Monday, August 20, 2007

Rove's Reverse Psychology   [John Hood]

Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times speculates here about the possibility that as he heads for the exit door, Karl Rove is using reverse psychology to engineer the nomination of the weakest candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008: Hillary Clinton. Rove has in recent days notably questioned Clinton's electability and legislative record as the senator from New York. Clinton has responded to the bait by remarking on how much negative attention she's getting from Rove, trying to play it as evidence that the GOP is most worried about her — although in reality Rove really does think she's a weak candidate and hopes she gets the nomination.

Sound too intricate to be a real political strategy? Wallsten contends that the Rove-boosts-Hillary gambit is plausible because he did it before:

The ploy was described by Rove lieutenant Matthew Dowd during a postmortem conference on the 2004 election at Harvard University the month after Bush defeated Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when it was not yet clear who Bush's opponent would be that November, Rove and his aides had begun to fear that their most dangerous foe would be then-Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.

With his Southern base, charismatic style and populist message, Edwards, they believed, could be a real threat to Bush's reelection.

But instead of attacking Edwards, Rove's team opened fire at Kerry.

Their thinking went like this, Dowd explained: Democrats, in a knee-jerk reaction to GOP attacks, would rally around Kerry, whom Rove considered a comparatively weak opponent, and make him the party's nominee. Thus Bush would be spared from confronting Edwards, the candidate Republican strategists actually feared most.

Unlike Kerry, who had been in public service for decades, Edwards was a political newcomer and lacked a long record that could be attacked. And, unlike former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who had been the front-runner but whose campaign was collapsing in Iowa, Edwards couldn't easily be painted as "nutty."

No doubt, the Edwards camp will play this theory up in an attempt to eject some energy into its faltering campaign. But I doubt history is repeating itself here. As someone who did indeed think Edwards was the most dangerous potential adversary for Bush in 2004, I am forced to conclude differently now. Back then, Edwards had positioned himself as a moderate on foreign policy and cultural issues, using economic populism to woo the party's Left. Now, he's a full-fledged lefty on virtually everything. Back then, his campaign was savvy and careful. Now, it's gaffe prone. Self-inflicted wounds have done him major damage.

I think Rove and other Republicans are simply getting their jabs in early against Clinton because they fully expect her to be the nominee. Of course, that's what the reverse psychologists would want me to say. . .

08/20 10:57 AMShare