On visit to Ohio, Rove in denial

[ProSense]

Article published Sunday, March 12, 2006

Rove thanks Ohio but is mum on party woes

By CHRISTOPHER D. KIRKPATRICK
BLADE STAFF WRITER

BOWLING GREEN - Karl Rove, the President's top political adviser and a strategist widely regarded as a campaign magician, came to Bowling Green State University last night to say thank you to the state's Republican Party workers for 59,000 votes that did not go the other way.

President Bush won the White House with Ohio's 20 electoral votes last election by 118,000 votes, giving him another four years. If half of the winning margin plus one vote had gone for Democrat John Kerry, Mr. Bush would have lost.

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He did not mention scandals that have rocked Ohio's Republican party the last year, Hurricane Katrina, or the Dubai ports controversy.

He defended the war in Iraq and the President's secret wiretapping program that has come under fire. He praised the confirmations of U.S. Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito and said the economy was on a record job creation pace.
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http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060312/NEWS09/603120424/-1/RSS

[ProSense]

1. OH Dem: Rove has "lost touch with reality"

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Instead, Rove focused on sharply contrasting his party’s performance and ideas against Democrats’. Despite Democratic opposition, Rove said, Bush pursued tax cuts "at just the right time" after the 9/11 attack to help the economy surge to a point of now being "the envy of the industrialized world."

Rove said congressional Democrats "have an allergy against tax cuts," adding: "They believe every day is a good day and every occasion is a good occasion to raise your taxes."

Brian Rothenberg, spokesman for the Ohio Democratic Party, said Rove has "lost touch with reality," because Ohio is "starving for jobs," Bush’s approval rating is "at an all-time low" and Republican corruption abounds in Washington and Columbus.

"The good news is that Karl Rove came out of his Washington bunker tonight; the bad news is he didn’t spend enough time in Ohio to really understand how badly this administration is hurting average Ohioans," Rothenberg said.

more...

http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2006/03/12/20060312-A10-00.html