitt Romney was the perfect candidate to stop Obama—so much so that anyone who got in his way was immediately attacked and marginalized. Rove used his perch as an “analyst” on Fox News to personally attack not only Newt Gingrich (who I worked for), but Herman Cain, and Sarah Palin, and Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman, and on and on. So what if Mitt Romney once berated the Republican Party, the Reagan administration, pro-lifers, and the religious right—in other words, his own party’s base. Republicans needed him to win.
GOP donors and activists were fed more delusions than TV executives greenlighting the Oprah Winfrey Network. President Obama was deeply unpopular, even though no hard evidence showed that was ever true. Obamacare would dismantle the Democratic majority in the Senate, though parts of it were popular across the electorate and Republicans offered no tangible alternative. All the polls were biased and wrong, except the ones Republicans liked. The party’s message was focused on demonizing the Democrats, not putting forward controversial ideas because ideas weren’t needed. And Barack Obama was elected again.
When I worked with Rove briefly at the White House, I found him to be a smart, energetic, capable man. Maybe more than I even realized. In the past two election cycles, he and his acolytes have personally helped Barack Obama get elected and yet made millions in the process. You tell me who the dummy is—Rove or the people who keep listening to him and funding him. Come to think of it, who really deserves the blame for what’s befallen the GOP?
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »
Ah yes, because Gingrich never attacked Romney at all, nope, not ever
Zaggs on November 17, 2012 at 7:42 PM
Even a turd blossom finds a ray of sunshine.
Buddahpundit on November 17, 2012 at 7:46 PM
Yeah, Matt, we should have taken your advice and nominated Newt. Surely we would have won then. No delusions there. /sarc
Chuckles3 on November 17, 2012 at 7:49 PM
Yes indeed.
Punchenko on November 17, 2012 at 7:50 PM
All that without any sense of irony….
lexhamfox on November 17, 2012 at 7:53 PM
Rove is a hack but the mainstream GOP don’t need anybody to mislead them. It’s genetic.
platypus on November 17, 2012 at 7:53 PM
He’s absolutely right, except in the insinuation that anyone in the GOP’s clown car could have done better than Mitt Romney.
(This is in much the same way that the Romney cultists are technically right that Mitt was the best candidate, but that’s not really saying much. A candidate that cannot breathe a word about the most important issue because of his own record cannot be called “good,” and Mitt’s Cunning Plan to hammer the U3 rate was even worse, with predictable results.)
HitNRun on November 17, 2012 at 7:54 PM
It is odd. Did we want the voters to go to the polls with something more conservative than Newt Gingrich’s view on capitalism? Kind of hard to expect that when the guy who was called the conservative in the field had a view of capitalism that no voter could embrace and still vote for Romney.
Buddahpundit on November 17, 2012 at 7:54 PM
Everybody hates Karl Rove! He’s like a Bond villain.
~Stark Raving Meghan
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 17, 2012 at 7:54 PM
I ultimately blame myself for getting excited based on what Karl and Dick were feeding us, but yeah, they can both eff off.
LtGenRob on November 17, 2012 at 7:54 PM
I’m still LMFAO about this. Conservative Slaves bought the Ayatollah line lock, stock and barrel. Convinced they had to elect ANYONE but Obama – they compromised their principles and nominated a guy with a socialist healthcare system named after him to take on the guy with the socialist healthcare system they hated.
And
They
Still
Lost
DOLE … MCRAGE … WILLARD.
How many times Conservatives? How many times?
HondaV65 on November 17, 2012 at 8:00 PM
Karl sets up this huge Super PAC, siphons $$$ off of donors, puts up piss poor ads, and is now on the next flight to some island paradise where he will spend the rest of his days… until the Bush family needs him again, of course.
Punchenko on November 17, 2012 at 8:02 PM
Maybe true – maybe not. We don’t know – we only know that Willard most certainly did lose, and very spectacularly.
If you were going to lose – wouldn’t you have rather gone down with a true Conservative that fought like hell?
What did you get out of this loss? You didn’t even get a conservative message out there because Willard had none. All that money spent on the campaign – no one even educated as a result.
Utter defeat.
HondaV65 on November 17, 2012 at 8:03 PM
Blame Romney.
Don’t feel bad. I was thinking about this again today. I got excited during the first debate. We all did. Why? Because someone somewhere was finally confronting Obama on live TV in front of the whole nation. Suddenly someone somewhere was showing he was not a god! He was just a man! That they were not afraid of the One’s scorn! And we drank it in and it was so good! But it was not enough for all the other disinterested people and the people who still suspected Romney was just posing. And he proved he was a poser by the 3rd debate. He sat there agreeing with everything Obama was saying. Like Krauthammer said, he should’ve gone in there with a baseball bat and instead put his arm around him and kept repeating “I agree with the President.”
You know.. here was his opportunity to expose Obama for what he really is in front of the American people without any filters… and he just walked away.
Nobody will figure that into their analysis of why Romney lost. Instead, they’ll just keep repeating the GOP is too white or too conservative or whatever.
JellyToast on November 17, 2012 at 8:04 PM
Romney was the best candidate. None of the other clowns would have even come close.
WisCon on November 17, 2012 at 8:07 PM
Rove is a pile of steaming sh*t!!!
He wasted $100 million in donor money that could hav gone to indiviual candidates.
You can make a case, he cost romney Florida, Ohio, Virginia & NH. thus the presidency. Further, those aformentioned states were lost by 400,000 votes.
But also that azz rove picked most of our primary nominees with his donor money.
Are losses have Rove’s fingerprints all over them. Can this egomanical moron just go away. Can we get new people rather than these retread Bushie’s.
How many elections do we lose until people figure Rove, Gillespie, RNC, Cornyn are the problems.
Danielvito on November 17, 2012 at 8:07 PM
May I also add the insane deconstructing of the polls here at HA and with that NumbersMuncher person?
JPeterman on November 17, 2012 at 8:08 PM
No, I’d rather go down with someone who would keep it close and thereby minimize losses in the House. If we’d run Noot or Santorum we’d probably be looking at Speaker Pelosi again.
Jon0815 on November 17, 2012 at 8:09 PM
Romney lost because he was a Stingy Santa and the voters went with the Generous Santa. He never really disagreed with most of Obama’s agenda, just the way it was being administered.
Democrat-lite never works because the left can ALWAYS out pander the right.
sharrukin on November 17, 2012 at 8:12 PM
May he have amassed enough cash for a long retirement, to begin now.
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 17, 2012 at 8:12 PM
Too chickenchit! Romney Rove had no problem scorching the airwaves against whomever the current threat was in the primaries but when it came time to drive the Lying kINGS approval numbers below 50% they decided instead to be reasonable, to pander to the vaunted moderates who by their very nature are so fickle a Dem Liar Standing with a Liberal Fat man in New Jersey could make up their minds. The base got pissed on again.
BUSHMCSAMEROMNEY ROVE. Send up the next rich white guy GOP I am going independent and Palin, or Paul or anyone other than the next great white male loser! BYE!
ConcealedKerry on November 17, 2012 at 8:13 PM
Revisionist history. Many “true cons” backed Gingrich, especially over Romney. It was the religious cons who didn’t like him because they had a better avatar in Santorum.
alwaysfiredup on November 17, 2012 at 8:18 PM
Ryan was the best candidate, and could have been persuaded to run but for the Romney juggernaut.
alwaysfiredup on November 17, 2012 at 8:19 PM
Romney was not the best candidate Palin or Newt were as they know full well they have to take the fight to the enemy the Lyin kING AND his Presstitutes! They alone know how to rally the base by taking on the Enemamedia
ConcealedKerry on November 17, 2012 at 8:25 PM
Heh.
About 50%
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 17, 2012 at 8:28 PM
We win the 2010 mideterms in a landslide running on Obamacare, so what does Rove, Gillespie, RNC, establishment crud do, they nominate the father of OBAMACARE, ROMNEYCARE. You can’t make this up.
Then Rove and his minions closed out all serious GOP candidates (palin, demint etc.) in the primaries by funneling all the donor money to Romneycare and his crossroads outfit. Then the RNC got in the act by frontloading primaries to help romney (florida-utilizing his money advantage), not declaring Santorium won Iowa until months after. Romney then took his donor money and bought all the state GOP chairs, funneled money to key GOP elected officals to get their organization etc.
Then you wonder why romneycare got less votes than mccain/PALIN.
The establishment took certain victory ater 2010 and gave us Obama, the anti christ for another 4 years.
Danielvito on November 17, 2012 at 8:29 PM
The conservative base is so easy to take advantage of. that’s how Fox News is now the #1 news source for them….I won’t be surprised if Rove is a liberal.
Anyone who’s willing to sell their soul to the devil could all of sudden start speaking in their language, with conservative talking points on role of gvt, gvt spending, abortions, free market, guns,individual rights, immigration and foreign policy….and will get some serious money right now.
Can.I.be.in.the.middle on November 17, 2012 at 8:34 PM
Watching this FINALLY made me feel a little better about what this election means for Constitutional Government.
Karl Rove looks like Baby Huey and Dick Morris is a toe sucker. WTF were we thinking, anyway?
Naturally Curly on November 17, 2012 at 8:38 PM
Newt blew himself up when he decided to go the OWS route and released that documentary “When Mitt Romney Came to Town”.
JPeterman on November 17, 2012 at 8:39 PM
This!
I forgot Iowa. You’re right. Romney was their guy and Romney blew it. Forget all the other pinheads telling us why we lost. This is why we lost. We had a moderate. Not a conservative. Two elections in a row. Next, they’ll push Chris Christie. How much you want a bet.
JellyToast on November 17, 2012 at 8:44 PM
I did, and will.
Rove’s philosophy is a shoot for the 50.1% win. The man does not understand landslide victories. And if he does…then he’s a worm.
Saltysam on November 17, 2012 at 8:56 PM
Not about candidates attacking each other. It is about the power brokers picking winners and losers in the electorate. What he is talking about is how they set up memes and kept them in the public eye until the candidate was gone.
They did it was Perry and Newt, Cain I think was brought down by the democrats. Perry and Newt were taken down not by Romney, but by Hot Air, Drudge, Red State, Michelle Malkin, O’Reiley, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
astonerii on November 17, 2012 at 8:57 PM
In all the post-election gunk and rationalization and we-was-robbed stuff, this piece and the one by Andrew McCarthy at NRO are the most on-the-mark. Apparently not even Limbaugh can get it right, with his “you can’t beat Santa Claus” routine that’s given the deluded Romney fans sufficient cover.
Not until Romney was forced by Gingrich’s debate performances to carpet-bomb Gingrich preliminary to the Iowa caucuses. In every debate up until Iowa, Gingrich only attacked Obama. I don’t like the guy that much, but facts are facts. The only thing Romney really had was this idiotic “Death Star” crap which had his sycophants agog.
ddrintn on November 17, 2012 at 9:03 PM
Bingo. That desribes this site for the past 8 months.
ddrintn on November 17, 2012 at 9:05 PM
I don’t think midterms should come into play anymore when it comes to determining how R or D the electorate is. Most Democrats I know only bother voting in the Big Prez election and don’t bother with the mid-terms the way Republicans do.
If Obama had been on the ticket in 2010, I’m convinced the results would have been similar to what they were this year.
tdpwells on November 17, 2012 at 9:12 PM
Yes, because all capitalists are all upstanding perfect human beings where none of their actions as capitalists, such as taking money from the government, overseeing a company that outright defrauded the taxpayers and so forth, are beyond reproach.
When you buy a company for 40 million, borrow a hundred and some odd million with it as collateral, followed by several large payouts to your cronies for more than 40 million dollars, and follow that with closing the company down, I tend to figure you can be attacked for your work.
When you buy a medical company, and while you are in charge of overseeing it, that company begins drastically increasing the amount of fraud they perpetrate against medicare & medicaid under your oversight, then when the FEDs are about to come in and shut the whole thing down and charge you hundreds of millions in fines you find a sucker company to buy it from you, I tend to figure you can be attacked for your work.
When the biggest item in your list of successes is having federal and state government subsidize with hundreds of millions of dollars so private companies can make a hundred million in profits, I think I would consider that something that conservatives can rightly attack the wisdom of it all.
But hey, taking down Enron was the work of OWS, right?
astonerii on November 17, 2012 at 9:13 PM
Oh, I don’t think so. If Obama had been on the ballot in 2010 he would’ve been one gone dude. That was before two years’ worth of GOP pissing on the TP, when they weren’t busy capitulating or kicking cans down the road.
ddrintn on November 17, 2012 at 9:15 PM
alwaysfiredup. While I love me my Ryan, I think that the age thing and the inexperience thing would have caught up with him in a primary fight this year. I think that we all view Ryan as an experienced, battle-hardened pol, but no one heard of him before two years ago. It was adorable how nervous he was during the major campaign events.. convention, debate, etc.
Illinidiva on November 17, 2012 at 9:26 PM
Obama used exactly that tack to kill Romney in the general. Newt knew it was coming and tried to show you all but no no no, you knew better.
alwaysfiredup on November 17, 2012 at 9:38 PM
I knew about him before 2 years ago. He has a long history of being a good policy guy in the House. In a contest v. Barack Obama, the experience issue would be muted. His overwhelming knowledge of the federal budget is incredibly appealing, as shown by the senior vote in FL. There’s no point in making a rising star wait his turn when the alternative is losing.
alwaysfiredup on November 17, 2012 at 9:40 PM
Why waste time on this garbage? Our country is getting destroyed . . . time to now re-litigate the election and start fighting for our way of life. Either that or it is gone. You choice.
Voter from WA State on November 17, 2012 at 9:40 PM
Just a correction.
Voter from WA State on November 17, 2012 at 9:42 PM
This is navelgazing-central. Try the open thread if you want something else.
alwaysfiredup on November 17, 2012 at 9:43 PM
I knew better???? Sorry, Romney was not my first choice either, but I guess you know all.
JPeterman on November 17, 2012 at 9:45 PM
I keep hoping for something serious being discussed. Like Benghazi . . . or the attacks on Israel. Those are issues that can change our country.
Voter from WA State on November 17, 2012 at 9:46 PM
Really? The could barely force themselves to say “Barack Obama” at the GOP convention. Also, restructuring Medicare and Social Security are very bold ideas. Too bad Paul Ryan was tucked away the last few weeks of the campaign.
SouthernGent on November 17, 2012 at 10:15 PM
Rove presided over 3 Republican disasters with the most recent one being the most disastrous. He is a absolute fool and did not allow any vehement expression of the Conservative point of view nor a properly strong attack on the Leftist wasteland.
The only bright light in recent years was the resounding 2010 victories precipitated by the Tea Party involvement.
Rove is a 3 time loser and he must go. The Tea Party needs to come back with a strong Conservative candidate and agenda.
FactsofLife on November 17, 2012 at 10:40 PM
Done and done.
29Victor on November 17, 2012 at 11:02 PM
Ryan wasn’t a candidate, and he would have lost terribly if he were. Candidates from the House of Representatives do not win.
Revisionist history. Perry and Newt were taken down by Perry and Newt. Perry called his base a bunch of racists, and then couldn’t even remember his own name, lol. Newt, ignoring how well the racist thing worked out for Perry, decided to follow suit and make the same argument. It didn’t work any better for him. And if these clowns insist on passing amnesty, they will lose the house in 2014, and will likely give dems in the senate 60 seats. Obama will end his presidency the way he began….with control of everything. He’ll be the first lame duck president who won’t have to govern as a lame duck.
xblade on November 18, 2012 at 5:06 AM
Mitt Romney was the best candidate the GOP could have fielded. Hell, he was the best Republican candidate in my lifetime. Better than Reagan. Much better than Bush II. The guy was out of friggin’ central casting. Perfect even.
Looking for someone to blame? Stop blaming fellow Republicans, and most especially Mitt and Paul.
Blame that silly sister-in-law of yours who’s mooching off taxpayers with free government hand-outs, no husband, two snot-nosed kids. The one who naturally voted for Obama.
Blame that neighbor of yours down the street with the Obama yard sign still up.
Blame that Oh-so-hip 20-year old guy who’s sort of in college, that comes to cut your lawn every other week. Who voted for Obama.
Let’s divorce ourselves from any and all Democrats in our lives. Tell them all to just get lost. Don’t ever speak to them again. Don’t employ them. Don’t give them your business. Don’t show up for Thanksgiving dinner if they’re there.
ericdondero on November 18, 2012 at 7:45 AM
Comment pages: 1 2 Next »