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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Oracle’s Debacle (Excellent NYT Bruni piece on KKKarl)
BEFORE election night 2000, when he was riding high as Bushs brain, Karl Rove made Olympian pronouncements about a dawning realignment of the electorate and an enduring age of Republican dominance, masterminded by who else? Karl Rove.
On election night 2012, when he was brought low by Mitt Romneys defeat and the partys miserable showing in Senate races, he went into denial. It was something to see, something that really will endure, that half-hour or so on Fox News, when he insisted on an alternate reality to the one described by NBC and CBS and even his own Fox colleagues, who were calling the election, correctly, for President Obama. Rove would have none of it, and no wonder. It didnt just contradict the statements hed been making for months as a gabby media pundit. It undercut the pose hed been striking for more than a decade as a lofty political prophet.
In his pout and his pique there were lessons. One is that money, which the political groups that he directs spent oodles and oodles of, doesnt trump message or spackle over the cracks in a candidate or candidacy. Another is that reality wont be denied, whether the issue is climate change, which a ludicrous percentage of Republicans at least pretend not to accept, or the countrys diversity, which a self-defeating percentage of them simply ignore.
And yet another is that prophets are people too, blinded by their own self-interest, swayed by their own self-promotion, neither omniscient nor omnipotent. In a political culture that treats its consultants as demigods, this is too often forgotten, by the consultants themselves most of all, and Rove just gave all of us a mesmerizing reminder of that. The oracle suffered a debacle.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/opinion/sunday/bruni-the-oracles-debacle.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Mme. Defarge
(8,040 posts)He is the Wizard of Oz!
Mme. Defarge
(8,040 posts)The road he zoomed down in 2012 was toward a potentially diminished place in his party, and Goddangit, baby, he was making good time indeed.