Karl Rove: CA GOP must ‘Get back in the game and fight’

March 3, 2013

By Katy Grimes

170px-Karl_Rove

SACRAMENTO — “Losing has one great benefit to it,” Karl Rove, told a large luncheon California Republican Party spring convention in Sacramento yesterday. “It gives you the chance to start fresh to look everything anew and start rebuilding from the ground up in innovative and thoughtful ways that will expand our reach and expand our members.”

What can you say about Karl Rove, “the Architect”? It seems everyone has an opinion of Rove — he is either loved or hated. And Saturday at the state Republican Convention, Rove did not disappoint.

“Get off your ass. Get back in the game and fight,” Rove told a packed luncheon crowd.

Rove, the former senior aide adviser to President George W. Bush, had plenty of advice for California Republicans — and it wasn’t always pretty.

“We are Republican because we believe in personal freedom and limited government,” Rove said. “And not because we believe government needs to give to this or that group. It’s about limited government that allows every person rise to life.”

Summoned by new California Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte to speak to the conventioneers, Rove told Republicans they’ve been confortable talking to each other, but have broader obligations. “We need to be asking for the vote. And we need to pay more attention to who is asking for the vote.”

President Obama

“Obama is more concerned in beating the opposition, beating them down, and breaking his political opposition,” Rove explained. “That’s his principal focus.”

“He wants us to sit on sideline, wring our hands and say, ‘Woe is me.’”

Instead, Rove admonished California Republicans to get more effective with their communications.

“Losing has a great benefit to starting fresh, rebuilding from ground up,” Rove said. “We can expand opportunities and victories.”

But he warned Republicans to focus on more than “just the tactical stuff. We have great principles. But sometimes it sounds like 1960, or 1980. It’s not. It’s 2013.”

Rove said Republicans need to listen to how to modernize. “We need some forebearance. We need to stay focused on the big issues.”

Sequester deflection

With everyone focused on the national sequester, Rove said Democrats have successfully deflected some of the bigger things.

“The sequester is 2.4 percent of the budget.  We’re not cutting like you had to in California,” Rove said. “We’re just reducing future growth of government.”

Ray La Hood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, is threatening to cut air traffic controllers, Rove said. Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, threatened he will have to close every national park campground because of the sequester, instead of cutting real government waste and excess.

The bottom line

“There is not enough revenue, and too much spending,” Rove said. “Government getting too big, and too expensive.”

Rove said the debt is up about 60 percent from the $10 trillion Obama inherited.

According to the latest data, U.S. gross domestic product rose just 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012. Economists had expected GDP to increase 1 percent. “But there is no European Union to bail us out,” Rove said.

“The biggest problem is our economy. We’re in a recovery,” he said mockingly. “This is the weakest recorded recover in history of country, which means this is the first recovery in which median household income has dropped.

“We used to say everything important in America happened first in California. A Republican resurgence could happen in California. The future of this state is so important. The future of country depends on it.”

But, Rove added, “We in Texas are grateful for you sending your best and brightest to us.”



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