GOP counts on Rove to head off disaster
Updated 8/21/2006
By Susan Page, David Jackson and Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
....Rove is going back to basics. He and one of his closest political associates, Republican Chairman Ken Mehlman, have centralized control at the Republican National Committee. For the first time, the get-out-the-vote operation for House races has been moved from the National Republican Congressional Committee to the RNC.
They are relying on the so-called Voter Vault, a computer at GOP headquarters loaded with voting history and consumer information that can be used to "micro-target" voters. By analyzing such bits of data as what magazines the members of a household subscribe to, how many children they have, what types of cars they drive and what churches they attend, the program can pinpoint who is most likely to be open to a Republican appeal....
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Karen Finney of the Democratic National Committee says it is "frankly shameful that after leaking the name of a covert CIA operative in a time of war that he still works in the Bush White House with a security clearance and is a featured speaker at events."....While Rove doesn't advise Republican candidates to distance themselves from Bush — quite the opposite — he does sometimes urge them to change the subject, to concentrate on attacking the vulnerabilities of the Democratic candidate who is on the ballot rather than on defending the president.
Rove also urges a no-apologies response to criticism of the war. He portrays the Iraq conflict as part of the war against terrorism and criticism of it as evidence of weakness in defending the nation's security....
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The conventional wisdom held that Bush couldn't win in 2000, that the GOP couldn't pick up congressional seats in 2002, that Bush couldn't be re-elected, Rove has said. Each time, he has noted, the conventional wisdom was wrong....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-20-karl-rove_x.htm