Poll: Karl Rove. evil genius or hopeless incompetant?

OK, so the question is kind of facetious. But I wonder if we have ourselves too intimidated by Rove. So many portraits of him in the press have him painted as some evil Machiavelli, pulling the strings of power and making everyone dance, "Bush's Brain". Many people here quake and shake in their boots at the idea of what "Karl Rove will do to our candidate" once he or she is nominated.

On the other hand (and I'm not advocating we underestimate this guy, who is a student of Nixonian dirty tricks and "ratfucking"), here is a guy who ran the campaign of the son of a relatively popular President, who had the entire press on his side (painting his opponent with every smear while giving his guy a complete pass), who had access to millions and millions of dollars of corporate graft and largess in the campaign, whose candidate had the tacit support of a worldwide war-profiterring machine behind him, and whose opponent helped him by selecting an awful running-mate and running a lackluster campaign

- AND HE STILL LOST.

He still lost the election, both in popular votes overall and in the state of Florida. He lost, with all of those incredible advantages. It took a judicial coup, a putsch, an endrun around democracy, to accomplish what any person of moderate talent should have been able to do in a walk.

I think we can also lay the disastrous "flight suit" photo-op and the nearly-as-disastrous "Thanksgiving-with-poison-Halliburton-turkey" photo-op at Rove's feet as well.

So what do you think? Is this guy really all he wants us to think he is cracked up to be? Or is he better at shooting himself in the foot than we give him credit for?

if Democrats around America has inundated florida the way the republibots did in 2000, KKKarl wouldn't even be a footnote in history at this point. Instead the democrats cowered or in the case of several running for president now, they figured Bush would be easier to beat in 2004 than trying to take the nomination from President Gore.

Yep. Thinking they were all goobs sure did work for Gore. Rove has an encyclopedic knowledge of US politics, trends, and hot buttons. Beating him will be an incredible challenge.

his only real claim to fame was the 2000 Bush campaign where he took a candidate with a 15-20 point lead in the polls to a popular vote loss and only got him in the white house due to Jim Baker and the Supreme Court of the USA.

His main ingredient for success has been luck.

His little "inevitability" ploy (which he falls back on time and time again) almost cost his guy the Presidency when he diverted resources to California and New Jersey in the last week before the 2000 election in an attempt to make the press think they were super-duper-confident of a stunning landslide victory.

If Gore had taken office as he should have, Rove would be an unemployed nobody now, as he deserves.

--Peter

by a long shot. He's basically under educated, and uninformed but endowed by a huge sense of his own abilities.

Rove is hated but respected by nearly every major dem political op--read the articles.

Look, he wants to run against Dean, and if Dean wins it's your job to make him wish he hadn't. He'll kick your ass even worse if you think he's a dope.

What exactly is required to be a political op?

Years of training in the foothill of Tibet?

A huge iq?

Large amounts of dumb luck and being in the right place at the right time?

In my 40 years or so of political involvement I have to vote for the last choice. Hell, some people even call me for advice on their campaigns (usually the dirty tricks portion).

A quick wit and a talent for self promotion is really key to the job.

Hell, you don't even have to win elections to con someone into paying for your services.

Check out the old Robert Redford movie "The Candidate" for a really good depiction of what the reality really is.

Seriously, would you want the folks who show up on FAUX (the WWE of Journalism) and MSNBC cooking your dinner or babysitting your kids? Why think they should have anything to do with the future of our nation?

at things they've done well in the past. One reason is overconfidence. Another is judging a new situation by outdated standards, and not seeing it correctly. Another is by being predictable.

I think Rove will be guilty of all these in the next election. He will score some points, and come up with some clever attacks, but it will not be enough to save Bush.

particularly given that his product is a sow's ear like George W. Bush -- and add his penchant for and willingness to use deception, trickery, threats, and ruthless strong-arm tactics. (Consider, for example, Tom Kean in the last 24 hours.) I think Rove is single-minded and obsessive, with his fingers in every Congressional district and hamlet, and every newsroom, in this country. I consider him an evil genius.