Newsweek: Inner Circle (Not everyone sure about race–Rove's plan/ Dean)

[kskiska]

Karl Rove called the group "the Breakfast Club." They met at Rove's unadorned house in northwest Washington on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003, the day Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq. It had already been a week of cheering news for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. A few days earlier, former vice president Al Gore had endorsed the Democratic front runner, Howard Dean. The Democratic establishment seemed to be lining up behind Dean. The Bush-Cheney campaign could only pray that the Democrats would not come to their senses. Rove's team had already assembled a phone-book-thick volume of opposition research on Dean, titled "Howard Dean Unsealed: Second Edition, Wrong for America" (on the cover was a collage of 13 pictures of Dean looking addled). The Bushies had been poring over footage of the former Vermont governor on the campaign trail. Adman Mark McKinnon's media team had cut a spot called "When Angry Democrats Attack!" featuring a wild Dean ranting and raving, and posted it on the Bush-Cheney Web site.

Rove had called this meeting of his top advisers to discuss all the ways they were going to bury Howard Dean. Matthew Dowd, the campaign's pollster and strategist, was known as a pessimist, but even he conceded to the group, "You have to give the direction arrow to Dean at this point."

The strategy was obvious: a barrage of ads featuring President Bush as "steady" and Dean as "reckless." The group laughed about some of the scripts they had cranked out for a campaign McKinnon was calling "Dean Unplugged." An early favorite, submitted by Fred Davis, a California adman known by the nickname Hollywood (he drove a Porsche, wore tinted sunglasses and had shared a suite in college with Paul Reubens, the actor better known as Pee-wee Herman), opened with the image of a mother anxiously flipping channels as her baby lies in a crib behind her. Howard Dean is on the TV screen, hyperventilating. The baby begins to fret and cry ... then the voice of George W. Bush, strong, comforting, resolute, replaces Dean on the screen. The baby quiets and sleeps peacefully.

(snip)

As the holidays approached, the Bush White House was as jolly as Rove. On Dec. 20 the Bush daughters, Jenna and Barbara, both college seniors, decided to hold a blowout for their friends in the Executive Mansion. …

The Tyrone Smith Revue set up in the East Room, usually used for press conferences. Shortly after 9, when the drinks were flowing and the kids were starting to glow, Super T swung into "Shotgun" and summoned the president, the First Lady and the twins onto the stage. "I want the Secret Service to stay back!" he cried. "I'm taking over now!" Super T began to instruct the First Family in a dance called the Super T Booty Green. ("Put your hands on your knees. Bend over. Shake two times to the right, shake two times to the left.")

The First Family got right down. The crowd erupted. Super T picked up the beat; he later recalled hearing a familiar voice cry, "Go, Super T!" He looked back to see the president of the United States hollering and shaking it like in old times at the Deke House. Laura Bush gently put her hand on the president's elbow; the frat brother subsided; the chief executive returned to duty.

more…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6406880/site/newsweek/

[aquart]

1. I don't know why they even bothered.

They knew the fix was in. I think they're just basically nasty.

[bemildred]

3. Independent political leaders with their own national following

are always discredited.

[Larkspur]

2. And Dean could have had ads with...

Bush's Mission Accomplished followed by pictures of flag draped coffins of our soldiers returning from Iraq.

No Dean supporter would deny that Rove would not have attacked Dean maliciously, but us Dean supporters are saying that
1) Dean had more credibility about the Iraq war than Kerry and Bush, (Note: Dean would never had said "knowing the lies and misinformation I know today, I would still have voted for IWR")
2) that Dean had learned how to reframe, a la George Lakoff's theory, Democratic ideals to counter Rethug attacks,
3) that Dean had more energy and passion than Kerry to fight the Reichwing attacks, and
4) that Dean would not have taken vacations windsurfing and helping Repukes define him as aloof and uncaring about ordinary Americans. Dean knew that Bush and Rove were nasty and determined to keep their power. Kerry never understood that.

Dean was from wealth, but unlike Kerry, he came across as an ordinary guy who cared about ordinary Americans. Dean is authentic about his concern that America was heading the wrong way under Bush and understood the Machiavelli nature of Rove and the Reichwing, where as Kerry just thought that 2004 was his best chance to win the White House.

[hedda_foil]

4. And Dean comes across as authentic because he is.

And people are engaged by authenticity.

[Blue_Tires]

5. disgusting

america made this bed...now we have to lie in it