Karl Rove Was Feeding the Romneys False Hope on Election Night

[DonViejo]

ELSPETH REEVE 12:10 PM ET

The Romneys clung to the belief that they could still win Ohio — and the White House — late into election night, even though exit polls across the country showed they were toast, as public polls had shown the week before. Karl Rove, too, refused to believe Ohio was lost, even after Fox News' own decision desk called the state for President Obama. Whose fault is that? The old story, reported right after the election, was that Rove was relaying the concerns of the Romney campaign on-air that night. But on Thursday, Ann Romney gave her first solo post-election interview to CBS This Morning, and she said it was Rove who'd been calling them that night, reassuring the Romneys they could still win. "About 6 o'clock we started getting a little worried," Romney said. "Exit polls weren't terrific and at about 8 o'clock the panic button was pressed." But a flicker of hope remained, she said, because of a certain Fox pundit.

Gayle King: Even that night weren't people still saying, 'Hang in there, hang in there, it's not over yet'?"

Romney: Yes.

King: Who was saying that?

Romney: Karl Rove.

King: What'd he say?

Romney: He's like, 'Don't give up, don't give up. We're gonna win Ohio. And, you know, it's gonna turn around.' And things just didn't follow the way we thought it was going to happen."

full article + video:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/05/ann-romney-karl-rove-election-night/65728/

[leftynyc]

1. Tee hee

I'm thrilled to know they had their hopes up and then crushed that night. It's what happens when you live a bubble.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Anyone who listens to Rove is delusional.

And they already were.

[Mr Samuel Hain]

23. I think Rove listens to Rove, too

[CaliforniaPeggy]

24. Ah, you're probably right!

Welcome to DU, Mr Samuel Hain!

[Mr Samuel Hain]

25. Sam

Sam Hain was apparently taken, so I popped the "Mr" in.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

26. OK...so I can call you Sam?

My friends call me Peggy or Peg....

[Mr Samuel Hain]

29. Absolutely, Peggy!

My full name is Samuel Richard Haynes, but, being a Wiccan, my choice of username was easy! But I've always gone by just Sam: Even my mother didn't call me Samuel, or even Sammy!

[Mr Samuel Hain]

48. PS: As a newb, I'm reluctant to post this

Patrick Stewart delivers an excellent response to issues of domestic violence. It gets really intense at the 5:44 mark. Perhaps you, as an established member of the DU community, could post this in the V&M forum, after reviewing it, of course.

[samsingh]

28. i would say that rove and his minions did everything to steal, suppress

and manipulate the vote but came up short. that's how bad Romney really did. with all the cheating he still lost.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. Rove had Ohio rigged like in 2004

But something didn't work this time.

Anonymous?

[TlalocW]

17. I agree - something was planned

For whatever reason - possibly what they were going to do couldn't be convincingly pulled off because of the numbers coming out of Ohio - they didn't pull the trigger, or someone who was supposed to do something got cold feet.

TlalocW

[TheDebbieDee]

27. Early on election day, in Pennsylvania, I think.....

someone videoed their voting machine flipping to Romney after selecting Obama. This person posted the video to Youtube.com where it was downloaded several thousand times.

I too, believe the would be election-stealers in Ohio got spooked - or paranoid, and changed their minds about doing the deed......or maybe they were undercover OBAMA supporters!

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

32. Or, what really happened was that the precincts were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of voters

that even if they got away with stealing a good portion of votes, it wasn't enough to overcome the tsunami of Obama enthusiasts.

The Romneys were overly confident on Election Day. When they traveled to PA over the weekend, Queen Ann did cry. She looked defeated. He looked tired.

But something happened to them the day before and the day of: they became cocky as if they knew something was up with the voting. Somehow, someone or a few people (Dick Morris included) convinced that they would win, even though Romney's own internal pollsters had them losing OH by 5 points.

[blm]

20. Anonymous kept an eye on Rove and Ohio that election day, didn't they?

.

[Zen Democrat]

31. Anonymous warned Rove that his computer fraud wouldn't work again.

[Yavin4]

40. When Obama won Virginia, he no longer needed Ohio to win. Why risk jail time for a lost cause? n/t

[Rosa Luxemburg]

44. someone else must have beaten Rove at his own game

[MADem]

4. Who knew "false hope" was a synonym for "unadulterated bullshit?" nt

[DonViejo]

7. LOL MADem! Good one!

[DCBob]

5. There were rumors that Rove had a scheme in place to steal votes in OH.

Apparently that scheme went awry. I dont remember the details but there was discussion of it here on DU back then.

[upaloopa]

9. That's what I think. I would like to know what went wrong.

Rove was so sure Romney would win Ohio it almost proves he thought he had it stolen.

[southernyankeebelle]

6. I think Rove had it fixed like in 2000 for Romney to win. But maybe a hacker smarter than

him realized what was going on and made sure he wouldn't steal the election again. Of course Rove would be shocked because in the end he wasn't able to get the fix in.

[leftyohiolib]

10. there was an announcement from anonymous that said they (anon) found tunnels for rats and had them

closed. tunnels prbably meant ports - rats some kind of remote access terminal

[southernyankeebelle]

15. they need to go back to paper ballots. I figured that there really was an anonymous

group and they did the right thing.

[maidensandiego]

8. They got RODE....by Carl "The Con" ROGUE !

What's the old song "Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers!" This is what they sounded like during the campaign and the nite they're asses were TAKEN DOWN "Wahhhhh.....Wahhhhh....Wahhhh. Whyyyyyy us... Ol Lord of KOLOB....why us ?! hahahaha Those 2 idiots and their FOOTBALL FRANCHISE [cause they got about 500 people in their Family] got EVERYTHING they deserved.....NOTHING !!!!!!!.

[Shrike47]

11. I agree that Rove thought the fix was in like 2004.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

12. KKKarl Rove made the Romneys think that they were going to win in a LANDSLIDE!!

It wasn't just about Ohio. That is a false narrative that the corproate media continues to feed us. It was never just about Ohio.

First, Obama didn't necessarily need to win Ohio; he had many other scenarios that could've played out that would've helped him win without Ohio.

Second, Romney DID need Ohio to give him a modicum of a chance.

Third and most important: It was NEVER just about Ohio!! Romney needed to win ALL of the competitive states! All of them. That's why the Obama camp told everyone to go to bed by 11:00. Once Romney started losing the competitive states, the election was over. People were freaking out that night because the other states weren't call. But again, once Romney lost PA and then WI and CO, it was over.

I'm so frustrated by this corporate own media and how they continue to push right wing narratives.

Mr. Romney was going to lose. Period! And he was going to lose not only because he couldn't win Ohio, but because he WOULD NOT win PA, CO, VA, WI, and all the rest of the competitive states accept for NC. It didn't matter! He needed to win ALL of them!! ALL!!!

[agentS]

57. That was quite true. R-Money was toast before election day.

I recall reading on this board or another board just before the election that R-Money needed to 'draw an inside straight' (a poker phrase).
Just winning NC or VA would not have swung voters in OH or WI, and he needed all 4 to stand a chance.
Obama just had too many EVs "in the bank" (Cali and the NW, NY and the NE) and R-Money had too few (Texas, the Plains and the South) EVs in the bank.

I don't know what Rove was smoking, but Romney should have known better as a businessman and former politician.

[callous taoboy]

13. Wave of euphoria rushed over me. Thanks for the memory!

That night was almost as good as sex.

[hrmjustin]

14. Got through the first 2 minute of the video an then she went off on the bull scandals and

I was reminded why I do not like her.

[dmr]

34. "you people" just don't know "how hard it is" .....

And to think she had her hair all done up that night, too.

[geek tragedy]

37. "Stop it!" nt

[hrmjustin]

38. LOL

[get the red out]

16. Sociopath

Rove doesn't care who he figuratively punches in the stomach. LOL. Romney = SUCKER!

[thelordofhell]

18. This was the ONLY reason to watch foxnews on election night..........Rove meltdown

[deminks]

19. KKKarl had plans for someone to pull the switch in Ohio, only that someone did not pull the switch.

Either they decided not to pull it because of all the scrutiny, or they pulled it and nothing happened.

IMHO.

[waterwatcher123]

21. Anonymous Saved the Election

Karl Rove was feeding Romney false hope because he had the election fixed. I happened to be on the Ohio Secretary of State's web site when he had his well publicized melt down. Well, the election results web page went down at exactly the same time. I checked the Huff Post and found that Obama's 3% lead vanished (which I assume was linked to the Ohio web site). Later, when Ohio Secretary of State restored the elections web site, the numbers on both their site and the Huff Post reflected the same 3% Obama lead. I was on the Ohio site taking screen shots because this scenario was all too predictable. You would think that some entity trying to fix an election would have figured out that it is easier to "adjust all along", rather than to meddle with the results at the end.

This is a more sophisticated version of what transpired in Ohio in 2004. The Republicans have and will continue to try to win elections the old fashioned way - by theft. Our political leaders and the public simply have no clue how easy it is to hack these machines, to fix the code and to simply alter the results enough to tip the scales in a few select and unsuspecting locations (Democratic leaning areas would be good places). I just hope that we have a benevolent group of hackers that understand to prevent is much easier than to demonstrate fraud after-the-fact (one only needs to look at the 2004 presidential election as an example).

[Cha]

33. Interesting, waterwatcher!

Welcome to DU

[Rozlee]

42. Huh.

Interesting observation. And we owe Anon big if they stepped in. Welcome to DU!

[TxDemChem]

22. The entire Romney campaign and election fail

Remind me of the expression, "Arrogance can make you stupid." Even in the face of evidence, they all believed he really could win. Horrible people.

[Kber]

30. Ah - good times!

That was a good 5 minutes of TeeVee.

[Cha]

35. I thought mittload needed more than Ohio of the Swing states.. to "win"

on election night?

thanks DonViejo

[unblock]

52. the theory is his people in ohio bailed on the planned cheat once they realized they needed more

[Cha]

55. Once they got the bright revelation that they should have paid

more attention to Nate Silver and less to fox screws.

So sad.. all those brainwashed foxtruthers thought they had themselves another pretzeldent.

[notadmblnd]

36. KKKKarl thouht he had another steal in the bag

Somebody sure fooled him.

[Arkana]

39. Is it at all possible that Karl Rove is just kinda stupid and bought into

all the bullshit just like the teabaggers did? I mean, Occam's Razor would suggest that, right? It certainly wouldn't go to "HE'S HAXORED THE ELECTION, HEAD FOR THE LIFEBOATS".

[UCmeNdc]

41. It is still strange how all of the election counting computers went down in OH

It is strange how they route the vote Tally out of state.

[Jennicut]

43. Did he fail to steal it for them? Or was he just that stupid?

Also, love that it was an interview with Gayle King. She was a local anchor here in Connecticut for years. I always think of her as that then Oprah's best buddy.

[The Time is Now]

45. For all of you Scandal fans out there...

One word:

DEFIANCE!

(For all of you non Scandal fans out there, Defiance is a town - in Ohio! - that was said to be the scene of voting machine vote flipping that put the fictional Republican candidate over the top to win the presidential election.)

[davidpdx]

47. I watch Scandal and love the show

But remember until proven it is a CT. I'm not saying it isn't possible. It could be that if Romney had flipped some states doing much better than the polling that Rove had a plan to fix Ohio (and maybe Florida) to put Romney over the 270 EVs needed to win. We just don't know though. Obviously neither would have mattered because without them Obama still would have won.

In terms of Scandal (and I know this is off-topic so I'm sorry I'll never do this again ), I'm still waiting to see when that part of the story ripens. I can't believe Olivia is back with that pinhead.

[davidpdx]

46. This just proves what idiots the Romney's are

Anyone that listens to that fat bastard isn't that bright.

[Blue Owl]

50. The cheating fuck

Toss that ham in the klink.

[narnian60]

51. I am still bitter about this

because I was switching to different channels on election night and when Obama's victory was announced I happened to be on Fox & got so hung up on what was going on with Rove & his nonsense I didn't celebrate like I should have until even Fox said it was over. Never again!

[Sunlei]

54. election night? they strung the scissorhands along for years

[Parable Arable]

56. To celebrate Romney's failure to steal Ohio, I played this track on election night..