helps him continue it. This is why we Democrats need a vibrant, engaged Populist/Progressive Left to counter these tactics, or we will never win an election again, no matter how many scandals erupt they won't get the the heart of the damage Rove's ideas and practices have done because mainstream established Democrats allowed it to go on and flourish. And they are still at it with Will Marshall, Hillary and Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, Lieberman, Bayh and the rest all marching in lock step. From 2003 New Yorker interview with Rove.
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The Controller: Karl Rove is working to get George Bush reelected, but he has bigger plans.by Nicholas Lemann
"Profiles," The New Yorker Magazine
May 12, 2003
In our last interview, I tried out on Rove a scenario I called "the death of the Democratic Party." The Party has three key funding sources: trial lawyers, Jews, and labor unions. One could systematically disable all three, by passing tort-reform legislation that would cut off the trial lawyers' incomes, by tilting pro-Israel in Middle East policy and thus changing the loyalties of big Jewish contributors, and by trying to shrink the part of the labor force which belongs to the newer, and more Democratic, public-employee unions. And then there are three fundamental services that the Democratic Party is offering to voters: Social Security, Medicare, and public education. Each of these could be peeled away, too: Social Security and Medicare by giving people benefits in the form of individual accounts that they invested in the stock market, and public education by trumping the Democrats on the issue of standards. The Bush Administration has pursued every item on that list. Rove didn't offer any specific objection but, rather, a general caveat that the project might be too ambitious. "Well, I think it's a plausible explanation," he said. "I don't think you ever kill any political party. Political parties kill themselves, or are killed, not by the other political party but by their failure to adapt to new circumstances. But do you weaken a political party, either by turning what they see as assets into liabilities, and/or by taking issues they consider to be theirs, and raiding them?" The thought brought to his round, unlined, guileless face a boyish look of pure delight. "Absolutely!"http://bnfp.org/neighborhood/Lemann_Rove_NYM.htm
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