"Karl Rove’s 12-Step Program to Dry-Drunk Power: A Primer"
The title of this piece is not a joke. The subject of this piece is not a joke, either. What I offer here is merely a reader’s digest of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, by James Moore and Wayne Slater.
First things first, even if a trifle fussy: Rove didn’t make Bush “presidential” as the book’s title suggests -- he made him president. That’s all. The road to becoming presidential rather than president would have had to start somewhere deep inside Bush years and years ago, and that just never happened. Too many parties; too little curiosity; way, way too much egotistical indulgence in royal entitlement to ever permit the emotional and intellectual growth incumbent on anyone aspiring to be president in the sense of the word we all grew up with.
No, Bush was simply programmed, packaged and promoted as a leader, by none other, of course, than Karl Rove. Yet after all this time there still seems to be a mystery surrounding Rove, an enduring question mark of how he managed to do so much with so little. So for those who haven’t read the book and are curious, or, especially for those wanting to run for office or wanting to help an ideological compatriot run and would like a primer on how to succeed in politics, I give you this from Rove’s career, right from the book, point by point. No joke.
I’ve numbered the brief notes I took when reading it some time ago and have added when necessary a clarifying word or two, as memory served.
1. Use surrogates to attack your opponent. Never let your guy (or yourself, if you happen to be running) rip into the other guy. Find some lackey who’s more than willing to get vicious ugly for you. Your guy will look like a disinterested prince.
2. Leak harmful information. This is pretty much your basic opposition-research stuff. But leak it; don’t announce it. And certainly it helps to develop friendly relations with journalists of a whorish bent. Devastating information on your opponent isn’t worth much if you can’t get the word out.
3. Turn rumor into fact. Better yet, start a rumor about your opponent and use the media whores with whom you’ve developed a good relationship to hammer away at whatever you’ve invented. Before long everyone will at least assume that where there’s smoke there’s fire.
4. Use well-organized 3rd-party groups to make allegations. This is closely related to #3. In short, if you can find a Swift-Boat kind of outfit to go libelous on your behalf, do it. Also see #1 – surrogates and the disinterested prince.
5. Funnel money to a 3rd-party candidate similar in ideology to your opponent’s to dilute your opponent’s vote. Self-explanatory.
6. Use ties to law enforcement to launch bogus investigations against your opponent. You’ll need to be comfortably in bed with a high-powered D.A., though, so this tactic isn’t for the chronically un-empowered. You also can’t harbor any compunctions about bankrupting an innocent person through legal expenses or even sending him to jail and destroying his family. This is rather big-league stuff, and not for the squeamish.
7. Associate your guy’s political positions with God and flag. Be creative. If needed, rewatch Animal House for inspiration, the part in which Otter defends his incredibly guilty pals before a college court in a rip-roaring burst of offended patriotism. It can be done.
8. Always position your opponent as an agent of the status quo, your guy as the candidate for change. Self-explanatory.
9. Build your messages on what the public already believes in. Closely related to #7. Don’t ever try to introduce the electorate to something unfamiliar or convince it of something new. Another angle is to play on preexisting prejudices. If the public hates freckled people, your guy hates freckled people. Always has.
10. “Explaining is losing.” This is the only direct quote I’ve lifted from the book, because it is key, absolutely critical. If your guy has to explain anything – his policies, his past, anything – then your guy is playing a losing game. Voters in general don’t want to be burdened with policy details and candidates certainly don’t want to get mired in personal explanations. Just forget explaining anything -- anything at all -- and move on. It’ll work. You’ll be amazed.
11. Use push polling. Again, this is high-powered stuff for the monied pros. Don’t call registered voters and ask if they like so-and-so’s position on something. Call and ask if they like the satanic plan your Illuminati opponent wants to shove through Congress should he get there with all his corrupt campaign cash. You get the poll results you want, and better yet, you leave the right impression of your opponent in the minds of the questioned.
12. Pick off special-interest support for your opponent. In other words, be a hypocritical flip-flopper like all get out (and don’t bother explaining it). Bush’s decision before the 2004 campaign on erecting steel tariffs is an excellent example.
So there’s your primer, in no targeted order of importance. The other side already knows all this stuff and uses it. Now get out there and do the same. This is America.
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