The GOP’s Rovian tactics don’t work every time, but sadly they still work more often than not.
The ability to understand Rovian tactics is roughly spread along these numbers in the general populace:
(A) 25-35%: too uninformed and/or intellectually challenged to understand any Rovian tactic. These folks see a negative ad, and believe most of it, because they are not able of reasoning who is doing that and why. Most of those people are either not voting at all or comprise the base of the GOP.
(B) 55-65%: people who are generally aware of what’s going on, trying to stay informed (at least in the weeks and months leading up to the elections), and most of them think they understand Rovian tactics and can spot nearly all of them, not realizing that in fact they are able to spot only about half of them (in general they can spot most of the “Simple Roves”, but only in rare cases any of the “Double Roves”, because the ability of thinking outside the box twice in a row is quite uncommon).
Those people see a negative ad or a disingineous defense and react exactly as intended (I also did not realize how that sort of tactics is working or that it even exists when I was a young student). They think to have figured out what Rove wants, but they did not realize they were falling for a “Double Rove”, because either they are not prepared for that eventuality or they don’t think that Rove could be that sophisticated.
(C) 5-10%: a rather small group of people who look at a Rovian tactic and are able to figure out if a Rovian smear probably is a “Simple” or rather a “Double” Rove — in most (but not all) cases. Nearly nobody — including me — is able to spot and dissect 100% of Rovian tactics 100% of the time. But being prepared to ask for the “why is he doing this? whom does he really want to harm?” can be helpful a lot in this context.
Knowing exactly that group B is much bigger than group C (and also A), Rove is often targeting the sizeable chunk of voters who think they do understand what Rove is doing but in fact buying completely into Rove’s playbook while not being prepared for a “Double-Rove”.
...
Some examples (in this case from 2004, to have some distance):
Flat-out attack ad
“Swift boat veterans for truth” attacking John Kerry in the 2004 general election (i.e. after the primaries were over). The ad was targeting primarily low-information voters, aimed to directly hit against Kerry. Mission accomplished.
“Simple Rove”
Attacking Kerry before the 2004 primaries, trying to make Democrats think that
(a) Republicans are already attacking the guy who they think will be our nominee
(b) That must be a proof that Republicans would fear Kerry most and
(c) We (Democrats) should therefore probably choose him to be our nominee.
Hint: Interestingly enough that sort of Rovian attacks on Kerry did not happen before the primaries. Instead the GOP as well as some people in the camp of Democratic rivals (especially Lieberman, Gephardt and Kerry) pulled a combination of several flat-out attack ads and some “Double-Roves” on Howard Dean, securing that the probably strongest candidate — a former 5-term-Governor of a rural state with a backbone and a strong record to run on besides being able to energize the base of his party — would not be the nominee.
“Double Rove”
Republicans — before the start of the 2004 primaries — bragging about how they would love to run against “that anti-war civil-union-signing Dean guy”.
For comparison: the aim of a “Simple Rove” would be to scare Democrats away from Dean, making them think that Dean probably can’t be such a strong candidate if Republicans are glowing to run against him, thus indirectly significantly revving up Kerry’s chances to end up as the Democratic nominee.
But from a GOP’s viewpoint: does that make any sense if Republicans really thought that Kerry would be the stronger opponent? Not so much.
Most Democrats must not wonder why the Republicans would do this in the first place , but — no worries — the GOP already accounted for that, knowing that most Democrats are not accustomed to thinking outside the box twice in a row, therefore most Democrats would erroneously think they had spotted a “Simple Rove” which would result in Democrats flocking to their allegedly “strongest” candidate, the “purple star war-hero” John Kerry.
But the GOP knew all along that they could paint Kerry as “inconsistent flip-flopper” and “ultra-liberal Senator from Massachusetts”, so they decided to make it a “Double Rove”, knowing that the vast majority of Democrats would not be able to fully realize that in time.
The GOP was speculating that most Democrats would react like it was a “Simple Rove”, therefore fearing about “electability” (by and large ignoring the fundamentals, i.e. that the chances of a long-serving Senator with a very liberal — and sometimes flip-flopping — voting record in one of the most liberal states in the nation would in fact be significantly smaller in the general election than those of a 5-term Governor with a record of expanding health care coverage and balanced budgets),
thus leading to Democrats abandoning the candidate they feared to be weaker (who was — besides Gen. Wesley Clark — in fact the strongest on the Democratic side) in droves and flocking to the candidate they perceived to be stronger (who was in fact not so strong after all),
thus securing that Democrats would in fact nominate the GOP’s wet dream, a Massachusetts liberal, not fully realizing that he would be a target much easier to beat for the GOP in the general election, a target for whom they were prepared and waiting all along…
...and that’s exactly what the GOP wanted to accomplish: to prevent Democrats from selecting their strongest nominee. Mission accomplished!
...
And now — in 2016 — shocked by Sanders’ surprisingly strong head-to-head numbers and knowing that most of the leading GOP candidates meanwhile do have a fairly good chance to beat Hillary in November, they are trying to play the same “Double Rove”, because they want again to prevent Democrats from nominating their strongest candidate who is consistent and can energize the base.
And chances are good that they will succeed again, because the vast majority of voters — including Democrats primary voters — are still not aware of “Double Rove” tactics and/or not capable of dissecting them.
...
For clarification:
I think Hillary is quite a formidable and experienced candidate (like John Kerry was in 2004), and everyone with a functioning brain should support her if she is ending up being the Democratic nominee this November.
But Republicans are prepared to run against her for a very long time because they have known her for many years. And as a certain black Senator proved in 2008, she is not unbeatable if a race gets really tough and close (in the deep blue state of New York she never truly had to fear to lose an election).
Therefore I think the the GOP would in fact prefer to run against her, because Hillary as a target would be much more predictable — and thus probably more easier to beat — than a certain independent lawmaker from Vermont, who sticks consistently to his values and — still after many years — demonstrated time and again that his judgement on major decisions nearly always proved to be right. And who could in fact be the stronger candidate head-to-head if Republicans really nominate a five-letter billionaire or an ultraconservative Texan Senator (who would energize his party’s base as well) — and as of now both of these two Republican options don’t seem to be so far- fetched any more...
