The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Karl Rove Decides Popular Guy Leading All the Polls Can’t Possibly Win Election

Posted on | October 24, 2011 | 81 Comments

Just about the time Herman Cain pulls ahead in the Real Clear Politics average — and is leading by double digits in Iowa  — the Architect goes on Fox News to denounce Cain as “not up to the task“:

Remember that Karl is the guy who engineered George Bush’s landslide victory, by a margin of hundreds of votes, over the formidable Al Gore.

Let’s face it: Rove is a spokesman for the Romney campaign. And right now, I’m watching Chris Stirewalt on Megyn Kelly’s show declare that Cain’s alleged downfall “creates an opening for Rick Perry.”

Fox News: “Fair. Balanced. Don’t Think the Black Guy Can Win.” IYKWIMAITYD.

We’ll be laughing at this when I become Ambassador to Vanuatu.

Category: Election 2012, Fox News, Herman Cain, Karl Rove

Comments

81 Responses to “Karl Rove Decides Popular Guy Leading All the Polls Can’t Possibly Win Election”

  1. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 9:47 pm

    Bullshit.

  2. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 9:51 pm

    Adobe,

    Reagan sold arms to what he considered an enemy terrorist state in return for the release of hostages.

    Do you honestly think he wouldn’t have turned loose a bunch of 15-year-old goatherds who got caught up in the “we’ll pay $25k for anyone you say is an al-Qaeda member” scam in return for them?

  3. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 10:14 pm

    Correct that’s what I think.
     We don’t negotiate with terrorists predates Reagan. That deal was much more analogous with pretending that Iran had no control but merely influence over the embassy hostage takers. The deal was also made to create funds to arm the Contras which I’m sure was the more emphasized element in the pitch to Reagan. Reagan’s compassion and his perception of communism as the greatest threat to our interests led to what on balance could have been a very bad precedent. Our national security establishment failed to to anticipate the growing threat Islam posed to us. Given the clarity of 9/11 if not the previous terror attacks would have opened Reagans eyes. Trading illegal combatants to so they can attack us again or dealing with Iran for that matter looks very different today than it did then. Even then he had the less than opaque screen of dealing with a sovereign government rather than the actual hostage takers.

  4. Karen
    October 24th, 2011 @ 10:39 pm

    I WANT JOHN MCCAIN IN 2012, and so do millions of other McCain supporters. Here in California, I had a John McCain for President 2012 exhibit at the California Republican Convention last month,Sept 16-18. The response was off the chart in favor of McCain running! Why? Americans KNOW THE MAN THAT IS MCCAIN, WHAT HE STANDS FOR, HIS VOTING RECORD, HIS LIFELONG FIGHT AGAINST WASHINGTON’S WASTEFUL GOVT SPENDING! McCain defines “authenticity”, lacking in the other “candidates” running. Even an Editor of a major California newspaper would like to see McCain run in 2012! Sans Palin, McCain would beat the pants off of Obama. We like a McCain-Giuliani ticket here in California. Don’t be shocked if you see a “Draft John McCain” movement happen in the next few weeks! This is like the 1951-52 election when Eisenhower was drafted. Too many Republicans, myself included, WON”T VOTE FOR ROMNEY! Cain’s 999 plan is too risky. Perry is SCARY!   http://www.draftjohnmccain2012.com
    @3688b71f9dc7985837f7f2bc423c9bd7:disqus 

  5. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 10:44 pm

    knappster, yes I was interested, so thanks for the link.

    I can appreciate how you are differentiating market anarchism from anarco-capitalism, but it was my impression that the anarcho-capitalists would not describe themselves as being particularly sympathetic to a state-regulated economy (and would promote the most market freedom as feasible, etc.).

    You did seem a bit reticent to share your ideological foundations here, given the mission you outline in the linked essay. I see politics, policy, and political theory primarily as intepretive matters (which cannot be analyzed on a detached  “just the facts” basis).  

  6. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 10:50 pm

    And I’m starting a Draft Dick Lugar! campaign, myself.

  7. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 10:52 pm

    @knappster
    An interesting link, sounds like you folks lack consensus. It does remind me of why I concluded anarchism was no less Utopian, with all the flaws that term implies but in this case not the snark, as Marxism.
    Wouldn’t it be fair to say a stateless society must be global in order to succeed?

  8. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 10:56 pm

    The dry erase board has been his shtick for at least a couple years now.

  9. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 11:11 pm

    My bad – I didn’t realize that. It’s still phony, but in light of your comments, it seems that his phoniness in this case was no more contrived than usual, so I stand corrected.  

  10. Anonymous
    October 24th, 2011 @ 11:35 pm

    +1, Funny

  11. Chakam
    October 25th, 2011 @ 12:40 am

    ding ding ding ding!

    I’m so glad someone mentioned McCain in 2008.  McCain was Rove’s horse and look what happened.  Karl needs to simply go away, far, far, away, and settle down in Florida or something.

  12. The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Did Someone Say 'Inevitable'?
    October 25th, 2011 @ 12:47 am

    […] Cain can't possibly win, which is an assumption his campaign has had to deal from the beginning. Karl Rove's smug dismissal of Cain is typical of this attitude. Yet for all Cain's shortcomings as a candidate, he is still capable of inspiring fervent […]

  13. Anonymous
    October 25th, 2011 @ 1:42 am

    Where Karl and his friends are going astray is in their belief that any of the current crop of candidates couldn’t beat Obama.

    It’s like being unable to distinguish the disaster Obama has wreaked, and only being able to see Hollywood and the press fawning over him.  And having no memory of the 2010 elections.  And ignoring Obama’s stuttering when off-prompter. All rolled into one, slimy, Mitt-ball.

  14. Anonymous
    October 25th, 2011 @ 5:23 am

    Take out the suckass, and that would be pretty funny satire.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    October 25th, 2011 @ 8:52 am

    I admit I was taken in by her smile and her rack.

  16. Bob Belvedere
    October 25th, 2011 @ 8:57 am

    I can’t agree with you last paragraph, CM.

    Since the day it was formed, the GOP has been divided between conservatives and Radicals/Progressives/RINOS.  And the latter have been in control most of the time.  Their type of thinking represents the slower road to perdition, which many people seem to prefer.  It is the former who have always been the outsiders in the Party.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that the conservatives have to find a new home.  If we do [after the 2012 Elections], then the GOP will go The Way Of The Whigs…and then join the donkeys.

  17. Bob Belvedere
    October 25th, 2011 @ 8:59 am

    Guys like that never go away.  Politics is all they have.

  18. Lady Liberty 1885
    October 25th, 2011 @ 9:18 am

    I think Rove is still butthurt that Palin has replaced him as Supreme Kingmaker.

  19. Bob Belvedere
    October 25th, 2011 @ 9:27 am

    If either Lugar or Grumpy win the nod, I’m going to use a Luger!

  20. Anonymous
    October 25th, 2011 @ 12:21 pm

    Every body has to be somewhere. Further more to be fair to Rove his PAC has done some good tho perhaps not as much good as the left accuses.

  21. Under the Fedora: Finns, Baseball Boozing, & Westerns
    October 25th, 2011 @ 1:47 pm

    […] have been a lot of attacks on Cain by other campaigns—and their proxies. (Hi, Karl Rove). Although I’m leaning toward Cain, I don’t have a big problem with harsh criticism: Anyone who […]

  22. Did Karl Rove sink Herman Cain? (The Week) | News Bulletins
    October 25th, 2011 @ 2:34 pm

    […] is just pro-Romney propaganda: Why are we listening to Karl Rove? asks Robert Stacy McCain at The Other McCain. He’s overrated. Remember, Rove only just barely managed to engineer George W. Bush’s […]

  23. Anonymous
    October 25th, 2011 @ 3:00 pm

    In all my life, I’ve met eleven people whom, after I shook hands with them, felt an almost irresistible compulsion to count my fingers. I’ve met nine whom I felt the same strength of a compulsion, but to scrub my hands with lye soap… and four for whom I’ve had both counting my fingers – to ascertain they’d all been returned with the hand, and to scrub them to remove the slime.

    I’ve had the misfortune to meet (very briefly) Mr. Rove. He’s one of the four. If he’s working for Romney, his connection in that way to Romney tells a lot. If he’s just “pulling for Romney”, well, even a dishonest man accidentally does right occasionally… in other words I’d note Rove’s interest as a tally-mark against Romney.

    I do have a couple of questions I’d like to throw out to y’all:
    1.a. Was it not Rove who came up with that baneful label “compassionate conservative”? The fulsome-wonderful moniker that proclaims the bulk of Conservatives, Conservatism and Constitutionalism cruel, heartless and witless?

    1.b. Was not Mr.Rove the man responsible for keeping GWB in “New Tone” mode allowing the Progressive-Statists EIGHT YEARS to wipe from the public memory what a disgusting ethos Progressivism enthrones?

    2. Who was it who nicknamed Rove “The Architect”? Wasn’t it the LSM? They are friends of neither The Constitution nor Conservatives, but are Progressives through-and-through. Why should we give weight to the opinions of a man those who have proclaimed themselves the enemy of Constitutional Governance have credited with so much? Why would they want us to hold him in such high regard, unless it held a seed of our failure?

    And as an aside: I think crediting Rove with “hundreds” against Algore is very much over-generous. If we could accurately measure it I’d be surprised if the number broke the upper end of “tens”… We’re talking Algore, here, folks! I’m more inclined to think Rove’s strategy cost votes against Monotone-Al.

  24. Did Karl Rove sink Herman Cain? (The Week) | Breaking News Today
    October 25th, 2011 @ 3:59 pm

    […] is just pro-Romney propaganda: Why are we listening to Karl Rove? asks Robert Stacy McCain at The Other McCain. He’s overrated. Remember, Rove only just barely managed to engineer George W. Bush’s […]

  25. New Herman Cain campaign ad features campaign manager smoking cigarette « Wintery Knight
    October 25th, 2011 @ 10:55 pm

    […] performance to date) and covers the period during which the abortion controversy was supposedly (if you believe Karl Rove) destroying the viability of the Cain […]

  26. Is Romney Melting Down? : The Other McCain
    October 26th, 2011 @ 11:00 am

    […] Herman Cain beats Romney more than 2-to-1 — 63% to 29%Try putting that on your whiteboard, Karl Rove!Category: Election 2012, Mitt RomneyComments /* SMITTY. ON TWITTER. Because He's Cool Like That, […]

  27. The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : 69 Days to Iowa: Winners Never Quit
    October 26th, 2011 @ 5:10 pm

    […] No one at that point, 69 days ago, predicted that when Oct. 26 arrived, Cain would be leading Romney 25.9% to 24.9% in the RCP average. If Cain can manage to keep that up another 69 days, and wins the Iowa caucuses (where he's leading by substantial margins in recent polls), will he still be viewed as "not up to the task," to borrow Karl Rove's phrase? […]

  28. 69 Days to Iowa: Winners Never Quit
    October 27th, 2011 @ 5:42 pm

    […] No one at that point, 69 days ago, predicted that when Oct. 26 arrived, Cain would be leading Romney 25.9% to 24.9% in the RCP average. If Cain can manage to keep that up another 69 days, and wins the Iowa caucuses (where he’s leading by substantial margins in recent polls), will he still be viewed as “not up to the task,” to borrow Karl Rove’s phrase? […]

  29. Cain HQ: ‘Crazy, Hectic, But Fine’ : The Other McCain
    October 28th, 2011 @ 5:16 pm

    […] “Fair and Balanced” coverage is being used to promote the perception of Cain as “not up to the task,” to quote Karl Rove.“Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s […]

  30. Cain HQ: ‘Crazy, Hectic, But Fine’ | Herman Cain PAC
    October 28th, 2011 @ 7:25 pm

    […] network’s “Fair and Balanced” coverage is being used to promote the perception of Cain as “not up to the task,” to quote Karl […]

  31. Ace Don’t Love Him No Herman Cain : The Other McCain
    October 29th, 2011 @ 9:58 pm

    […] other day, victory tends to become its own argument.So we have Ace’s exasperation, we have Karl Rove’s whiteboard, and we have Ben Smith’s sneers: “[T]he Republican Party isn’t going to nominate the […]