Karl Rove's Strategy

Posted by Ashish on 06.23.2008

What Karl Rove wants to do against Obama.

At a Republican breakfast in Washington, D.C., Karl Rove said he hopes the GOP goes after Obama as an elitist, describing him as he hopes the party will try to label him.

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy… He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

If the GOP goes down this road, which I think they will, and tries to ugly up Obama, it has a high chance of backfiring. The Clintons tried to do the same thing to Obama throughout the primaries and it didn't work (the thing that hurt Obama's negatives was Rev. Wright, and the Clintons had nothing to do with that).

One thing we learned from both the Democratic and Republican primaries is that going dirty doesn't seem to be working like it used to. Mitt Romney aired more attack ads than any other Republican candidate this year and it ended up pushing people to the "nicer" candidates -- Mike Huckabee and John McCain. Hillary Clinton did the same thing and it helped Obama establish himself as a different type of candidate.

It's hard to say why the public is reacting differently to "negative" campaigns this year, perhaps it is because of all the political garbage that has come with the Bush administration for the last eight years. But moving forward with a strategy to attack Obama rather than focus on the issues and McCain's strengths is probably exactly what Obama wants. Charismatic, likable candidates ALWAYS want to be attacked and put on the defensive because it further establishes what everyone already likes about them and puts them in a position to draw sympathy and use humor. Bill Clinton made a career out of this. Constant attacks will not only further villafy a Republican party that already has much of the country questioning it and raise the Republican brand's negatives even higher, it will also allow Obama to tie McCain to the "old school Washington attacks" and say, "see, this is why I'm different." It's exactly what he did with the Clintons and it worked then, and John McCain is arguably not as strong a candidate as Hillary Clinton was.

The Karl Rove way of doing things was a failure in 2006, which is partly why he isn't working for John McCain or any other major candidate now, and it probably won't work this year either. Mike Huckabee is urging the GOP to not fall for the trap of launching negative ads against Obama because it's exactly what he wants, we'll see if anyone listens. Something tells me that they won't, and that the Republicans will continue to try and dig themselves out of their current hole by running a campaign based on smear attempts, not issues.