[Peace-discuss] Karl Rove's Campaign Strategy: It's the Terror, Stupid

[patton paul]

Karl Rove's Campaign Strategy: It's the Terror, Stupid
by Francis X. Clines


MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Hailed as the White House's political genius, Karl
Rove was as ebullient and unrevealing as the Great Oz in journeying here
this week for no apparent reason. He seemed to be scouting restlessly for
some Tin Man or Cowardly Lion among the passel of Democrats on the
campaign road that passes through here next winter.

"A complete nerd," Mr. Rove said by way of smiling self-introduction to
political science students at St. Anselm College.

But a canny enough nerd at that. Crowds of political junkies reached to
touch the hem of his garment, but Mr. Rove was no James Carville strewing
raw-meat quotations of Machiavellian cuteness. He amiably disclosed very
little about the president's re-election strategy. Until, that is, a
student asked about the war in Iraq.

"First of all, it's the battle of Iraq, not the war," Mr. Rove carefully
corrected. He went on to describe a far larger and longer war against
terrorism that he sees clearly, perchance fortuitously, stretching well
toward Election Day 2004.

If there were any doubt, Mr. Rove served notice to any and all Democratic
challengers that feeding the aura of a wartime president, which has been
bolstering Mr. Bush's standing in opinion polls by 15 points and more,
would remain his campaigners' first priority across the next 18 months.

He made the Bush strategy clear: It's the terror, not the economy, stupid,
even if the nation is suffering rolling deficits and relentless
unemployment, and despite Mr. Bush's serial tax cuts for the captains of
industry. Democrats may want to talk health care and other economic
issues, but they will have to grapple their way through a patriotic blitz
of a campaign, if Mr. Rove has his red-white-and-blue way. Democrats can
rightly fear an "October surprise" coming color-coded by Tom Ridge next
time around.

"The country has not been hit since 9/11," Mr. Rove took care to note, as
if tracking a new gross domestic product index as he fielded a question
about the civil rights strictures of the Patriot Act.

A few days earlier, the president was rarely mentioned in the opposition's
primary debate in South Carolina, where nine Democrats tacitly conceded
what a difficult target he is right now. When they cited the Iraq war it
was mainly in excoriating one another's positions rather than Mr. Bush's
handling of it. They could be seen struggling to work out believable
critiques of the president's stewardship of homeland security within the
bounds of patriotism and the confines of their long primary trek.

The difficulty of the Democrats' task was exemplified after some party
leaders tried to complain about political crassness in the president's
cheeky performance in fighter pilot regalia at the carrier-deck victory
tableau. Within half a news cycle, analysts turned back on the Democrats
to ask whether they were already slipping into pre-emptive sore losing.

"This is not a country built on envy," Mr. Rove advised. He was speaking
of "confiscatory" federal taxes on the wealthy but offering a remark that
serves well as a larger caution for campaigning Democrats. They can only
watch next year when Mr. Bush carries out a grand Rove strategem and
presides at a Republican renomination convention in the heart of
Democratic New York City. This will be within staging distance of 9/11's
ground zero, site of an earlier memorable scene of Mr. Bush atop the
rubble, exhorting the nation through a bullhorn.

Mr. Rove and the other Bush lieutenants know they cannot afford to be
heavy-handed about the campaign implications of the New York visit. At the
same time, Democrats must grudgingly concede that Mr. Bush is entitled as
president to be leading a commemoration of the nation's continuing grief
within days of his renomination.

Mr. Rove seemed rather pleased at one student's question about whether the
convention was designed to "play off the emotions of 9/11." With obvious
relish, he alleged that it was the Democrats who had schemed too much in
choosing a July convention in order to "booby-trap" the Republicans into a
mid-August date, which would have left them competing for attention with
the Summer Olympics in Athens. The choice of New York as August fades into
September was the checkmate result, Mr. Rove said, not quite gloating but
enjoying the opening call to battle.

Mr. Rove is particularly curious about the Democrats' challenge in terms
of a different sort of war. His true passion in the approaching fray seems
to test fully a pet theory that in the current 50-50 standoff of the
parties, even a narrow G.O.P. incumbency offers a whip-hand opportunity to
secure a long-lasting party dominance. "That's the situation we face, and
we are the governing party," Mr. Rove declared, alerting the students to
what the Democrats already know.