Surveying the Architect

On May 31st I and many others who stuck it out at the Republican Party of Minnesota’s State Convention’s bitter end were afforded a unique opportunity. Although the delegation dwindled steadily after the election of National Delegates on Friday many stayed till Saturday to salute or scorn our keynote speaker. He was, of course, Karl Rove, former strategist and adviser to George W. Bush. Although I find his actions irresponsible and at times verging on criminal I am inclined to suspend judgment when afforded a closer look at someone.

I took his speech as an opportunity to study the man who is called “the Architect.” The impression I came away with however was that he is not simply an architect but an artist, a spell-binder adept at achieving desired outcomes. However much I may protest said outcomes I must admit the talent he has. Although there were those few who walked out or tried to challenge his right speak the vast majority of the delegation was enthralled and I believe his address was a valuable insight to the inner workings of that large Norwegian forehead.

My foremost impression was that for someone touted as a master strategist, the tools he used in argument were textbook fallacies and plain old facts. There were no secret weapons, no divergent perspectives, simply an adept mastery of the fundamentals.

The first such fallacy I picked up on was his use of the false dichotomy. When appealing to us with “conservative” plans he simply dressed up the status quo in different garb. When he brought up allowing small businesses the same privileges as corporations, or making the Bush tax cuts permanent—ideas which of course sound tantalizing—he never once brought up the significance of enumerated powers or the encroachment of Federal authority. When he railed the Democrats for expanding government entitlement programs the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act were the true elephants in the room.

Beyond that his bread and butter were the straw man argument and some good old fashioned spin. While carefully using actual facts and quotes about and from Barack Obama he liberally created his own contexts. The heavy hand of implication was used to insinuate Obama’s extremism and naivity when the raw truth should be enough to prove those things to an honest man. The problem for Karl is that McCain himself is so close to left that he has to paint Obama even further down the spectrum in order to create a legitimate contrast for his Republican supporters. He spun us around to focus on the trifling differences and in doing so turned our backs to the fact that Obama and McCain are so similar in principle.

His reserve tactic was the emotional appeal. He emphasized his kinship with Minnesotans by stating his small town roots and announcing that he in fact has several Oles in his family. This way we accept him as one of us and conveniently forget his house in D.C and insider connections. He also demonstrated a sharp sense of humor with scripted jokes and a few ostensibly spontaneous quips.

His greatest appeal though was his story of a successful Orthopedic. It was an inspiring story of the strength of a mother and father who, after losing one son in combat, were preparing to see their second son deployed. He speaks of how he was so moved by the father’s attempt to leave behind a successful practice and join his son in the Marines that he did all in his power to allow the father into boot camp. He is undeniably right in praising the courage and resolve of the father, son and mother, but again he fails to mention the tragic irony of how hard he worked to create the war in the first place.

After listening to his speech and being marveled at the simplicity and effectiveness of it I came to realize his true skill. From a young age Karl has demonstrated an incredible capacity for organization and planning. He engineered a bitter fight to become chair of the College Republicans and came to engineer the two George W. Bush Whitehouse victories. One should note however, that he met early defeat in the seventies and eighties but slowly refined his approach and has achieved numerous victories since. Karl Rove’s genius lay in polished, tactical execution.

When I heard him speak I sensed immediately his purpose, to energize a reluctant base around its presumptive nominee. Look at his words though, and it is an issue he never explicitly outlines. Karl Rove reconciled his objectives within the context of his audience and the transitions of his speech threaded the needle to his desired outcome. Rather than issue the cliché and chafing calls for “party unity” and “supporting the nominee” Rove skirted those phrases sketching an implication in the minds of the delegation bearing the likeness of McCain.

In a technically flawless display of sustained oration Karl Rove moved efficiently through the outline of his speech taking the audience slowly to his preconceived conclusion. He shirked the friction and blowback of explicit diction by first acquiring the audience’s confidence and then compelling them to fulfill his interests on their own accord. It is a faintly Socratic approach that has been spectacularly successful both at the convention and on the campaign trail. The lessons of recent history tell us though that it is a tactic which certainly cannot be trusted.