Rove as Edwards, Obama strategist?
Posted: Thursday, November 15, 2007 5:49 PM by Domenico Montanaro
From NBC’s Andy Merten
Since leaving the White House and doing the Sunday morning show circuit, Karl Rove’s take on the 2008 presidential election seems to have changed little. He still believes Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee next year and considers her to be a “fatally flawed” candidate. But he’s upping the ante on the criticism.
“I’ve been surprised at how weak Edwards and Obama have been,” Rove told C-SPAN’s Steve Scully today during a live question-and-answer session with students at three different universities across the country. As if to poke at the fire that in the pending Democratic nomination process, he continued, saying, “They’re both going to give her some scares; she’s going to lose some thing along the way, possibly starting with Iowa.”
Rove went on to provide a little unsolicited advice for the Obama campaign, saying that the Illinois senator has faltered in creating a strong moment of contrast between himself and his opponents during debates. Citing Clinton’s vague answer regarding the release of White House papers during her tenure as first lady, Rove said Obama has had “a number of occasions like that, where a sharp and clear and respectful contrast really could’ve created a moment.”
The former Bush adviser and chief strategist also expressed some surprise with the current GOP field, although he had nothing negative to say about his fellow Republicans. Asked if told six months ago Giuliani would be sitting atop his party’s national presidential polling, he said, “I would’ve raised an eyebrow, and I think Rudy Giuliani has done a very good job at staying on top of the Republican field longer than I anticipated, and with a substantial amount of political support from people I would not have thought he’d be able to draw.”
He went on to call Romney’s organization a “textbook campaign” and drew a contrast to the amount of media attention the former governor’s Mormon religion has garnered when compared to his father’s presidential run in 1967. Rove said that while he was still at the White House, he got some interns together to see how many front-page articles in major publications were devoted to the Michigan governor’s religion and said he found much fewer than today. He attributed part of this to timing, only seven years after Kennedy’s Catholicism had been a point of concern.
But it’s worth pointing out that increased media attention to Romney’s faith is likely due to public polling showing a full third of the population in 2007 saying they would not vote for a Mormon. That is much higher than when Romney’s father was on the political scene.
And asked about how he sees next year’s general election playing out, Rove made no bones about his prediction (or preference?) that Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. In order for Republicans to win, he said, the party must “articulate a strong and positive and optimistic agenda,” warning, “It’s not enough to simply say, ‘I’m not her.’”
