Rove making excuses

[Puppycow]

Rove: Obama won 'by suppressing the vote'

GOP strategist Karl Rove went on Fox News today to argue that President Barack Obama "succeeded by suppressing the vote" -- an argument that directly contradicts the conventional wisdom that Romney failed to appeal to non-white and female voters.

Rove argued that Obama won with a smaller popular vote and a smaller margin of victory than in the 2008 election against Sen. John McCain. Instead of expanding voters, Rove argued, Obama "suppressed the vote" by demonizing former Gov. Mitt Romney and encouraging people not to vote.

"President Obama has become the first president in history to win a second term with a smaller percentage of the vote than he did in the first term," Rove said.

"But he won Karl, he won!" Fox News host Megyn Kelly interjected. Kelly also asked Rove how Republicans intended to appeal to minority groups, especially Hispanics, after doing so much to alienate them in 2012. Rove pointed to Hispanic-voter turnout in Texas to argue that there was no fundamental disconnect between his party and Latino voters.

Waaah, Waaah, Waaaah.

Here you have a man who ran one of the largest Republican Super PACs of the election cycle, buying millions of dollars in negative advertisements designed to demonize his opponents, complaining about the other side's negative attack ads. Cry me a river Turd Blossom.

Turns out that Rove & Co. had one of the least effective PACs in terms of ROI, a measly 1%. The NRA did even worse though. 0.81% ROI
Michael Isikoff explains:

Karl Rove was the political genius of the George W. Bush era -- the architect of the last Republican president's two electoral victories. But this week, he may have had the worst election night of anybody in American politics.

Not only did Rove insist on Fox News that Ohio was still winnable for Republican challenger Mitt Romney after all the TV networks had called it for President Barack Obama -- causing anchor Megyn Kelly to march down to the Fox "decision desk" mavens, who assured her on air that they were "99.9 percent" confident in their call -- but his trailblazing "independent" super PAC operation was virtually shut out on election night.

A study Wednesday by the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks political spending, concluded that Rove's super PAC, American Crossroads, had a success rate of just 1 percent on $103 million in attack ads -- one of the lowest "returns on investment" (ROIs) of any outside spending group in this year's elections.

The PACs with the highest ROI were on the Democratic side, some getting ROIs over 80%. Planned Parenthood had an ROI over 97%.

 

[Brown]

Rove has always been a loudmouthed chicken-heart, but he might want to seriously consider laying low for a while, say, for the rest of his natural life. These fat cats who gave him millions and got basically nothing for it have said some pretty bat-spit crazy things in the past few months (those who had the guts not to hide their identities did, anyway), and one wonders whether they might not do some bat-spit crazy things.

They might be, shall we say, a wee bit irritated with Rove's falsely rosy forecasts, unreasonable analyses of voting dynmatics, and general bone-headed electoral strategies.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Speaking of Rove, he has two superPacs operating out of the same offices: American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. They spent more than $100 million each in electioneering this season. Crossroads GPS is the one he claims is not a SuperPAC but rather a "social welfare foundation", and is thus exempt from the donor disclosure requirements that exist.

There is a lawsuit going over that issue, and Rove's organization will probably lose and have to disclose those donors after all.

 

[Loss Leader]

Drunk Karl Rove arrested in Thailand for trying to buy underage election.

 

[mikedenk]

One of the good things about this election is that it gives conservatives/Republicans the opportunity to clean house. Rove, Morris, and other false prophets can now be booted "for cause".

The platform needs some changes, but the technical side of things desperately needs to be updated.

Republican candidates need internal pollsters and stat geeks that deliver dead-on numbers. They need to scrap the disastrous ORCA GOTV system and switch to something similar to the Dems NARWHAL. The hundreds of millions squandered by Rove would've been much better suited just straightening out those 2 issues.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

One of the good things about this election is that it gives conservatives/Republicans the opportunity to clean house. Rove, Morris, and other false prophets can now be booted "for cause".

The platform needs some changes, but the technical side of things desperately needs to be updated.

That's a perennial problem for a conservative party. Conservatives are fundamentally not very progressive, so it's hard for their party to progress (or "clean house").

 

[mikeyx]

Rove has always been a loudmouthed chicken-heart, but he might want to seriously consider laying low for a while, say, for the rest of his natural life. These fat cats who gave him millions and got basically nothing for it have said some pretty bat-spit crazy things in the past few months (those who had the guts not to hide their identities did, anyway), and one wonders whether they might not do some bat-spit crazy things.

They might be, shall we say, a wee bit irritated with Rove's falsely rosy forecasts, unreasonable analyses of voting dynmatics, and general bone-headed electoral strategies.

Indeed he was one of bush era genuises who caused the original mess, Karl cry to some who cares. And why is your head so damn big?

 

[mikedenk]

That's a perennial problem for a conservative party. Conservatives are fundamentally not very progressive, so it's hard for their party to progress (or "clean house").

Pretty much agree. That's why opportunities like this need to be grabbed.

 

[Spindrift]

Rove's back to his "if you keep repeating it, at some point, they will believe it" mode.

 

[Cain]

I've started to hear this more than a few times now: Obama defined Romney early on with negative attack ads.

Well, ****, it's not like for four years Fox and the right-wing press spent day and night labeling Obama a Kenyan-born, communist terror-baby. Their problem is that the rest of the world wasn't buyin' it (largely because it ain't true).

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Oh, the delicious tears, I bathe in them, it's so relaxing like laying in a hot tub of GOP sadness.

*splash! splash! rubber ducky!*

More bubbles, Jeeves! And more bubbly!

 

[FenerFan]

One of the good things about this election is that it gives conservatives/Republicans the opportunity to clean house. Rove, Morris, and other false prophets can now be booted "for cause".

The platform needs some changes, but the technical side of things desperately needs to be updated.

Republican candidates need internal pollsters and stat geeks that deliver dead-on numbers. They need to scrap the disastrous ORCA GOTV system and switch to something similar to the Dems NARWHAL. The hundreds of millions squandered by Rove would've been much better suited just straightening out those 2 issues.

Here's a very interesting article from Time about how important Obama's tech people were to his re-election. Apparently, they were light years ahead of Romney's team.
http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/?iid=sl-main-belt

 

[Cleon]

I've started to hear this more than a few times now: Obama defined Romney early on with negative attack ads.

Well, ****, it's not like for four years Fox and the right-wing press spent day and night labeling Obama a Kenyan-born, communist terror-baby. Their problem is that the rest of the world wasn't buyin' it (largely because it ain't true).

Not to mention that whole GOP primary...

 

[mikedenk]

Here's a very interesting article from Time about how important Obama's tech people were to his re-election. Apparently, they were light years ahead of Romney's team.
http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/07/inside-the-secret-world-of-quants-and-data-crunchers-who-helped-obama-win/?iid=sl-main-belt

Good read, thanks. Here's a couple of articles from the side of fail:

The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA

Inside Orca: How the Romney Campaign Suppressed Its Own Vote

 

[hgc]

One of the good things about this election is that it gives conservatives/Republicans the opportunity to clean house. Rove, Morris, and other false prophets can now be booted "for cause".

The platform needs some changes, but the technical side of things desperately needs to be updated.

Republican candidates need internal pollsters and stat geeks that deliver dead-on numbers. They need to scrap the disastrous ORCA GOTV system and switch to something similar to the Dems NARWHAL. The hundreds of millions squandered by Rove would've been much better suited just straightening out those 2 issues.

The problem is not these individual reprobates. The problem is epistemic closure, a type of deductive closure. The Republican Party/"Conservative Movement" is imbued with religious ways of thinking. Technical fixes can help, but only for people who already accept that their treasured notions might possibly be contradicted by reality.

 

[hgc]

Good read, thanks. Here's a couple of articles from the side of fail:

The Unmitigated Disaster Known As Project ORCA

Inside Orca: How the Romney Campaign Suppressed Its Own Vote

So, you're building mission-critical software infrastructure, for what is essentially one-time use, and it's not field tested? And it appears that the need for secrecy was part of the reason. Dang, experienced software people, who know exactly how to do this stuff the right way, are really abundant in this world -- way more so than experienced political operatives. I assume the professionals were just ignored.

 

[Cleon]

So, you're building mission-critical software infrastructure, for what is essentially one-time use, and it's not field tested? And it appears that the need for secrecy was part of the reason. Dang, experienced software people, who know exactly how to do this stuff the right way, are really abundant in this world -- way more so than experienced political operatives. I assume the professionals were just ignored.

Listening to political operatives rather than experienced professionals has been the main GOP strategy for years on subjects such as climate change, evolution, smoking, etc. Why would they change that just for software?

 

[MattusMaximus]

I think Rove has a HUGE target on his back now. The GOP/Tea Party, right-wingers, Fox News, many related SuperPACs, and wealthy donors bet it all on his ideas, and they lost across the board. Not to mention, think about how much money they flushed down the drain!!! What Rove is doing now is attempting to deflect attention away from himself for these failures in an attempt to retain some shred of credibility with the right-wing. And if that means flat-out lying in order to save his skin, he'll do it.

 

[GeeMack]

Karl Rove may have just deposited himself in the dust bin. It could be that his last piece of spin is the nonsense about the Democratic Party "suppressing the vote" by convincing people that Obama was a superior candidate. That's suppressing the vote? He's a clown.

Rove spent something like 400 million dollars of other people's money to get a handful of candidates elected. His effort met with almost complete failure, big time failure where it counts. His future may well be the same as Sarah Palin's, an occasional red-face ranter on Fox to spew nonsense to the woefully uninformed. It helps keep them all hateful and stupid. That's where Fox's money is, and may be all Karl Rove is good for anymore.

 

[Crossbow]

Well of course Karl Rove is going to blame the Democrats for stealing the election!

After all, if he admitted the truth that he and his ilk just plain screwed up by pandering to those stupid, idiotic, lying right-wing nut-jobs, then it would be very difficult for him to keep raising millions and millions of dollars from those few fat cat donors that he worships every chance that he gets to do so.