A Rove-ing mystery

[April 18th, 2007] It's hard to say what Karl Rove was thinking visiting Tigard last week.

The senior Bush adviser wasn't taking reporters' questions after a 40-minute talk in which he failed to offer support for one of the state's most endangered Republicans, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith.

Instead, Rove told the crowd that terrorists want to turn our cities into "rivers of blood." He spoofed his recent rapping turn at last month's Washington Correspondents' dinner. And he announced he has an Aunt Sally in the Portland area, remembering fondly a childhood summer spent in Oregon—"We had a giant above-ground pool, and I had three girl cousins."

State Republican leaders say Rove came to rally the faithful in Washington County, a growing suburban battleground in a Democratic-controlled state.

About 150 people showed up for Rove's talk Friday the 13th at the Embassy Suites Hotel, filling a small conference room. State Republican Chairman Vance Day wasn't sure how many people were invited but said 198 people paid $50 to $60 each to be there, raising about $10,000 for the Washington County Republican Party.

Big-name elected Republicans like Smith and U.S. Rep. Greg Walden were nowhere to be seen (both were in Washington, D.C.). Even radio talk-meister Lars Larson was absent. Larson says he would have gone but had to work.

Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli (R-John Day)—perhaps the highest-ranking Republican in attendance—says he believed Rove came to promote Smith. The U.S. senator has Democratic vultures circling his re-election bid in 2008 and hawkish Republicans annoyed at his waffling on Iraq. His office in Washington did not return phone calls for comment.

A show of support from Rove might have shored up Smith's position with the kind of hardcore Republicans who would come out on a Friday night to see a top Bush adviser. But Rove passed on his chance to throw Smith a lifeline with conservatives; his speech mentioned the senator only once in passing, when he said Smith and Walden had worked in Congress to push Bush's economic agenda.

Then again, given Rove's radioactive reputation, his endorsement might have done Smith more harm than good in Oregon. "Gordon Smith couldn't run away fast enough from Karl Rove," says Democratic consultant Mark Wiener.

Day says he personally invited Rove several months ago. He says the event was aimed at motivating grassroots Republicans in general, not swing voters or Republicans for Smith specifically. And Day says he wasn't disappointed with the turnout.

"This is Oregon, man," he adds.

Certainly the timing of Rove's visit couldn't have been worse. Always a bogeyman for the left, Rove now finds himself in a widening controversy over the ouster of eight U.S. attorneys in which he stands accused of intentionally deleting emails as part of a coverup.

If Rove came for good press, he failed on that note, too. Rove took no questions from journalists, who were corralled behind a rope in the back of the room. And a WW photographer who tried to mill with the crowd was physically removed to the back by GOP spokesman Shawn Cleave, who threatened to ban WW from future Republican events. So much for PR.