KARL ROVE AND THE CLINTONS ADMIRE EACH OTHER

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PETER BAKER WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 2007 -  As he packs his desk just 15
steps from the Oval Office, Karl Rove says he will not join any 2008
presidential campaign. That's just as well because none of the
Republican candidates presumably could afford the association even if
they wanted his strategic smarts. Besides, none of them is running the
campaign quite the way he would. The candidate who seems to be adopting
his style and methods the most so far? Hillary Rodham Clinton.

At least that's what Nicolle Wallace thinks. The former Bush White House
communications director, who worked closely with Rove, said that Clinton
"has almost operationalized the whole idea of turning your weakness into
strength, message discipline that is almost pathological -- she does not
get off message for any reason -- and never skipping an opportunity to
exploit her opponent's weaknesses."  

Clinton's campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, seems to agree with that
assessment, having effectively vowed to run her operation much as Rove
did his two successful national campaigns. "She expresses admiration for
the way George W. Bush's campaign team controlled its message, and,
given her druthers, would run this race no differently," Michelle Cottle
writes this month in New York magazine. "'We are a very disciplined
group, and I am very proud of it,' she says with a defiant edge."

Rove and the Clintons have circled each other warily these past eight
years, exhibiting a mix of grudging respect and deep bitterness as the
central, if competing, political strategists of their era. Rove singled
out Hillary Clinton in interviews in the past few days, predicting she
will win the Democratic nomination and be a tough opponent in the fall
of 2008. . .

The Clintons recognize the skill Rove has brought to politics and admire
his craft, if not his ideology. Just days after the November 2004
election, Bill Clinton pulled Rove aside at the dedication of the
William J. Clinton Presidential Library in Arkansas. "Hey, you did a
marvelous job, it was just marvelous what you did," Clinton told Rove,
according to the book "The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008,"
by John F. Harris and Mark Halperin. "I want to get you down to the
library. I want to talk politics with you. You just did an incredible
job, and I'd like to really get together with you and I think we could
have a great conversation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/08/14/AR2007081401722.html


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