Former Bush chief political strategist Karl Rove already answered the head scratching question GOP strategists are pondering of whether Obama or Clinton is the easier mark for McCain. In an open memo which got almost no media play and zilch public attention last December, Rove spit out six things Obama should do to zap Clinton.
Obama has followed the script to the letter. He's unleashed an all-out no holds barred attack on Clinton's personality, record, and demeanor, and even tossed in some blatant racial digs at her and hubby Bill for supposedly demeaning Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, and of course himself. He's made bold, brash, and loud pitches and promises to do everything from end the war to clean up the economy. This fulfills Rove's admonition to him to stop sounding wishy-washy on the big ticket issues and create an aura and persona of confidence, expertise, and even invincibility about himself.
Rove and his anti-Clinton memo was sloughed off at the time as the blathering of a washed out GOP top gun operative who narrowly escaped an indictment. That's a fatal mistake. Rove didn't have an on the road to Damascus epiphany in lecturing Obama on how to beat Hillary. Obama is a moderate and centrist Democrat and that means he's still very much a sworn GOP political enemy. More importantly, Rove got it right twice about how to beat the Democrats. And his sizing up of Obama as the easiest Democratic mark was based on a hard headed assessment of Obama's weaknesses.
Rove viewed him as untested, inexperienced, way at the front on the learning curve on foreign policy matters, and with a checkered history. That included the hints, innuendos, and whispers about relations with his one time bankroller, the indicted Chicago financier Tony Rezko to his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Almost certainly, the GOP hit squads had the out of context YouTube tape of Wright's diatribes wound and ready to be looped endlessly in the fall. And just as certainly the squads are hard at work trying to figure out an angle to try and soil Obama with Rezko dirt. That card would also be played in the fall.
The Wright expose, however, was just too juicy, and media and public tongue wagging scandalous to be put off until the fall. Rezko may not be far behind.
Rove also figures on the X factor of race. Despite the raves Obama gets from many whites (remember his opponent is a woman, and one named Clinton), the X factor remains in how many white centrist and independents will cheer him in a head to head race with any white male GOP presidential candidate, in this case McCain. Rove banks not many.
Obama that is before the pre-Wright fiasco certainly seemed to make an idiot out of Rove's calculated, and cynical ploy to pump him up as the man the GOP could easily zap. Though Obama has followed his beat Hillary script to the letter, he also has shown enough political skills, stump charisma, and the prodigious ability to pile up a king's ransom campaign chest to be a bona fide competitive Democratic contender against McCain.
Wright may have changed that. Polls show Obama if not exactly in a free fall, he's suffered marked slippage against Clinton and McCain. But that hardly tags him as a GOP straw man, yet.
The exact last thing that Rove wants to see is a Democrat in the White House. A bickering, squabbling, negative sniping Obama and Clinton means a potentially bickering, squabbling, negative sniping Democratic Party. That will further fuel dissension, stoke bitter divisions and deflect attacks from Bush's Iraq war and a melt down economy and McCain's back door defense of those policies.
In the Rove scheme, the havoc created by telling one Democratic contender how to beat another Democratic contender would so sour the core supporters and enthusiasts for Clinton and Obama that if their candidate didn't get the nomination, they'd drag their feet getting to the polls on Election Day. That is if they got there at all. That would be the biggest plus of all for the GOP.
Rove gave Obama seemingly some priceless advice on beating Clinton. But the advice was not given to put Obama in the White House, but to make sure that he or Clinton doesn't get there. The debate then among some GOP strategists over which is the weaker Democrat is looking more facile even irrelevant by the minute. Neither Obama nor Clinton will get the needed 2,025 delegates to lock up the nomination. The decision will be tossed to the super delegates. That means more rancor and division. It also probably means not one but two mortally weakened Democratic nominees. That's Rove and the GOP's fondest dream.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).
Posted March 25, 2008 | 05:50 PM (EST)