Karl Rove: "in the best light possible, with credibility and integrity"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://weeklywire.com/ww/03-20-00/austin_pols_feature.html

From The Austin Chronicle, March 20, 2000:

The Loyal Lieutenants

Bush Applies Litmus Test of Allegiance in Choosing Inner Circle
By Robert Bryce

Rove's longtime friend Atwater, the man who made Willie Horton famous, swore off such trickery as he slowly died from brain cancer nine years ago. "Mostly," Atwater wrote shortly before his death, "I am sorry for the way I thought of other people." That attitude grew out of Atwater's self-confidence and his realization that he "didn't care what anyone called me so long as we won."

Rove has the same killer quality that Atwater had. He's super-confident, and a bit of a show-off. He loves to recount facts and figures regarding delegates, historical vote counts, and presidential election strategies from the past 100 years. That pedantic style, combined with lots of winning campaigns, has made him, without doubt, the most powerful political consultant in Texas. And although many politicos look to him for guidance, he denies that consultants create an image for a candidate. "That assumes you can fool everybody," he told me during an interview several years ago, "that the masses are asses. People are pretty damn smart. What you've got to do is present your case in the best light possible, with credibility and integrity."

Now that his candidate is heading toward a fight with Gore, Rove is the highest-profile political strategist in America. On Super Tuesday night, Rove was walking on air. Numerous analysts had criticized his hyper-expensive national strategy, which burned through an estimated $64 million. But on March 7, Rove was proven right. His plan -- to organize and develop grassroots campaigns in as many primary states as possible -- worked like a charm. McCain simply couldn't compete with the organization that Rove had established. And two days later, McCain announced that he was suspending his presidential bid.

Now, Rove is in the driver's seat of a campaign that could take him from Austin to the White House. Last year, Rove called Bush "the kind of candidate and officeholder political hacks like me wait for a lifetime to be associated with."

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Since Hitler's dead...

Rove called Bush "the kind of candidate and officeholder political hacks like me wait for a lifetime to be associated with."