The discussions about the tortuous twists and turns of why he chose to leave so suddenly is another Rovian red herring. Rove is distracting us from looking at his failures. Even worse, Rove knows that people increasingly are seeing the face of the Republican Party and increasingly they are rejecting it.
The YouTube video of Mr. Rove impersonating a rapper at one of those black-tie correspondents' dinners makes the Washington press corps look even more antediluvian than he is.
Last weekend's Iowa straw poll ... Ryan Sager, writing in The New York Sun, who put it best: "The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's little more than Jesus Christ's running mate."
What the Rove critics on the right recognize is that it may be even more difficult for their political party to dig out of his wreckage than it will be for America. ... One popular conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin, mocked Mr. Rove and his interviewer... for ignoring "the Harriet Miers debacle, the botching of the Dubai ports battle, or the undeniable stumbles in post-Iraq invasion policies...the spectacular disaster of the illegal alien shamnesty."
Wow. Imagine that. The Republican Party is so screwed up they lost Michelle Malkin and the master surgeon himself even refers to her contemptuous tongue lashing at Rove’s open failures.
Polls are telling us that the self identified Republicans in all age categories is folding quickly. If the number ever really were there for the GOP, the question has to be asked why the Presidents tours and speeches had to be made in front of hand picked crowds?
Also, attempts to bring minority voters into the GOP have all but evaporated.
Any prospect of a rapprochement between the G.O.P. and African-Americans died in the New Orleans Superdome. The tardy, botched immigration initiative unleashed a wave of xenophobia against Hispanics, the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country. The Muslim outreach project disappeared into the memory hole after 9/11.
Then there was episode so telling, so unexpected to the GOP because they built their empire with old media like direct mail and are scared to death of and ignorant of the emerging digital media. Virginia George Allen’s Macaca meltdown and racist remarks in a backwoods Virginia rally was another sign that the GOP is not just out of touch with digital media, but out of touch with how limited his form of racism has become.
This incident had resonance well beyond Virginia and Mr. Allen for several reasons. First, it crystallized the monochromatic whiteness at the dark heart of Rovian Republicanism. For all the minstrel antics at the 2000 convention, the record speaks for itself: there is not a single black Republican serving in either the House or Senate, and little representation of other minorities, either. Far from looking like America, the G.O.P. caucus, like the party's presidential field, could pass for a Rotary Club, circa 1954.
That said, the rise of the You Tube culture is the death knell for the Republican Party. Horribly out of touch with actual mainstream values, the GOP can only exist in a rigidly top down message control environment. That tells you something about them. Their message sometimes resonates with people, generally older people. But increasingly Americans are rejecting his the hollow shell that the GOP values stand is on.
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