She has a point.....why is Rove giving and why is Obama getting pointers from Rove. Why not distance himself from Rove.

Looks like Rove is trying to do Hillary a favor. Why is that? Hillary should be careful here. When Hillary went after Obama for saying he'd break with the neocon preconditions based approach to diplomacy, she linked to a Charles Krauthammer article supporting her. With friends like Krauthammer. . .

At what point in time can we all stop caring what Karl Rove says or thinks? Does he really have any credibility other than what Democrats and the DC media give him?

kefa461 wrote on December 3, 2007 10:40 AM:
She has a point.....why is Rove giving and why is Obama getting pointers from Rove. Why not distance himself from Rove.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rove is a political junkie. It's what he does. This is no different than a football coach voicing an opinion as to how he'd go about beating a team if he was playing them in the coming week. That the advice might benefit one or the other coaches in the coming contest matters little if at all.

Gee, I thought Hillary was against "mudslinging."

Next thing, she'll be calling him a Muslim.

Rove is playing mind games. He'd much rather face Hillary than Obama. Hillary's a sure loser - as we are about to start seeing in one primary after another. Once you take away the hype of her "inevitability" you see what an unattractive politician she is.

you know, for what it is worth, rove actually makes (in this FT column) a number of salient points. one could actually interpret this piece as a genuinely objective (i know, i know) interpretation of one candidates strengths and weaknesses as measured against those of another - pure and simple. it is the FT...

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David Plouffe: Less than twelve hours after that poll came out, the Clinton campaign launched a series of baseless attacks against Senator Obama. Panicked by the poll numbers, they even attacked Barack for telling his kindergarten teacher what he wanted to be when he grew up.

I wish I were joking. Today we're launching a website that will keep track of all the attacks Senator Clinton has launched since she said she wasn't interested in attacking other Democrats at the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on November 10th. We're asking all of you to be vigilant and notify us immediately of any attacks from Senator Clinton or her supporters as soon as you see them so that we can respond with the truth swiftly and forcefully.

http://hillaryattacks.barackobama.com/

Has Karl Rove done anything right since Nov. '04? With that as background, why should Karl Rove care what he says? He's the real life troll, and should be treated as such.

I don't much care what Rove wants. I care about what I want. And it ain't Hillary.

Kind of funny, first time rove addressed obama. Every other gd time, he and every other republican has presented clinton II as the dem nominee and sung her praises. She is the one to beat and all that other bs. They are seeing the polls as well and realize that their dream candidate, clinton II, might not be the nominee, so they are trying to help her by "giving obama pointers" and of course clinton II jumped on it. I really wish she was running in the republican primary, she's taking pointers and help from republicans anyway. I just hope people wake up and smack her down when they vote.

To answer Hillary's question about why Rove is giving Obama advice

perhaps, it is because he knows a winner when he sees one.

Karl even knows how to make a winner out of complete loser as all of America has suffered for his politically devious mind these past 8 years, knows well.

Karl even knows how to rattle your cage Hillary. He has you frothing at the mouth about what he is doing...such that your campaign is off message.

Whereas that naive and irresponsible political opponent of yours is on message and steadily focused on the issues important to the American people, like universal healthcare, the war in Iraq and raising the minimum wage.

Hillary you are going down and fast...Wolfson is going apeshit all over the news and he has you acting like the proverbial shrew. All of which fits right with all those negatives people had in their mind about you anyway and which Rove said were historically high for a Presidential candidate.

Looks like Rove has you doing precisely what he wants you to do. Acting like the uncompromising termagant that you are.

But we all know that it was really Bill that triggered this spiral downward with his lies. I bet that made you see red, he was out there off message and now you have to pay for it, just like all the rest of Bills screw ups...you have to be the cleanup woman...whether it is Bimbos or his not attacking folks...you always have to clean up the mess.

You forgot your role MRS. Clinton and Bill put you back in your place.

One of things that's getting lost in the discussion here is the question of whether Rove's advice to Obama was on target.

Mostly, I think it is.

Consider: when did Hillary take the first major hit to her candidacy? Answer: immediately after the debate in which she was attacked by most of the other candidates, and then made loud caterwauling noises about how everybody was "piling on" her (in effect pulling the gender card).

Now you might say that it was her flubbing of a question or two in that debate that did her in. But I don't for a moment believe it. It's hard not to surmise that it was the complaints of victimization afterward.

No one wants a President who can't stand up to opponents. And least of all do they want a President who thinks that pulling the victim card is her right and privilege given her "identity" -- because, of course, there will be no end of that once it's started.

Hillary might want to consider her attacks on Obama a little better. If she keeps up with these absolutely ridiculous attacks no one will even pay attention if she has a legitimage argument.

Crying wolf???

Rove just wants to remain relevant. Clinton is just using "fear" as a way to herd more of the unwashed masses to her side of the ledger. If she can't get you with the substance, she'll use whatever other methods available. It's not how you win, it's whether you win.

If you are ready for real change, she's ready to lead to the extent practicable under the circumstances.

Brad R.,

Dead on. Thanks.

Okay Rove is an evil genius we all get it. Here he is playing the part of wise political sage, but the kicker is he is only telling Obama the same stuff Obama is already doing or working on and already knows.
Rove has already seen that Obama is going to upset Hillary in Iowa and afterwards he is going to sit back and say "look what I predicted (did) for Obama in iowa".....
or something cuckoo like that.

Obama is a nice story and all, but common sense says he's unelectable at this time in this country. We actually have taken giant steps backwards in race relations, due to the right wing bigots who are solidifying their grip on the Repub party.
Sorry, I know it's not a nice thing to say...probably not PC, buts that's the way things look to me.
Personally, the only problem I have with Obama would be his lack of experience on a national level. I think he really would have to do some learning on the job, which never works out to well for our country. I do think he is a good, smart man who will be a better choice later on down the road with some seasoning. He reminds me a bit of JFK.

If there's one thing Rove is an expert at, it is divide and conquer. He has an incredible talent for pitting people who should be allies against each other and reaping the benefits. And Hillary has quite dimly fallen right into his trap. It's sad that someone who, I'm told, has a vast political machine behind her can't see that she's being played for a fool.

The people in this forum are getting nuttier and nuttier as the primaries approach.

The notion that anyone is "taking advice" from Rove is laughable. If Rove didn't exist, do you think there would be no negative campaigning? No personal attacks? Not snarkey remarks about someone's experience?

Do you think these things didn't exist before Rove (or Clinton, or Obama) was even born? You people are acting like babies. This is American politics. You're acting as if you've never seen this before.

The folks running these campaigns...ALL of them...are professionals. They know what it takes to win. The only real difference between them is subtle at best: Where and when to attack, how to make it look as if you aren't really attacking, being able to "go negative" without appearing to go negative. Responding quickly to a criticism or an attack.

These are the things that happen in big time political races. Always. And no one is above it. Not a single candidate is above this--no matter what many of you may think. You may console yourself that your candidate's opponent started it or your candidate isn't that bad...but that's just childish and naive.

For christ sake grow up.

To: Karl Rove
From: Matt
Re: A Blossoming Turd

Not that you have asked for advice, but here it is anyway: shut the fuck up. Every time you open your mouth, a baby kitten dies somewhere and we all become a little dumber. I know that you are a trusted advisor of the president with a storied career of public servicing including the illegal identification of CIA operatives to the press and the greater attempts at voter disenfranchisement and carpetbagging.

But, come on...no one listens to you except the mind-numbed republican congressmen/women anyway. And once they lose their reelection campaigns this year (probably due to advice you gave them in some other enlightening op-ed), they will have a great amount of time to speak with you about what Democrats should do.

Your advice has done wonders for the military, the economy, America's moral standing, checks and balances, laws, the 2006 elections, and John McCain's illegitimate black children. Gee, thanks for all those great times.

But, respectfully, shut the fuck up.

Sincerely,

Matt

Two points:

Rather than attempting to second-guess the agenda of that lying sack of shit Karl Rove, ALL Democratic candidates should identify him as such, and thereby marginalize him.

And the implication that dissent (from Hillary) amongst the Democratic candidates aids and abets the Republicans comes perilously close to the very Goebbels/Rove tactic that sucked the courage out of the party in the first place.

It is obvious to me that Rove (as usual) is thinking 3 steps ahead. He is giving this to Hillary so she will be able to beat Obama. There is no question that the GOP wants Hillary to be their opposition. She will raise more money for the GOP (and galvanize their base) more than any of their own candidates. Moreover, Rove knows that many hard core Dems, such as myself, will not vote for Hillary and instead go with Bloomberg.

It's nice to see that Hillary's willing to use the porcine Wizard of Id-Impulse as her proxy antagonist.

Turdflotsam "wants" to see Obama nominated about as much as he purportedly "wanted" to run against Howard Dean in '04, which is to say not at all. He recognizes that the GOP's only hope of winning the general election lies in facing a demoralized Democratic base that is itself "Clinton fatigued."

Sadly, it looks like he may just get his wish.

Obviously, advice to Hillary from supporters of her opponents is inherently suspect, but I do think her recent rash of attacks is both ill-advised and poorly executed. Some people in the MSM Commetariat are already starting to deploy the words "panic" and "desparate."

Her campaign's decision to go ahead and claim the mantle of inevitability back in September with her Sunday show sweep stunt is turning out to be a gigantic blunder because it narrowed her field of maneuver. As was preciently pointed out by Obama's people last month, the vulnerability in running a campaign of inevitability is that if you start slipping in the polls, you risk looking panicky if you change tactics and looking oblivious if you don't. Getting out of that trap required a level of nimbleness that her lumbering leviathian of a campaign machine is inherently incabaple of mustering. And, in any case, between her own demonstrably faulty political instincts and that reflexive lashing out thing honed by all those years of partisan warfare, I suppose this kind of response was, well, inevitable.

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Brad R. wrote: "The correct response from everyone should be, "Who gives a shit what Karl Rove thinks?"

-- It's heartening to see so many people agree with what Brad wrote, which just goes to show that the Hillary campaign made the INCORRECT response. THEY gave a shit. Sure, their main intention was to spin the story to make it look like Rove was actually a welcome consultant to the Obama camp (kefa461 bought it; how many Hillarybots does he/she represent?), but it also reflects the full-on attack mode they've entered. In their way of thinking, anything negative about her MUST be addressed, even the things that people outside of her camp (including fellow Democrats) believe it would be best to ignore.

Anyone who thinks that Rove had the aim of having this help one candidate over the other (whichever one he allegedly thinks the GOP has a better chance against) ... well, I try to be polite; let's just say that you're dead wrong. Several others here have correctly pointed out that his agenda, if ANY (remember, both camps are free to ignore everything he says), would surely be to engineer inter-party squabbling that hurts both candidates. Strategically, he would NEVER do anything that would benefit any Democratic candidate; that's not his style.

His basic method has been "build up your friends, tear down your enemies". That's why he was willing to attack people in his own party (McCain in 2000) in order to benefit his candidate (Dubya); it's also why his intention now (if he really has an agenda beyond expressing an opinion) is to ultimately cause harm to BOTH Hillary and Obama ... neither one of them is his political friend.

Does anyone really believe Rove is giving Obama advice in the hope he'll beat Hillary? She is the GOP's dream candidate. No one could bring the dispirited wingnuts out to the polls like she could. And she has zero coattails with which to help down-ticket Dems.

Think about it Dems. We could have a narrow victory with no mandate (Hillary) or w could crush the Republican candidate with a strong manadate for real change (Obama).

loki wrote: "The folks running these campaigns...ALL of them...are professionals. They know what it takes to win."

-- Says who? Every campaign manager here has a long track record of success in getting candidates elected? or any record of success AT ALL in presidential elections?

"The only real difference between them is subtle at best: Where and when to attack, how to make it look as if you aren't really attacking, being able to 'go negative' without appearing to go negative."

-- Given all the discussion generated by this ONE attack, in this blog alone, how good of a job do you really think they're doing at disguising the negativity?

Civik wrote: "if I remember correctly, Obama has an 18 point lead over anyone the reps can produce currently"

-- Would have let this go, if it weren't for the fact that in the upper-right corner of THIS WEB PAGE are the results from the Rasmussen poll: Obama 45%, Huckabee 41%. Four points is a lot different than eighteen; it's within the statistical margin of error.

Rove is shifting to being a talking head now. He's going to be giving a lot of unsolicited advice to all kinds of people. That doesn't mean that Obama is "taking Rove's advice."

And also, I don't think the advice taht "you should attack your opponent" really qualifies as an earth-shifting insight in American politics.

Hillary will have even weaker coattails than Bill. That might be the biggest reason they should want to face her---a republican congress will largely tie her hands.

Cheney, in 1993-1994, was not irrational about Iraq----his advice then, was hauntingly sensible.

Like Cheney---Rove might be simply getting senile.

Hillary and Rupert Murdoch sitting in a tree,

A-T-T-A-C-K-i-n-g,

Protecting the rich,

Supporting China,

Oops, they forgot about Barack Obama

What a load of crap! Rove knows full well how his "advice" would be taken by Democratic voters. He's aiding and abetting the Clinton campaign folks with his unsolicited "advice" to Obama. The whole Republican machine wants Clinton. Do you?

Icy Truth,

All the players on the Miami Dolphins football team are professionals that know what it takes to win. Whether they can pull it off or not is a different story.

Hillary is really pathetic. Doesn't she realize how ridiculous this sounds? Whoever is part of her staff is really giving her some bad advice. Hillary can't win on the issues or take a clear position so she resorts to this word association game. Pretty desperate.

I agree that Rove is using reverse psychology. He did the same thing in '04. I remember a Newsweek article with him talking about wanting Dean to be the nominee. He did this because he knew that Dean would've made a better general election candidate than Kerry.

(Of course the difference between Dean and Obama is that the media actually likes Obama.)

This may have already been said, but I think what's happening here is that Rove wants HRC to use this against Obama so that Obama takes a hit and HRC has a better chance to win Iowa, NH, and the rest. That way when she wins, the Republicans have an easier shot at winning. Rove WANTS to face HRC, otherwise, why would he even give two s#%*s about the outcome? Obama is a tougher candidate for the GOP, clearly.

To Phil james - right on! Hillary just relegitimizes scoundrels. That is a problem that can't be overlooked. But Hillary's camp are in a state of panic. There is no doubt about it. Just check out the latest article on Hillary by The Daily Kos on the Midday Open Thread. As I said before, Hillary will do just about anything to try to grab the presidency. From the ridiculous to the absurd.

It's obvious that Rove wants Obama because he actually wants Hillary and therefore want us to think he wants Obama.

Got it?!

Hillary would be a disaster. 4-8 more years of Hillary & Bill in the White House; the press is already salivating...

Tricky Dick Nixon would be so proud of of Hillary if we were only here to see it. I think they called it ratf---ing back then.

Earth to Hillary...YOU ARE LOOKING DESPARATE AND UNBALANCED. THERE IS A REASON SO MANY PEOPLE HATE YOU AND YOU ARE CONFIRMING OUR WORST FEARS!!!

Rove resigned from WH, why?
A trickster junkie he is NOW doing what he has always done.
Hoby Jeebez people!
The only folks who should take this as ANYTHING still have their purple heart band aids in a sealed baggie.

Quit looking at the shiny thing!
It is all about the Senate Dem victories.
and the achievable 61 Dems.
A Dem President is a bonus.
That is what has them freakin.

Clinton: Rove Wants Obama To Get Nomination!

I guess she would know--Bill is such good buddies with the Bush family.

kefa461 wrote on December 3, 2007 10:40 AM:

She has a point.....why is Rove giving and why is Obama getting pointers from Rove. Why not distance himself from Rove.

A little elementary logic, kefa461:

The mere fact that Rove is "giving"... does nothing to establish that Obama is "getting."

Ishmael's comment is spot-on:

The picture says it all: Obama's face right next to Rove's. Message: Obama is Rove, not at all the Hope Factory he claims to be. This is not even a valid attack, for it says nothing about Obama. It is a cynical, desperate ploy that the Hillary camp should be ashamed of.

The enormous irony of this is that an attack like this is nothing less than totally...Rovian.

Standard disclaimer: I am not an Obama supporter. Not strongly, anyway. I'm open to him, more or less. I really don't like what I've seen out of HRC so far, either in terms of policy or in terms of campaign tactics. This is a case in point, in terms of the latter.

Alan wrote on December 3, 2007 6:17 PM:

When Rove coaches Obama you have to ask why. As usual the Obama supporters have no idea what the Repugs will do to Obama. Not all the protection offered by the Left will prevent the attack by the Republican right on Obama. And Rove will be in the background directing the fire. Fellas: Rove is not Obama's friend. He is Obama's nightmare.

I think this analysis is plausible. And as much as I would like it not to be so, there is enough racism in this country to make it a significant factor in the '08 election. And of course they'll make an issue of his middle name. Sure, it's all substance-free, but that's what drives politics, especially on the right.

These guys are terrified of HRC.

That I doubt. They're probably terrified of Edwards, if anybody. And that probably accounts for the deafening silence on Edwards in the monopoly media. I'll take Edwards over Clinton or Obama. Even at that, Edwards isn't my favorite (I need to see him coming out more forcefully in favor of restoring the Constitution and reining in imperial military power.) Restoring the Constitution is Job 1 in my book, and the only people I see talking about that consistently are Kucinich and (I hate to say it, but it's true) Ron Paul.

Jim Martin:

I wouldn't be so quick to raise the specter of racism. Sure, Republicans have proven themselves not the least bit bashful about playing that card in past elections. But I also have to think that any preference they might have for running against Senator Obama, rather than Clinton, probably has as least as much to do with the fact that Obama has won only a single statewide election in his political career and that was against Alan Keyes -- a man who was obviously insane.

eriday-

Exactly!

loki wrote: "All the players on the Miami Dolphins football team are professionals that know what it takes to win. Whether they can pull it off or not is a different story."

-- As I sit here wearing my Dolphins t-shirt (really!), I can't help but think that not having the ability to pull it off renders the knowledge of what it takes to win pretty much meaningless. And who says that all of these campaign staffers know what they need to do and when to do it?