July 14, 2007, Time capsule
The Grey Lady takes a break from its usual round of Imperial StenographyTM (or does it?) to give us this look back at a platform and memo sent by good old Karl Rove to a senior White House aide in 1973 (the aide was one Anne Armstrong, who, as set forth here in "Meet the cast of When Harry Met Birdshot", owned the ranch where Vice President Cheney shot Harry Whittington last year; Ms. Armstrong eventually went on to be U.S. Ambassador to Britain, and was considered as Ford's Vice-Presidential running mate)...
It's nothing Earth shattering-- just general broad-brush strategies from the then 22-year old Rove, including bottom-up and top-down strategies, showing films to college Republicans, and the like, and ultimately, the kind of thinking-- letting local operatives meet White House chieftains like Haldeman and Ehrlichman-- kind of like, oh, himself meeting with the likes of right wing bloggers these days to keep the message consistent-- that is hinted at. In short-- Rove is preaching discipline and organization-- a message taken to heart by current Republicans (albeit in the service of evil) and still by and large ignored by Dems, to this day.
Still... if there is a reason these days that the current White House playbook looks as if it comes from the darkest days of the Nixon Administration... perhaps (besides the presence of Cheney in both places)... there is less mere coincidence going on than we might have thought. Just saying.