iPhone app iPad app Android phone app Android tablet app More

Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributors
Bob Burnett

GET UPDATES FROM Bob Burnett
 

Karl Rove's Monstrous Second Act: The Romneyan

Posted: 08/24/2012 4:00 pm

For the 2000 Presidential campaign, Karl Rove created The Dubya. Now the evil genius of Republican politics is back with his second monster, The Romneyan. Will Rove's creation win again?

Sensing that if Mitt Romney did not shake up his campaign he would lose to Barack Obama, the Romney campaign anointed Paul Ryan as Romney's running mate. It's a safe bet that Karl Rove had a hand in this, and that he believes Romney + Ryan is the perfect GOP candidate -- 2012's version of George W. Bush.

Dubya has disappeared into the bowels of Texas and many Republicans pretend he was never president, but in 2000 they were happy to have him as their presidential candidate. While Democrats viewed Dubya as inept and ill prepared, Republicans saw him as the perfect foil to the wooden Al Gore. Most important, George W. Bush unified the GOP; he was a rich businessman as well as a born-again Christian. And Bush's creator, the evil political scientist Karl Rove, was able to sell Dubya to Independents. Twelve years later, Rove has done it again; Romenyan has unified the GOP and possibly can be sold to Independents as a viable alternative to Barack Obama.

A recent Pew Research poll indicated why neither Party can win the presidency on their own. Pew projects that 10 percent of potential voters, mostly young people, will not vote on November 6th. Pew allocates the remaining 90 percent to three groups: "Mostly Republican," 25 percent, "Mostly Independent," 35 percent, and "Mostly Democratic," 40 percent.

To win in November, Mitt Romney has to first hold the Republican 25 percent base. According to Pew this includes "Staunch Conservatives" (11 percent) and "Main Street Republicans" (14 percent). Staunch Conservatives are older white voters who "take extremely conservative positions on nearly all issues -- on the size and role of government, on economics, foreign policy, social issues and moral concerns. Most agree with the Tea Party and... very strongly disapprove of Barack Obama's job performance. " Main Street Republicans are similar but not as conservative; for example, they are more likely to house anti-corporation sentiment. (Just outside the "Mostly Republican" group is a bloc of Independents, "Libertarians" [10 percent], that typically vote for the Republican presidential candidate.) Before he added Paul Ryan as his running mate, Romney had a problem; Staunch Conservatives did not embrace him. Romney's problems disappeared with the addition of Ryan; Tea-Party types love him, as do evangelical Christians -- Ryan is an extremely conservative Catholic.

Romneyan will hold onto 35 percent of the vote (Republicans and Libertarians). To win, the monster has to carve out another 15 percent from Independents and Democrats. To accomplish this, the Republican campaign is being orchestrated byKarl Rove.

Rove will use four tactics to gain votes for Romneyan. After the conclusion of next week's Republican convention, Republicans will have a money advantage -- at least $60 million not counting the additional millions from conservative super PACs. First they'll launch a campaign to humanize Mitt Romney. (Recent polls indicate that more prospective voters view Romney negatively than they do positively.)

Next, Rove and company will demonize Obama. We'll see some of their ads on national TV, but the majority will be run in the key swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. So far, the ads have been blatant lies, but that hasn't deterred the dark forces of Rove.

Third, Republicans are ramping up their Get Out the Vote operation.

Finally, as was the case in 2000 and 2004, Rove's evil minions will attempt to suppress the vote in key swing states. That's what's behind the Pennsylvania law requiring voters to show a photo id. "GOP legislators in 34 states have proposed voting rights restrictions that would slash the number of eligible voters this election."

The good news is that by picking Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt Romney has shown voters how conservative he really is. Recent polls indicate, "About 52 percent of self-described middle-class adults say President Barack Obama's policies in a second term would help the middle class," as compared with 42 percent for Romney. And similar polls indicate that voters in swing states "trust President Obama to handle Medicare" and dislike Romneyan's voucher plans.

But the election will come down to the votes of women. In 2008, Obama carried 56 percent of the female vote (in 2004, John Kerry only carried 51 percent of that segment). Political columnist Ron Brownstein describes educated white women as Obama's "last line of defense." That's why the selection of Paul Ryan is important; he is the most strident anti-choice candidate ever selected. Ryan opposes contraception and abortions in all circumstances and wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

While Romneyan may seem like the perfect 2012 candidate to Karl Rove, it is the most conservative duo the GOP has ever nominated. Even with a multi-million-dollar funding advantage, it will be difficult for Rove to sell Romneyan as "compassionate" conservatives or either one as "a uniter not a divider."

Ultimately women voters will decide the election. Stay tuned

 
FOLLOW POLITICS
For the 2000 Presidential campaign, Karl Rove created The Dubya. Now the evil genius of Republican politics is back with his second monster, The Romneyan. Will Rove's creation win again? Sensing that...
For the 2000 Presidential campaign, Karl Rove created The Dubya. Now the evil genius of Republican politics is back with his second monster, The Romneyan. Will Rove's creation win again? Sensing that...
 
 
  • Comments
  • 13
  • Pending Comments
  • 0
  • View FAQ
Comments are closed for this entry
View All
Favorites
Recency  | 
Popularity
03:39 PM on 08/26/2012
WOW,this author is probably a Martian,no less, otherwise it is difficult to understand how can one live in such a bubble )))

I am a white educated woman,a single mother and some time before the retirement - and won't vote for "messiah" for anything in the world. Neither would my almost 18 year old son - this election is going to be his first one.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
alexeiz
Since I lost all hope, I feel much better!
02:24 AM on 08/27/2012
Well, I'm grossly overeducated old white male, retired, and all my long life experience makes me conclude that it's you who created (or borrowed from somebody) a bubble that completely distorts your mental vision.

I wonder who is "messiah" in your understanding. Obama is not and never pretended to be, but you are so confused and full of unreasonable hate, that you will vote for devil himself and will drag your still trying to find his way son right into hell with you.
03:38 PM on 08/26/2012
Karl rove should burn in hell , now blatant lies, deceptions , wtc etc
10:01 AM on 08/26/2012
Karl Rove is a deeply immoral man (amoral?). Is it any surprise his politics reflects this?
photo
edenooch
nefarious humor
03:53 AM on 08/26/2012
looks more like a romulan
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
edejan
03:20 AM on 08/26/2012
I can only hope you're right and enough people use their thinking skills to evaluate Romneyan. Karl Rove has already done enough to ruin this country. I thought his payback would have already taken him out, but apparently he's not finished with his evil work yet.
02:34 AM on 08/26/2012
The majority is fed up with Obama but once more the alternative is far worse. The GOP has gone all out to stop Ron Paul or any other viable third party candidate. They are also, once more, on the move to block minority voters/Dem voters as they intend to steal another election since they cannot win fairly. What gets me is how women keep voting for these GOP candidates who do not have their rights/interests at heart. Even most of the women running on the GOP ticket are anti-women rights. Men voting for these freaks I get as they are led by their sexual organs, but women, sorry, I don't get it. As the system of voting is so rigged, I will not vote for Obama and will go for an Independent, or a write in. Florida has already been bought (As was Ohio last time) and this time will be no different in one of the last stand states.
08:31 PM on 08/25/2012
"Romneyan will hold onto 35 percent of the vote (Republicans and Libertarians)."

Republicans will lose the L vote to Gary Johnson, neither Romney or Ryan are fiscal conservatives and that's the only reason a Libertarian would consider voting for a Republican.
photo
janmB
loves life
09:09 AM on 08/25/2012
Those who want to conserve nothing -- are conservatives. Beginning in 1981, using political power, the Rightwing of American politics began its assault on all that is good in our America. So far, they are succeeding, deregulation of the Financial Industry, the Insurance Industry, look where we rank in healthcare, in education near the bottom. Conservatives use "social issues" as a way to mask economic objectives and the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. There comes Romney.....he fits the picture.
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
05:57 AM on 08/25/2012
You have it totally WRONG, these people are not Conservatives. That term has been hijacked (like liberal has been for quite a while). These people are STALINISTS. Ryan and some others have some extremely bigoted social views.
ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-stalinists-rnc-republican-elites.html
ian56.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/message-to-gop-incumbents-and.html
02:24 AM on 08/26/2012
Absolutely. The term has been hi-jacked from the original definition by the Far Right and the Rovians.
kellygreen
"Ideology is the Science of Idiots" John Adams
08:06 AM on 08/27/2012
Authoritarian (as opposed to Libertarian/Burkian) Conservatives have hijacked the Republican Party.

They are not conservatives in the true sense (want to control the pace of change to ensure that the best of the past is preserved, while best of the present is woven into the fabric of society in order to improve the future).

They are reactionaries. Whose goal is to repeal the New Deal and the social revolutions of the 1960s...and essentially drag us back to a 19th Century social and economic order.

The sad part is the party establishment has the social reactionaries so dazed-and-confused, that they happily march their own economic prospects (and those of their children) over the cliff.
photo
VA Jill
I'm not perfect and neither are you
07:37 PM on 08/24/2012
They're not conservatives. They are reactionary radicals.