FreeEnglishman
Member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
- Messages
- 19
I won't pollute the boards by linking them, but RedState and some other neo-con warfarist sites have been highlighting a (supposedly RP-fan created) video casting Huntsman as a "Manchurian candidate" for adopting Chinese kids, speaking Chinese, etc. etc. This, of course, proves that RP is a racist, his supporters are racists, and that not wanting to bomb foreigners is racist.
People have already asked some important questions, such as:
1. Why are sites like RedState highlighting an obscure YouTube video which was not created by RP's campaign, any of the superPACs supporting him, or anyone of any note at all (the YT user's real name is unknown, and he/she has posted no other videos)?
2. Who brought it to these sites' attention?
3. Why would a genuine RP fan bother going after a fringe candidate like Huntsman, whose quixotic campaign shows few signs of coming to life and whose tiny pool of vocal supporters hardly constitute a threat to RP or any of the other frontrunners in the primaries?
I think those considerations make it clear that RP doesn't benefit from this behavior. So who does? Well, people might find it instructive to read this piece, written in 2004, on Karl Rove's election tactics. The most important part:
Fortunately, it seems that even if Hunt or those close to him are morally compromised enough to be willing to resort to such tactics, the competence which characterized Rove's operations is lacking. Nonetheless, I think it important to be aware how these things work, and to think about how they can be countered effectively.
People have already asked some important questions, such as:
1. Why are sites like RedState highlighting an obscure YouTube video which was not created by RP's campaign, any of the superPACs supporting him, or anyone of any note at all (the YT user's real name is unknown, and he/she has posted no other videos)?
2. Who brought it to these sites' attention?
3. Why would a genuine RP fan bother going after a fringe candidate like Huntsman, whose quixotic campaign shows few signs of coming to life and whose tiny pool of vocal supporters hardly constitute a threat to RP or any of the other frontrunners in the primaries?
I think those considerations make it clear that RP doesn't benefit from this behavior. So who does? Well, people might find it instructive to read this piece, written in 2004, on Karl Rove's election tactics. The most important part:
How Rove has conducted himself while winning campaigns is a subject of no small controversy in political circles. It is frequently said of him, in hushed tones when political folks are doing the talking, that he leaves a trail of damage in his wake—a reference to the substantial number of people who have been hurt, politically and personally, through their encounters with him. Rove's reputation for winning is eclipsed only by his reputation for ruthlessness, and examples abound of his apparent willingness to cross moral and ethical lines.
In the opening pages of Bush's Brain, Wayne Slater describes an encounter with Rove while covering the 2000 campaign for the Dallas Morning News. Slater had written an article for that day's paper detailing Rove's history of dirty tricks, including a 1973 conference he had organized for young Republicans on how to orchestrate them. Rove was furious. "You're trying to ruin me!" Slater recalls him shouting. The anecdote points up one of the paradoxes of Rove's career. Articles like Slater's are surprisingly few, yet as I interviewed people who knew Rove, they brought up examples of unscrupulous tactics—some of them breathtaking—as a matter of course.
A typical instance occurred in the hard-fought 1996 race for a seat on the Alabama Supreme Court between Rove's client, Harold See, then a University of Alabama law professor, and the Democratic incumbent, Kenneth Ingram. According to someone who worked for him, Rove, dissatisfied with the campaign's progress, had flyers printed up—absent any trace of who was behind them—viciously attacking See and his family. "We were trying to craft a message to reach some of the blue-collar, lower-middle-class people," the staffer says. "You'd roll it up, put a rubber band around it, and paperboy it at houses late at night. I was told, 'Do not hand it to anybody, do not tell anybody who you're with, and if you can, borrow a car that doesn't have your tags.' So I borrowed a buddy's car [and drove] down the middle of the street … I had Hefty bags stuffed full of these rolled-up pamphlets, and I'd cruise the designated neighborhoods, throwing these things out with both hands and literally driving with my knees." The ploy left Rove's opponent at a loss. Ingram's staff realized that it would be fruitless to try to persuade the public that the See campaign was attacking its own candidate in order "to create a backlash against the Democrat," as Joe Perkins, who worked for Ingram, put it to me. Presumably the public would believe that Democrats were spreading terrible rumors about See and his family. "They just beat you down to your knees," Ingram said of being on the receiving end of Rove's attacks. See won the race.
Fortunately, it seems that even if Hunt or those close to him are morally compromised enough to be willing to resort to such tactics, the competence which characterized Rove's operations is lacking. Nonetheless, I think it important to be aware how these things work, and to think about how they can be countered effectively.