Karl Rove--Running the McCain 'Change'
A Maverick Act With Limits Sebastian Mallaby (excerpt) The Fannie-Freddie bailout has allowed the McCain campaign to press its newfound advantage as the change ticket. Not so long ago, you will recall, it was Barack Obama who promised to shake up Washington. But with his convention speech, Obama reinvented himself as a more conventional Democratic standard-bearer, leaving McCain and his effective running mate to press their maverick credential ________________________________________________________________ Here we are again, with the John McCain 'change' people using the same old Karl Rove who built the government we hunger so much to change. Karl has a drumbeat to which his candidates march--and it is this:
Don't go for a competing candidate's weaknesses. Everyone already knows their weak points. Go instead for their strengths--repeat them tirelessly as your own--ultimately you will make them your own.
Thus John McCain, the most stalwart of the unchanged Bush supporters and the man who would keep us for 50 years in Iraq, make permanent Bush's tax giveaways, wants to drill everywhere possible, numbers the major lobbyists among his top supporters, panders to the religious right and in all ways proves his arms around Bush photo as being prescient--that man has styled himself as a man of change. The Obama theme co-opted. The agent of that co-option, none other than George Bush's campaign manager and personal 'turd blossom,' Karl Rove.