Axelrod on Rove: "The Only One Making Snide Remarks is him"

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 | 11:50 AM

By William Rabbe

Many have been talking about Karl Rove's recent quote depicting Obama as a Country Club Elitist -- but it's actually derived from an older Rove quote from an interview with the Times of UK from April 26th:

"You have probably seen this kind of guy at London parties, trailing ash from a fashionable cigarette into the carpet and making snide remarks about someone 'being an abominable bore'."

Somehow, I had a hard time imagining that this image would "stick" to Obama the way that it did against John Kerry in 2004 -- especially since Rove described Obama with the vivid imagery that William Thackary would have used to depict a character from Barry Lyndon -- and so I brought this up with Obama Chief Strategist David Axelrod in Indiana in late April:

Aside from my tripping over the word "abominable" (as in snowman) (and Ax mistakenly calling Rove a college Democrat), Axelrod issues a harsh rebuke of Rove and the Bush/ Rove strategy of 2000 and 2004, saying, "the only one making snide remarks is him" and goes on to dismiss the portrayal of Obama as Rove, "madly pushing buttons that he's familiar with."

A pretty strong push-back to Rove's attempt to portray Obama as an elitist (a job that Hillary Clinton started in Pennsylvania) and it reveals a campaign that takes a hands on approach of calling out potentially damaging tactics so that they cannot be used as effectively.

In other news, McCain's new ad, will more likely work to define Obama if people don't buy into the whole "fashionable cigarette country club thing."

Clove anyone?