A few days ago, Karl Rove wrote about the importance of organization, and pretty much lays out all the points that I've made over the past few months about the problems both Obama and McCain face.  I had wanted to write about it, but I was waiting for the right time to do so. 

Rove points out that while Barack has a powerful political machine, his demographic problems are going to be difficult to overcome, his machine is made up of volunteers from demographics that are traditionally viewed with suspicion or even hostility by blue collar and rural voters, and in my experience, this high level of distrust has been well earned. It will also prove to be very difficult to overcome, because these voters can make or break a Democrat candidate.

Likewise, as I've warned McCainiacs and GOP or Bust'ers, Maverick's insistence on fragging his own side is going to cost him dearly, it is already, and will only get worse as he continues to play Maverick.  Likewise McCain's problem is demographics, because he's pissing off conservatives as a demographic, and while many are gonna go vote for him, they aren't going to work the phones, donate, put up signs and knock on doors.  McCain has next to nothing in terms of his political machine, and every time he plays Maverick, he's sapping the walls of his own castle. 

Rove thinks McCain has to try and build a patchwork of machinery made up of "veterans, Catholics, Latinos, small business people, evangelicals and women in key states" to try and compensate for his pitiful machine.  I think Rove is nuts on this point.  I think McCain making a few concessions to conservatives, and keeping his big fat mouth shut and think before he lobs that rhetorical grenade at our movement would help him immensely.  Sure, it isn't going to be enough for a lot of conservatives, but it'll keep him from seeing his organization completely collapse around his ears from lack of support.  He isn't going to come even close to making up his shortfall with his new voters. 

Of course as I understand it, Rove was the same one who thought the GOP could buy Latino voters with Amnesty and old people with the prescription drug plan, we learned that it doesn't work with the latter and managed to stop the massive damage the GOP and Democrats were planning on doing with the former.  My one gripe with Rove is he seems to have a fixation on taking unnecessary risks to draw in new demographics, sometimes with ideas that are outright destructive and decidedly not conservative, and these harebrained scemes often have disastrous results, that are not only a tactical disaster for the GOP, but bad for the nation as well.

Karl at PW also offers some criticism of Rove, particularly his overconfidence in the old machinery that Rove and the GOP assembled in 2004.  Rove doesn't think the Democrats have caught up, Karl at PW thinks Rove is being way to cocky about this. Be sure to check out the rest of Karl's piece, it's good, as most of his analysis is.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 05:19 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 529 words, total size 4 kb.