Crossposted at The 44th.
Since all the other kids are doing it (and apparently enjoying it), I've decided to try my hand at psycho-analyzing the latest chapter in the exit of Karl Rove -- you know, the one that has him all "obsessed" with Hillary Clinton.
In case you've been in a cave for the better part of the last 10 days, let me catch you up. Rove resigns. Rove grants multiple interviews on GOP-friendly talk shows. Rove bashes Hillary. Journalists and politocos the world over attempt to crawl inside the dark, dark mind of Rove, flick a Bic, and see what's going on in there.
I'm not a psychologist. I don't even play one on TV. But this is easy stuff from both a political and marketing perspective.
Certainly, if Joe Trippi can figure out, so can you and I. Trippi, in case you don't know, is the former Howard Dean campaign manager now working for John Edwards. Today, Joe sent me (and ostensibly, tens of thousands of others) this email:
Rove knows that Democrats will rally around whomever he attacks—so he attacks the candidate he thinks Republicans can most easily defeat.
It may seem backwards, but Rove and his cronies did the same thing last time around. In 2004, they were scared of John Edwards, so they attacked John Kerry.
Don't take it from me—take it from Rove's own lieutenant on the Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection campaign, Matthew Dowd:
"Whomever we attacked was going to be emboldened in Democratic primary voters' minds. So we started attacking John Kerry a lot in the end of January because we were very worried about John Edwards." [Los Angeles Times, 8/19/07]
Rove and the Republicans want our opponents to win—because they know John will be the strongest candidate in the general election.
Are you following here? The theory, in a nutshell, is that Rove wants Hillary to be the Democratic nominee, because he perceives her as beatable...but that he's secretly scared of the other candidates. By bashing Hillary, he gets Democrats to rally around her (thus ensuring her nomination) and Republicans to rally against (thus ensuring her eventual demise).
Pretty brilliant, huh? Don't you wish we'd thought of that? Don't you wish in 2000 we had all bashed Steve Forbes so the Republicans would rally around him and send George Bush home? Shouldn't we be doing the same thing right now with the emanently "beatable" Mitt Romney?
News flash: we are. And the theory that Karl Rove wants Hillary to be the Democratic nominee is absolutely, without a doubt, 100% true. No psycho-analysis necessary. This is obvious stuff.
It's also true that in key battleground states, hypothetical match-ups give both Edwards and Obama stronger, wider leads over their Republican rivals. That's because A) neither Edwards nor Obama is perceived as divisive; B) both Edwards and Obama are considered "fresh;" and C) neither Edwards nor Obama is, well, Hillary. So when Joe Trippi, in his email, says:
It is no secret that John is the only Democratic candidate who can beat any of the Republican candidates hands down. Just look at the polls conducted by Rasmussen Reports—a major national polling firm—over the past few months. They show that John is the Democratic candidate who consistently beats all of the Republicans candidates in head-to-head match-ups in battleground states—and by the widest margins.
...he's right. And make a note of this, because Joe Trippi doesn't make a habit of being right.
So, is Karl Rove trying to redirect our collective national attention to Hillary Clinton? Does he want us to nominate her, so that, theoretically at least, his chosen candidate (hello, Fred Thompson) can whoop some Hillary ass next November? Is the Democratic candidate that really keeps Rove up at night actually someone other than Hillary Clinton?
Yes, yes and yes. Without equivocation.
And now, unless you see it otherwise, we can put this to rest.