Perhaps Karl Rove's greatest sin to the world of politics was in using the Swift Boat approach with John McCain in 2000. By weaseling W onto the national ticket, he and his party screwed McCain over and thus robbed him of his last realistic chance to win the White House (I am paranoid about this populace enough to give him odds on winning this time around).
I think that John McCain, the 2000 McCain, had a decent shot at beating Gore, without having to steal that election. And had he lost, his odds of winning this time through would improve even more.
I saw bits and pieces of that McCain at the RNC on Thursday. His speech wasn't electric, it was a bit dry in a lot of places, but, in essence, it was the quintessential Baby Boomer appeal to the center, and as such, it wasn't half bad.
I respected his critiques of the Republican party, how the Reps have lost America's trust, even if I didn't buy them whole hog. Mostly because he couched those criticisms behind the traditional right wing bugaboos about letting "Washington change" the Republicans. Fact of the matter is that the Reps have been barreling down this course since the 70s, bolstered by Reagan's electability and likeability with the majority of the US populace.
And that was the primary fault with McCain's speech (with "noun, verb, POW" a close second): He made the same promises that the right has been making for three decades now, and looking at the results those promises have yielded, well, it just won't wash.
How long have we been hearing about the supposed miracle of charter schools? How long have we been hearing that by giving private industry the moon it would create new innovations and jobs that would stay here? How long have we heard that keeping taxes low for the private industry will help our economy?
There's just too much evidence we would have to ignore in order to buy that stuff again. It simply won't cut it.
Should the things that I hope happen in November come to fruition, McCain will be remembered as the candidate that brought his party down to earth. After all the Reps have put us through in the last 30 years, maybe that ain't such a bad thing.
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He’s Baaaack!
3 days ago
2 comments:
I really don't think that that was Rove's worst political sin. Let us remember that this was the guy who outed a covert CIA operative, had several Attorneys General fired for not advancing his political agenda and engineered the prosecution of the Alabama governor just so the GOP could steal that office.
What was done to McCain is way, way, way down on the list of Rove's evil deeds.
Oh sure, if you must be literal about this. I was mostly talking about Rove's crimes against the Republican party.
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