Guest Blogger: Doriangrey
In typical Karl Rove fashion, Karl over reaches to understand conservatives response to “Bridgegate”.
“Mr. Rove has grown so controversial among some conservatives,” the NYT wrote recently, citing GOP sources, “that candidates worry that donors will not contribute to a super PAC if it is connected to [Rove’s group American] Crossroads.” You trust a guy in that position, whose personal brand is now sufficiently toxic among righties that it can alter fundraising battle plans, to have a sharp read into the thinking of tea partiers, don’t you?
On the other hand, he’s not totally wrong. I noticed over the weekend how conservative media, including columnists, are starting to pay attention to the amount of coverage Bridgegate got in its first flush versus the coverage Obama’s IRS scandal received initially. No less a tea partier than Palin, while noting that what Christie’s team did is “atrocious,” was quick to add that his sins pale next to O’s. That’s the key to damage control for him on the right: Play up every available contrast with Obama, from the gravity of Obama’s misdeeds to the partisan skew in media coverage to the quick action he took to punish the guilty staffers versus Obama’s reluctance to fire anyone. He’s past the point of earning any “street cred” with conservatives but pointing out their common enemies on the left will naturally make some people on the right more reluctant to use Bridgegate against him.
Problem is, he can’t follow that strategy yet. It’s still too early, and the scandal too shady, for Christie to shift into victim mode now. Case in point:
New documents related to a traffic jam planned by a member of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s (R) staff show for the first time how furiously Christie’s lieutenants inside the Port Authority worked to orchestrate a coverup after traffic mayhem engulfed Fort Lee last year.
Inside the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Christie’s top appointees neglected furious complaints from Fort Lee’s police chief as well as from angry rush-hour commuters. One woman called asking why the agency was “playing God with people’s jobs.”
The Republican governor’s appointees instructed subordinates to stonewall reporters who were asking questions. They even ordered up an actual “traffic study” to chronicle the impact and examine whether closing the lanes permanently might improve traffic flow. The study’s conclusion: “TBD.”
Let’s not be confused or deceived about Karl Rove. Rove is a moderate pragmatist. He is utterly and completely ruthless in achieving his end goal. His end goal is Republican majority of the government by way of statistical analysis to achieve a straight forward numerical superiority. Rove is not a conservative and conservative values do not concern him in the slightest, he is a moderate, middle of the road, Republican. The candidates that he chooses to back (with the exception of those who are TEA Party candidates which he won’t back for any reason anywhere) are those whom the polling indicates have the greatest probability of getting elected. There is of course more to it than straight poll results, he also calculates potential political support and campaign funding raising capabilities into his equations. But there it is right there in a nutshell, Rove is a by the book numbers guy.
Because he is not a Conservative, he doesn’t understand (nor does he care to) the conservative position on most issues. Karl Rove, like 90+ percent of all professional politicians considers pretty much everything to be negotiable. I won’t say that Rove is entirely without principals, morals, or ethic’s. It would on the other hand be fair to say that his moral’s, ethic’s and principals are not the same as the average conservative, nor are they as nonnegotiable as the average conservatives. This is why Rove has such problems with the conservative community. Most conservatives see Rove as untrustworthy, devious, and backstabbing, but worst of all, of being a liberal Rockefeller Republican Establishment enforcer.
What Karl Rove (and Hot Air’s Allahpundit) do not, and probably never will understand is that Chris Christie is never going to gain any TEA Party street cred. Sarah Palin did not come out in support of Christie, not even a little bit. What she did, was to point out the blatant hypocrisy of the Fifth Column Treasonous Media regarding the amount of coverage given to “Bridgegate” and to subtly reprove those on the right who were allowing themselves to be used and manipulated by both the Fifth Column Treasonous Media and the Clinton machine. Chris Christie is an obstacle to Hillary Clinton’s Presidential ambitions (As perceived by the Clinton machine). Nothing more and nothing less. The whole “Bridgegate” scandal, nothing less than a campaign to leverage Christie out of Hillary’s way.
The liberal Rockefeller Republican Establishment would love a candidate like Christie or Jeb Bush. It is their belief that moderate (read establishment elitist’s here) have the greatest mathematical probability of winning. Their calculations are predicated on name recognition, establishment political support and fund raising capabilities. They are counting on party loyalty to force the conservative base to pull the lever for their chosen candidate rather than the conservative base actually liking or wanting whomever they chose. This is exactly why their candidates continue to fall short on election day, because unlike the Democrats, who obediently pull the lever for whomever the Democrat establishment tell them to, a significant percentage of the Republican conservative base will not vote for a candidate just because that candidate is a registered Republican.
Karl Rove and his ilk maintain, that what they erroneously believe to be a negligibly small percentage of Conservative Republicans in the Republican base who will not vote for candidates that they do not like, will be canceled out by the number of independents attracted by their liberal moderate establishment candidates. So far, this has not proven to be the case, nor is their any indication that it will become the case any time in the future. If anything the number of individuals self identifying as independents appears to be growing as record numbers of conservative republicans desert the Republican Party because they feel betrayed and abused by the GOP Establishment.
Chris Christie may be a near perfect Establishment candidate, but he is nearly universally despised among conservatives and especially among TEA Party conservatives. Christie is never going to gain any TEA Party street cred or support, TEA Party conservatives simply are not going to hold their noses and vote for him. If the GOP establishment insists on running Christie or Jeb Bush or any other liberal Rockefeller Establishment elitist, then the Democrat candidate is all but assured victory. This is the GOP establishments blind spot, like the Democrats, they believe that leadership of the GOP is their divine right, it is a “Right” they would rather see the Republican Party burned to the ground, rather than surrender.
More importantly, as one looks at the record number of conservative republicans fleeing the Republican Party and identifying as Independents, it is exactly what the self anointed elitist Republican aristocracy is in fact achieving, the destruction of the Republican Party, not simply from within, but from the leadership down. News Flash to the Karl Roves, the John Boehnor’s, the Mitch McConnell’s and all the other asshole Establishment self anointed elitist Republican aristocracy, the base of the Republican Party is not loyal to the party, but to the principals, moral’s and ethic’s that supposedly the Republican Party endorses. This is why the base isn’t supporting you, this is why we are deserting you, because we are not as stupid as you think we are, we know that you are lying to us, that you are only paying lip service to sharing our principals, ethic’s and morals.
(Cross Posted @ The Wilderness of Mirrors)
Tags: Chris Christie, Karl Rove
