The machiavellian speculation is just silly, people give rove much more credit than he deserves. It's probably because they're groping to explain why an idiot like Bush won the Presidency twice. But Rove is the same guy that sent Bush to NJ and CA in the last week of the campaign, instead of FL.

This is just a distraction from his own numerous failures.

It just doesn't get any dumb than this:

"Their thinking went like this, Dowd explained: Democrats, in a knee-jerk reaction to GOP attacks, would rally around Kerry, whom Rove considered a comparatively weak opponent, and make him the party's nominee. Thus Bush would be spared from confronting Edwards, the candidate Republican strategists actually feared most."

dowd talking about jerks. dowd former Texas dem turned repub when Texas turned repub turning dem again now that it looks like repubs are loosing power is an idiot. Why would the lats waste space with that crap? wallsten is the lats white house and national politics reporter. Why does the lats was time with wallsten? Wasn't 8 years of bush enough. Good Gravy!

Actually, I was with Greg and his explanation, but after reading Dowd's comments, I'm starting to have my doubts.  If they attacked the candidate they thought would be the easiest to defeat in 2004 (Kerry), why wouldn't they do so again in 2008?

Their thinking went like this, Dowd explained: Democrats, in a knee-jerk reaction to GOP attacks, would rally around Kerry, whom Rove considered a comparatively weak opponent, and make him the party's nominee. Thus Bush would be spared from confronting Edwards, the candidate Republican strategists actually feared most.

Unlike Kerry, who had been in public service for decades, Edwards was a political newcomer and lacked a long record that could be attacked. And, unlike former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who had been the front-runner but whose campaign was collapsing in Iowa, Edwards couldn't easily be painted as "nutty."

If that sounds implausibly convoluted, consider Dowd's own words:

"Whomever we attacked was going to be emboldened in Democratic primary voters' minds.

"So we started attacking John Kerry a lot in the end of January because we were very worried about John Edwards," Dowd said. "And we knew that if we focused on John Kerry, Democratic primary voters would sort of coalesce" around Kerry.

"It wasn't like we could tag [eliminate] somebody. Whomever we attacked was going to be helped," he said.

Nicolle Wallace, the 2004 Bush campaign communications director, recalled at the Harvard conference that the campaign "refused" to even respond to Edwards' attacks on Bush, not wanting to make him seem like a threat.

I've long believed that the primary reason the Democrats have such a hard time running against Republicans is because they simply cannot imagine anyone employing the kinds of tactics people like Rove use. To a Democrat, this sort of dishonest subterfuge is unimaginably underhanded. To a Republican, it's more like, "I've got your integrity and fair play right here, loser."

The most important thing the Democrats need to learn is that, while they generally try to serve the best interests of the country, with Republicans, it's always party first, country second. They feel justified in thinking this way because they believe that liberals are destroying America and conservatives are its salvation. The Democrats would do well to consider things from that perspective.

Dowd wasn't lying and Rove doesn't say or do anything innocently or carelessly.

Perhaps Rove is attacking both because it's an easy way to score points with his base and because they think ot helps set up HRC as the eventual rival. I don't see the explanations as mutually exclusive.

But the real question, imho, is why should anyone take this "reverse psychology" strategy seriously? I don't see any evidence at all that it worked in 2004, at least from the perspective of the early states. Kerry won Iowa and elsewhere because Dems were scared to nominate someone without strong military/foreign policy bona fides. Rove's attacks were irrelevant, as far as I can tell. Certainly, in Iowa, I didn't get a sense that anyone was rallying around Kerry as a Dem Party standard-bearer. With the LATimes piece and this discussion, I feel like we're just playing into the media's "Rove as evil genius" story line by trying to parse his motives. Let's not confuse being devious with being effective.

I could definitely see it being both, but I think it's terrifically hard to say whether this strategy was or could be effective. I doubt you'd see any hard evidence of it, since it would be more along the lines of a subjective, unconscious effect.

White House/Rove attacks drive media coverage. Coverage of the attacks means that Dem voters may see an article or headline about them which leads the voter to think, "Those damn Republicans/that damn Rove. Always up to no good. Those attacks on Kerry are bogus, I like Kerry, and I feel sympathy toward him." That is probably good for the Dem candidate being attacked before the primaries.

But measuring the overall effect is pretty much impossible. It may suggest what the other side thinks, however, and they likely think it for a reason (i.e. many, many polls and focus groups). Why did they want to run against Kerry and not Edwards in 2004?

I agree -- it is very difficult to know how you'd measure the effectivenss of this sort of strategy. And your point about how this drives coverage is indeed crucial.

As far as effectiveness, I remain skeptical. What I saw in 2004 is that what you'd assume would be the consequence of the strategy ("I like Kerry, and I feel sympathy toward him," as you put it) was very little in evidence in Iowa just before the caucuses. Honestly, I'm not sure I heard *anyone* say that they liked Kerry or felt sympathy for him -- people who caucused for him were much more likely to explain themselves by saying that they'd supported him even though they *didn't* like him and that they were motivated by fear that if the nominee wasn't plausible as a military leader, they'd be (electoral) toast.

FWIW.

"The idea that Democrats are sheep and Republicans wolves is the stuff of nursery rhymes."

A cute little bit of wordplay, but nonsense otherwise. If we currently had a Democrat in the White House and a Republican majority in Congress, we would be well into impeachment proceedings by now. With the tables turned, we're well into endless investigations and empty threats. One doesn't need to read Rove's mind to know how he thinks. One only needs to look at his past history.

Edwards was the strongest candidate in 2004?

Please!

Edwards couldn't even deliver his home state to the Dems in the general!

Well, Clark could bench more and Robertson leg press more and Bush's breath was the strongest but for pure hair strength, YES!!

A cute little bit of wordplay, but nonsense otherwise. If we currently had a Democrat in the White House and a Republican majority in Congress, we would be well into impeachment proceedings by now.

I would remind you that Republicans were quite helpful in dumping Nixon while the only Democrat in the Senate who demurred somewhat from the stone wall of opposition to Bill Clinton's conviction was the most liberal senator, Russ Feingold. In the end, Feingold went along with the consensus but not before some quibbling that had some upset.

The general line of Democrats was that Clinton could be punished for his crimes afterwards. No serious person denied them.

It was a counterpoint to the Gropinator in California offering a thorough investigation of his abuse of women after he was elected governor of California. How are those investigations going BTW? Are OJ's team doing double duty when they are not busy tracking down the Real Killers(tm)?

Democrats accept corruption in their own ranks at their peril. Isn't doing a lot of good for Republicans these days.

Best, Terry

Good point. Dirty tricks rule the day in GOP land.

I think you're indulging in a little blindered wishful thinking. You say you think I should get some counseling. I think you should consider that fact that I'll be voting in November and if I have my druthers, I won't be voting for Hillary. Close your eyes and plug your ears if you want. It won't change how I or millions of others feel about her.

In a previous post Greg Sargent wrote:

...Rove attacked her again on the Rush Limbaugh show as unelectable, using some cooked political stats to do so...

Emphasis mine.

Rove had said:

“She’s going into the general election with, depending on what poll you look at, in the high 40s on the negative side and just below that on the positive side.”

Greg linked to this article which shows Clinton's negatives at 39% in a CBS poll, which I guess is why Greg accused Rove's statistics of being "politically cooked."

But today I see this article which Greg has linked to in this post which says:

In a USA Today-Gallup poll this month, 49 percent viewed Clinton unfavorably... Clinton's favorable score in that poll was 47 percent.

That's pretty much exactly what Rove said. So... if there is a legitimate poll that supports exactly what Rove said, how are his stats in this instance "politically cooked?"

"If they were so darn good at strategy in helping get Kerry nominated, why did they have to resort to such tactics."

They didn't "resort" to those tactics. They prefer those tactics.

Actually, I am not trying to open your eyes. I am just pointing out to others here that you have some personal issues.

Some advice: Speak for yourself. Speaking for "millions of others" -- now that is wishful thinking.

Yes, those terror alerts, keep the masses in fear. Fear that the threat of terrorism on our own soil was bigger than they knew and that the government simply was not telling us.

Fear is a highly effective tactic. It has ruled the masses for centuries.

It is the preferred strategy of mental midgets, tyrants and bullies. If that is not Bush and Rove...what is?

t

When you don't use facts, use emotions, right?

Yeah, I'm not saying they were necessarily effective, just musing about how it might work and how the dynamic might play out or the thinking behind it might go.

Depending on the form the pre-caucus GOP attacks took, maybe all they did was serve to highlight Kerry's military service, which Dem caucus-goers assumed was unimpeachable in the pre-Swift Boat era.

A VP might make a difference in a very close swing state, especially a smaller state, but they aren't going to make enough of a difference to make up a ten point or more deficit. I don't blame Edwards at all for not carrying North Carolina for Kerry.

It's a lot different when you are at the top of the ticket, but Al Gore couldn't carry his own home state, Tennessee, which Bill Clinton won twice. Even in Clinton's best performance, he didn't carry North Carolina.

The Dems are even harder pressed now than they were then to win states in the South in presidential elections.

I'm completely serious. I know the conventional reasoning and I know that pundits love to talk about it, but I think geographically balancing the ticket is pure bunk.

I would be so incredibly embarassed to find myself vacuously voting for a presidential ticket just because the VP candidate was from my home state of Colorado.

I'll even go a step further and say I don't think VP choices matter all that much. I think you could change the VP candidates names in any past election and still expect the same outcome. I think John Kerry would have lost North Carolina with anyone as his VP. And I think Bush would still have won the electoral powerhouse of Wyoming even without Dick Cheney on the ticket.