Karl Rove: No More Debates

16 December 2011 |permalink | email article

George W. Bush’s brain, and aware that Donald Trump’s debate effort was a flop, couldn’t resist arguing before Thursday night’s last Republican presidential debate in Iowa before the vote against having even more of them. While it’s true that the debates have given all the serious hopefuls a chance to make their case, Rove suggests they have “nearly crippled campaigns, chewing up precious time each candidate has to organize, raise money, set themes, roll out policy and campaign.” Rove’s other beef is that the debates also give the media too much time to control the narrative. “For good or ill, he believes, record-breaking mass of debates has made the contest the most unpredictable, rapidly shifting, and often downright inexplicable primary race I’ve ever witnessed.”

Zany

In his interview with the New York Time’s Jeff Zeleny and Ashley Parker Wednesday at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in New York Mitt Romney became enamored with ‘zany’ to describe Newt Gingrich. It turns out that Zeleny, fishing around for a conversation opener, first mentioned the noun. As Parker told MSNBC Thursday Romney seized on it and repeatedly used the word during the interview. So much for originality!

Quotable

“We have an entire political party who has a doctrine of absolute denial. All the denial in the world doesn’t change the facts that greenhouse gases are building up.”—California Gov. Jerry Brown, wearing a green tie and kicking off a high-profile climate conference Thursday in San Francisco with a blistering attack on libertarians, the Republican Party and others who deny that climate change is underway.

ABC News reports that Newt Gingrich has joked that God wanted him to be a bear, not a gazelle. David Axelrod, President Obama’s chief strategist, said at a Washington press briefing Thursday Gingrich is more like a monkey. “Just remember, the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt, citing political wisdom he learned from a Chicago alderman.” Look for the phrase “penchant for provocation” to be high in Democratic talking points.

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