Karl Rove Gives TSCRA Insight
Into Changes In U.S. Politics
By Colleen Schreiber
CORPUS CHRISTI — The hottest ticket at the recent Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers annual convention was a keynote given by political strategist Karl Rove, former deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000-2007.
Rove, who spoke at the political action committee dinner, offered some thoughts on the changes in American politics. First, however, he received a loud round of approval when he informed TSCRA members that he was the only person in the District of Columbia who has a blue and white TSCRA sign on his fence. He also recognized the Armstrong family and talked briefly about his long association with Tobin and Anne Armstrong and their children.
Rove noted that there have been tremendous changes in modern American politics, but he focused on the impact of the computer.
He noted that when he started his business in Austin in 1981, the computer he thought he needed to have to be on the cutting edge cost him $250,000. It was massive. Back in that era, faxing was the way to get information, and even then it wasn’t direct.
“When you wanted to fax someone, you took it to Fed Ex and they faxed it to some other Fed Ex and then it was hand-delivered from there,” Rove said.
Then along came the Internet and the microchip, two inventions that, as Rove noted, “changed politics forever.”
He talked about how during the Vietnam War a film crew would film something in the field, take it to the airport and send it by air to San Francisco or New York, so the film shown on TV was two or three days old. Then along came the video camera, which made same-day processing possible.
“Now we’re in the YouTube era. Anyone can buy a video camera and a laptop computer and edit on the computer a television ad and put it up on the Internet. Now everyone’s a filmmaker.
“Last year, in less than half an hour for $15, a young person made a 72-second commercial mocking and ridiculing Hillary Clinton. That one ad, made for the cost of $15, has now been seen by 4,821,066 viewers,” Rove said.
“Digital technology and the microchip processor are literally changing the face of politics as we speak. It has democratized politics in a very powerful way.”
Today’s culture, he added, is increasingly visual.
“Issues and events that are verbal or written are nowhere near as powerful as those that become visual, and we’re watching an example right now.”
He was referring to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright incident, which had just broken a day or two prior. Reverend Wright, he pointed out, had given interviews to the Chicago Tribune and the Sun Times; he even did an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, but the press did not treat it seriously until someone “went to the Trinity Church gift shop and bought a collection of videotapes of his speeches and tapes and pulled out parts of them and put them up on the Internet on YouTube.
“Suddenly, it goes from being something that is sterile and passive on a piece of paper to something on television that people can see, and America learns something about a man filled with hate and anger … someone who makes comments like we’re the United States of KKK, or that AIDS and crack cocaine are plots by the government of the U.S. to subjugate black people, or that on 9-11 we got what we deserve because of our policies in the Middle East. He’s said these things repeatedly over a period of 30 years, but it’s only when they get in a place where people can see them, not read them, that it becomes powerful,” Rove pointed out.
The microchip, Rove noted, has also substantially sped up the time in which “news” is broadcast to the world. Again, he used the incident with Wright to make his point.
“Smart politicians understand the speed with which the Internet moves. The story pops on Thursday and on Friday Senator Obama goes on four cable programs in order to deny it and posts on the Internet an eight-paragraph statement in which he says ‘The statements that Reverend Wright made which are the cause of this controversy were not statements that I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews at Trinity or heard him utter in a private conversation.’ That statement is an opening which I think could be an explosive chapter in this campaign,” he opined.
He described the 2000 campaign as “a leisurely jaunt in the park” compared to present-day politics and the speed with which a political race moves, particularly a presidential race.
“It’s at an almost unmanageable speed,” he told listeners, “and it’s because of the increasing impact of the Internet.”
And while the Internet and the microchip have “democratized” politics, Rove also pointed out that in times like these, people often lose track of what he defined as “effective politics.”
“The effective essence of American politics was described in a short letter written in 1845 by a lanky lawyer who advised, ‘Make a perfect list of the voters, ascertain with certainty for whom they will vote, and have undecideds talked to by someone they hold in confidence, and on election day make sure that every Whig is brought to the polls.’
“That lanky lawyer was a pretty good politician and went on to become our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. I’ve always thought that he got it exactly right. The most important component is number three — have the undecideds talked to by someone they hold in confidence.”
Rove pointed out that there are a lot of undecided people in the country today.
“This year we will be fortunate if six out of every 10 Americans turn out and vote. We have people who are undecided about registering to vote. Then we have people who are undecided about voting even if they are registered before, we even get to those who are undecided about who they’re going to vote for,” he told listeners.
He encouraged TSCRA members to get involved in the political process.
“You better be worried about power, because fewer and fewer Americans are living in rural America and paying attention to issues that affect rural America,” he warned.
“You have a social network. If you take advantage of your social network, you can be awfully powerful. You’re more powerful if you work together; you’re more powerful if you pool your money; you’re more powerful if you seek allies; and you are more powerful if you figure out how to amplify your influence by drawing on your social networks,” Rove told listeners.
Though things are changing rapidly in American politics, Rove assured listeners that despite the negativity in the “blogosphere,” a couple of key things still remain — one is the good common sense of the American people.
Finally, the political strategist told TSCRA members that this particular election is one worth getting “wired up about.”
“There are big things up for grabs — the future of the economy, the future of our health care system, most important of all, whether we’re going to decide to win or lose in the first battle of the 21st century that could well shape the nature of this young century.
“The one thing that will happen is we will have an election, and when it’s finished, we’ll have a transition of power and the country will go on … and we’ll move forward, and we’ll move forward because we are America. I saw a lot of things when I was in Washington, but the one thing I learned for sure is the greatness of our country.”
He closed with a story that signified that greatness. The story he related occurred during his final week at the White House, and it had to do with another of the private meetings that President Bush had with some of the families who have lost loved ones in Iraq or Afghanistan.
“All these meetings are done in private, and always after an event, never before an event, because the President always said he never wanted to have to say ‘I’ve got to go.’ They have to be staffed by the chief of staff and the deputy chief of staff. I’ve done a lot of these meetings. They’re tough,” Rove said.
“When the 101st came home from Afghanistan, there were 55 families at Fort Campbell that we had to go talk to.
“We were at group number 10. We meet this bright, sharp Marine second lieutenant and his mom and dad. His brother, Sgt. David R. Christoff, was killed in May 2006 in Anbar Province, Iraq.
“Mom started talking. I’ve been around world leaders, I’ve been around members of Congress, but I’ve rarely seen an individual with as much power and bearing and clarity as this woman,” Rove told listeners. “She started talking about her boys and how proud she was of her sons. How the older one had enlisted and nine months later the younger brother joined Marine ROTC. She talked about the e-mail messages and the phone calls from her son, including the last one she got. She talked about how passionate he was about the mission and how he believed in it, and she talked about how she believed in winning the Iraq and what the consequences would be for our country and her children and the grandchildren she hoped to have if she lost.
“And the whole time she’s talking, the husband isn’t saying anything. And I’ve been to enough of these meetings to know that there are deeply conflicting emotions … and if you’re not talking, it’s generally because you’re mad. Finally, the meeting comes to a close and the President asks if there is anything he can do for them. Finally, the husband, the father, speaks. He tells the President he’s an orthopedic surgeon and a pretty good one, and when his boy goes into combat in March, he said he wanted to be in the Marine medical reserve and as close to the front lines as he could get. He was 61 and they wouldn’t let him into the Marines unless he could get a waiver. The president says, ‘Talk to Rove.’
“So we exchanged business cards. The next day I got him to fax his credentials. He is Columbia Medical School, the best surgeon in Northern Nevada, and this guy wants to go into the Marines.”
With his help, this father, who had already lost one son and had another son on the way to Iraq, got that waiver. Three weeks later Rove received a phone call asking him to come to his swearing in to the United States Marine Corps Reserve.
“One of the last things I did on my last day in Washington was I wrote Bill a letter telling him how inspiring he was to me. I came home to Texas ... and that night I realized that I had written the wrong person. I realized that I also needed to write a letter to the mother telling her how inspired I was to meet her. Think about it — she lost her boy, she had her second going into combat, and her husband decides to go through Marine basic training.
“Two weeks ago I got a letter from Bill saying he got his orders. They were sending him to Africa, and then he said when he finished there he hoped to finagle his way to Iraq. His son was about to be deployed to Iraq.
“Whenever you start getting worried about America, think about people like the Christoffs,” Rove said. “There are lots of people like them … and as long as we keep producing them, we’re going to remain what we are, which is the greatest nation on the face of the earth.”
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