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Memorandum from Karl Rove (blogging as me masquerading as David Gelernter aka Tristero)

Re: Now through November

We got off to a good start post-convention.  I know many of you are upset that we went the warm-and-fuzzy route in New York, and you think we should have devoted more time to hitting Kerry hard, really hard, again and again and again and again and again.  I understand your concerns.  But the convention was for the swing voters.  The rest of the campaign is for us.  Those of you who think we’ve pussyfooted around too long—now’s the time to stand up and be counted.  It’s Republican Time.

From here on in, we’re going to tell the American people just what a Kerry presidency would mean for them.  But it won’t be easy—we’ll have to fight the media the whole way.  Today’s New York Times gives us some idea what we’ll be up against.  See Adam Nagourney’s article, which asks whether Dick Cheney went too far the other day in Des Moines when he said, “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States.”

Nagourney—who, as many of you have remarked to me, is emerging as this year’s Clymer— leads the article by asking, “Is it possible for a candidate to go too far, and alienate the very voters he is trying to court?”

As if this spin weren’t heavy-handed enough, the Times follows up with an editorial calling Cheney’s remarks A Disgraceful Campaign Speech.

That’s the Times for you.  But we’re not going to sit on our hands while the Democrats run the most negative campaign in history.

Remember the words of Newt’s GOPAC: Never back off.  Never apologize.

Those words won us the House in 1994, and they will win us the White House in 2004.

And Newt still has his eye on the ball.  His quote today is the one point of light in the Nagourney piece, and it’s what we need to steer by:

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker, hailed what he said was Mr. Cheney’s directness, saying, “Dick Cheney has understated the difference in danger to the United States between a Bush and a Kerry presidency.”

That’s your talking point for the next two weeks: Cheney was not over the line.  On the contrary.  Cheney has understated the danger.

Remember, this fight has only begun.  Cheney’s speech was just the opening shot.  In the next two weeks, we’ll be amplifying his remarks as we get more and more specific about just what kind of apocalypse a Kerry presidency would entail.  (And when you speak to our people at Fox, be sure to use the term “apocalypse”—our base will know what we mean.)

By the end of the month, we will show the American people that a vote for Kerry is a vote that consigns their children to agonizing, fiery deaths.

By mid-October, we will produce a hard-hitting 30-second ad that vividly depicts how a Kerry presidency will open the door to bioterrorist attacks involving flesh-eating bacteria.  We plan a major media buy in fifteen states.

By November 1 we will have contingency plans in place for “preventative detention” of likely Kerry voters in key states.  We currently have Mary Walker and Alberto Gonzales working on a draft of the executive order that will give the President the authority to raise the terror alert level to red in specific neighborhoods and for specific households.  It seems pretty clear even at this early stage that the Constitution gives the POTUS the power to order 48-hour “lock downs” for dissidents who threaten our national security, but I’ll keep you posted on this as I hear from Walker and Gonzales. 

We will need all of you in the coming weeks.  Be strong.  Remember, we have the law on our side—and the victory will go to the bold.  (Get it?  Diebold?  Let’s keep our sense of humor about this, everyone!)

Karl, a.k.a. The Shadow

Posted by on 09/09 at 06:04 AM

  1. So it was all true...you really did milk the Republicans for the moolah, as we can now see from this spiffy upgrade to the high-falutin’ Expression Engine from pMachine.

    Posted by PZ Myers  on  09/13  at  08:05 AM

  2. Actually, PZ, the real story is even stranger-- but I can’t tell everyone the whole thing yet.  Today’s post is just a taste.

    Posted by Michael  on  09/13  at  08:27 AM

  3. I have long resisted the generally-accepted attitude that Karl Rove is an evil genius, but this memo has convinced me that I was wrong.

    Posted by Linkmeister  on  09/13  at  05:14 PM

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