No Democrat Presidential Candidate, no Democrat President ever did that, before His Satanic Majesty, Mr Rove. Right?

B

Not at all. I was complimenting you. Fewer words are always better.

"ever"? I don't know. I've only been paying attention since about 1980 when my candidate, John Anderson, lost to Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was known by friends and foes alike for saying things that weren't quite factual. His friends laughed it off as if he wasn't a detail guy or some such. Well (as Reagan used to say), someone who worked with him, it might have been GHWB, admitted that they weren't always so worried about his false statements. They helped him get his points across and then he got Brownie points for issuing a correction a day or so later. Of course, the false statement was on the evening news and the correction got buried at the back of Section A in the paper. It was a sweet deal, painless for the ol' Gipper.

Rove has taken Reagan's strategy and elevated to a level that I've never seen. Maybe the Democrats would like to play Rove's game, but it's like a Little League team trying to play the New York Yankees. The Dems are not in Rove's league.

And I'm not saying that Rove's success is due entirely to deception. He and Bush are definitely in touch with the voters. That's why I smiled when I heard talking heads the last few days say that Bush made a mistake by expressing confidence in Rumsfeld and Cheney right before the election. That decision seems like it should hurt them at the polls, but for some reason I will never understand, I'll bet anything that it helps them. When it comes to connecting with the voters, Rove and W take a back seat to nobody.

There's hardball and there's dirtly tricks. Rove cut his teeth with Nixon's hatchet man, I forget his name.

This business about repeated robo-calls that sound for the first few sentences like they came from a demo that the Repo cong. campaign people are trying to 'attack ad' on is particularly sleezy.

Honesty is the best policy. I think Pelosi will run a much cleaner house than the house the DeLay built.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Lyndon Johnson. The trickmeister. Of course the pickings are lean since the Demos have had limited success since Roosevelt (who was no slouch when it came to manipulating).

B