Great resource on Karl Rove's usual tactics

[zulchzulu]

This is a great assessment of Karl Rove's tactics that he further refined from his great leader, Lee Atwater. It shows the playbook Rove uses...hints on how he will try to weasel his way out of his present situation can be seen within this assessment.

--Control your candidate's access to all major donors, thus keeping them firmly in your pocket and in your debt.

--Go negative against your opponent whenever possible, from beginning to end of the campaign, and then really pour it on in the last couple of weeks before the election. Even if not actively in the midst of a campaign, go negative whenever you need to create a distraction from what's really going on.

--Concoct a set of lies about your opponent, of a sexual nature if possible, and then spread those lies by word of mouth through unattributed rumor and innuendo. Enlist others to do your dirty work for you while conducting such whisper campaigns (for example, gullible young conservatives). Be sure to manufacture phony documents, pamphlets, or other written materials to provide evidence, if needed, that appears to back up the lies. Don't ever hesitate to run TV ads that depict fictitious scenarios purportedly involving your opponent, even though they never actually happened.

--Be sure to attack the opponent on whatever seems to be his/her strongest points in terms of his/her public service record, character, and personal life.

--Thwart any possible civil discussion of the issues by deployment of Rove's version of "the stonewall"--respond to any and all communication from others by repeating the same 2 or 3 talking points on what you yourself want to talk about over, and over, and over....and over. Don't worry about whether your talking points actually have anything to do with the topic under discussion.

--While demonizing the opponent, be sure to stir up as much populist resentment as possible amongst the voters, playing on whatever controversies, hates, and fears are local, and specific to the targeted demographic. And "trim" your "media buys" so as to pander to all that emotion, and also to help keep those voters who might vote against you relatively unaware of how really sketchy you are (e.g. don't advertise in Alabama during the Oprah Winfrey show).

--Bug your own campaign headquarters and blame it on the other guy, preferably when there's a debate scheduled that your candidate may do poorly in, so as to distract to maximum effectiveness.

--Print up hate mail about your own candidate, deliver it under cover of darkness to your neighborhoods of choice, and then say the other guy did it.

--If your side loses, cry foul, demand a recount, drag the recount out for as many weeks or months as it takes, and while all that is going on remember to spread lots of lies about all the ways the election was rigged by the other side.

--When reporters print things you don't like, call the offending reporter personally and scream loudly at them.

http://www.adultfyi.com/read.aspx?ID=10559

[SharonAnn]

1. I just read "Means of Ascent" about LBJ, and it looks like he invented

that. It actually made chills run down my spine reading about his tactics in the 1948 Senate campaign against Coke Stevenson, respected former governor and "shoo-in" for the Senate seat.

I thought I was reading about Karl Rove and *. Really!

You've got to read this book.

He controlled the donors, the money, slandered Coke from Day 1 with false accusations (absolutely contrary to the truth - shades of Swift Boat Veterans, etc.), several talking points over and over, lots of media buys, private company airplane flights and subsidies all over the place, etc. The private company was Brown & Root, now known as Halliburton.

Wow, what a mind-blowing book! And so well-written! I can't wait to read the next one, Master of the Senate, about LBJ's days in the Senate.

Honest to God, these are obviously Texas political strategies and one of the Democrats (LBJ) was the first one to use the full panoply of tools.

Karl didn't invent any of this, he's just implementing it all well.

[zulchzulu]

2. Stab in the back Texas politics...winnin' ugly...

I'll have to pick up a copy of "Means of Ascent". Thanks for the tip!