Matthew Dowd, Democrat who switched loyalties to Bush, now says Kerry was right.

ProSense

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Sat Mar-31-07 02:36 PM
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Matthew Dowd, Democrat who switched loyalties to Bush, now says Kerry was right.

Edited on Sat Mar-31-07 02:52 PM by ProSense

Ex-Aide Details a Loss of Faith in the President

By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: April 1, 2007

AUSTIN, Tex., March 29 � In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush�s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush�s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president�s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush�s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a �my way or the highway� mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

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Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled �Kerry Was Right,� arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

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In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd�s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.

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Background:

And at that time, it's interesting, Karl had already put together much of the core team that has carried Bush in 2000 and again in 2004. He had Matt Dowd on board in 1998 for the gubernatorial campaign, and he had Mark McKinnon on board. Next year Ken Mehlman will join, basically in Texas, three of what really is about a five-member triumvirate who are already there. And right after the 1998 election, his key fund-raiser types already are meeting.

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Where Karl has shown real skill is finding those people of money and as political strategists. Those two categories of people, he has been very good. There's a whole elite that has now come up with Karl that wasn't there in Washington six years ago. You have a guy named Tony Feather, who was the political director of the 2000 campaign. He is now a major direct mail voter-contact specialist. You've got Matt Dowd, who was a Texas Democrat in 1994, who is now probably the most respected polling and media strategist. You have Mark McKinnon, who was also a Texas Democrat and had actually worked for Ann Richards in 1994, who is now a major player who could put together himself this group called Maverick Media, a 12-member consortium of consultants, political and Madison Avenue, to basically do the Bush campaign. These guys, all of them -- Ken Mehlman, who's now head of the RNC -- these guys have moved up, and they are all Karl Rove prot�g�s.

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More here and here.[br />

Edited to add: How the hell can someone (Mark McKinnon) who worked for Ann Richards in 1994 support Bush?

Traitors! They sold out the country.