STEPHEN MOORE: ROVE VS. GINGRICH…..SEE NOTE PLEASE
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323549204578320020544095106.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
GINGRICH MANAGED TO DESTROY ROMNEY IN THE PRIMARIES AND ROVE IS DEAD WRONG….THEY SHOULD BOTH MOVE OVER…..THERE IS PLENTY OF TALENT AND WINNABILITY AMONG NEW REPUBLICANS WITHOUT THEIR SO CALLED WISDOM….RSK
Some notable conservatives have reacted with a fury to Karl Rove’s announcement that he has formed a Super Pac to help nominate “electable” Republicans to the House and Senate in 2014.
Even Newt Gingrich has entered the fray. In a memo to fellow conservatives, the former House Speaker scoffs at the idea of Mr. Rove as kingmaker. “I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states,” he writes. “This is the opposite of the Republican tradition of freedom and grassroots small town conservatism. No one person is smart enough nor do they have the moral right to buy nominations across the country.”
ReutersFormer Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, left, and former Bush administration advisor Karl Rove, right.
His second complaint is Mr. Rove’s recent record at picking winners. Mr. Rove is understandably concerned that the party has been stuck with candidates like tea party favorites Sharon Angle of Nevada, Christine O’Donnell of Delaware and Todd Akin of Missouri, who clearly weren’t ready for prime time. But Mr. Rove’s record in 2012 was hardly pristine. “He was simply wrong last year” about both the presidential and Senate races, writes Mr. Gingrich.
“While Rove would like to argue his ‘national nomination machine’ will protect Republicans from candidates like those who failed in Missouri and Indiana, that isn’t the bigger story,” writes Mr. Gingrich. “Republicans lost winnable Senate races in Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. So in seven of the nine losing races, the Rove model has no candidate-based explanation for failure. Our problems are deeper and more complex than candidates.”
When I asked Mr. Gingrich about how to solve this problem, he had nothing but contempt for “the Republican political class and the band of consultants who get rich” while giving lousy advice. The party, he says, “has to realize how deep its problems are in winning over voters. We have stopped being the party of the future.”
That’s classic Newtonian rhetoric—but there’s much truth in it. And it may be that Mr. Rove and Mr. Gingrich, the party’s two big thinkers, are both right. The party has to be much smarter about nominating principled conservatives who can win. But it’s also true that consolidating too much power in one man or one organization is dangerous central planning.
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