| Karl Rove |
Article Index for Karl |
Website Links For Karl |
Information AboutKarl Rove |
|
Karl Christian Rove (born December 25 , 1950 ) is an American Political Consultant , and is U.S. President George W. Bush 's Deputy Chief of Staff, and heads the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the Office of Strategic Initiatives at the White House. Rove's election campaign clients have included George W. Bush ''(2000 and 2004 U.S. President; 1994 and 1998 Texas Governor)'', John Ashcroft ''(1994 U.S. Senate)'', Bill Clements '' (1986 Texas Governor)'', Sen. John Cornyn , Gov. Rick Perry (1990 Texas Agriculture Commissioner), and Phil Gramm ''(1982 U.S. House, 1984 U.S. Senate)''. Rove has been a frequent target of critics of the Bush Administration , and is now embroiled in a scandal as political foes, including Joe Wilson , accuse him of the Unauthorized And Possibly Felonious Disclosure of Valerie Plame (Wilson's wife) as an Undercover CIA agent to '' Time Magazine '' reporter Matthew Cooper in retaliation for Wilson's criticisms of the administration. Rove has acknowledged speaking to Cooper, but denies any wrongdoing. Rove had earlier kept silent while the White House, citing his personal assurances, emphatically denied he had any role in the leak. On October 28 2005 , special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby , Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney , in relation to an investigation requested by the CIA. Rove has not been indicted, but remains a subject of the investigation. Although Rove limited his domestic policy portfolio on April 19, 2006 to concentrate on Republican election strategies for November 2006, he retains his White House office, job titles, and security clearance. PERSONAL LIFE AND EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES Early life and high school Rove was raised in Colorado and Nevada , the third of five children. His father, Louis Rove, was a mineral geologist, and his mother, Reba Wood, was a gift shop manager. In 1960, at the age of 9 years old, Rove decided to support Richard Nixon . According to Rove, "There was a little girl across the street who was Catholic and found out I was for Nixon, and she was avidly for Kennedy . She put me down on the pavement and whaled on me and gave me a bloody nose. I lost my first political battle."1 His family moved to Salt Lake City , Utah , in 1965, when Rove was entering high school. At Olympus High School , he used unorthodox tactics to be elected student council president in 1968, even though he says "I was the complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket protector. I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin, scrawny little guy. I was definitely uncool." Rove also began his involvement in American politics in 1968. In a 2002 Deseret News interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former United States Senator ) Wallace F. Bennett 's re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, J.D. Williams ." Bennett was reelected to a third six-year term. Through Rove's campaign involvement, Bennett's son, Bob Bennett — a future United States Senator from Utah - would become a friend. Williams would later become a mentor of Rove's. College years at the University of Utah, and the Dixon campaign incident In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the University Of Utah , majoring in political science. He joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Through the University's Hinkley Institute of Politics, Rove got an Intern ship with the Utah Republican Party . That, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped Rove land a job in 1970 in Illinois , helping on the unsuccessful re-election campaign of Ralph Tyler Smith for the U.S. Senate . (Tyler lost to Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.) In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon , who was running for Illinois State Treasurer, and stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead. Rove then printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing," and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters. Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the Dallas Morning News in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it." ( The Washington Post, 7/23/99 ). Dixon was elected despite the fake campaign rally. Adoption, parents' divorce, and mother's suicide In December 1969, Rove's father left the family, and officially divorced Rove's mother soon afterward. After his parents' separation, Rove learned from his aunt and uncle that the man who had raised him was not his biological father; both he and an older brother were the children of another man. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been ( New Yorker profile [http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/030512fa_fact3 ). Rove's mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada , in 1981, when Rove was 30 years old. He did not meet his biological father until he was in his 40s. Leaves College for position in the College Republicans In June 1971, Rove Dropped Out of the University Of Utah to take a paid position as the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee . Joe Abate, who was National Chairman of the College Republicans at the time, became a mentor to Rove. Rove traveled extensively, participating as instructor at weekend seminars for campus conservatives across the country. He was an active participant in the 1972 Presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. As a protégé of Donald Segretti (later convicted as a Watergate conspirator), he tried to paint Nixon's opponent, World War II B-24 pilot and hero George McGovern , as a left-wing peacenik {Link without Title} . Vietnam War and the draft In December 1969, the Selective Service System held its first lottery drawing. Those born on December 25th, like Rove, received number 84. That number placed him in the middle of those (with numbers 1 priority through 195) who would eventually be drafted. On February 17, 1970, Rove was reclassified as 2-S, a deferment from the draft because of his enrollment at the University of Utah in the fall of 1969. He maintained this deferment until Dec. 14, 1971, despite being only a part-time student in the autumn and spring quarters of 1971 (registered for between six and 12 credit hours) and dropping out of the university in June of 1971. (Rove was a student at the University of Maryland in College Park in the fall of 1971; as such, he would have been eligible for 2-S status, but registrar's records show that he withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester.) In December 1971 he was reclassified as 1-A. On April 27, 1972, he was reclassified as 1-H, or "not currently subject to processing for induction," a classification given to four million young men between January and August 1972, as the Vietnam War wound down. The draft ended on June 30, 1973. College Republicans, Watergate, and the Bushes Rove held the position of Executive Director of the College Republicans until early 1973. He left the job to spend five months, without pay, campaigning full time for the position of National Chairman of the organization, for the 1973-1975 term. {Link without Title} . Lee Atwater , the group's Southern regional coordinator, two months younger than Rove, managed Rove's campaign. The two spent the spring of 1973 crisscrossing the country in a Ford Pinto, lining up the support of Republican state chairs. The College Republicans convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri in the summer of 1973 was contentious. Rove's opponent was Chairman George H.W. Bush , each contending that he was the new College Republican chairman. While resolution was pending, Dolan went (anonymously) to the '' Washington Post '' with recordings of several training seminars for young Republicans where Rove discussed campaign techniques that included rooting through opponents' garbage cans and other forms of espionage, and stories of derring-do such as the incident at the Dixon headquarters. On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate Scandal , the Post broke the story in an article titled " Republican Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks." At Bush's request, Rove was questioned by an has been quoted as saying that "Based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him." {Link without Title} On September 6, 1972, three weeks after announcing his intent to investigate the allegations against Rove, Bush chose Rove to be chairman of the College Republicans. Bush then wrote Edgeworth a letter saying that he had concluded that Rove had fairly won the vote at the convention. Edgeworth wrote back, asking about the basis of that conclusion. Not long after that, Edgeworth has said, "Bush sent me back the angriest letter I have ever received in my life. I had leaked to the Washington Post, and now I was out of the Party forever." As National Chairman, Rove introduced Bush to Lee Atwater , who had taken Rove's job as the College Republican's executive director, and who would become Bush's main campaign strategist in future years. Bush hired Rove as a special assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 to become executive assistant to the co-chair of the RNC, Richard Obenshain . As special assistant, the 22-year old Rove also performed small personal tasks for Bush, who was becoming one of his mentors. In November 1973, Bush asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow," Rove recalled years later.2 Virginia Republican Party In 1976, Rove became the Finance Director for the Virginia Republican Party, which did not have a single fundraising event on its schedule at the time. Rove moved to Richmond, Virginia. Within a year, Rove had pulled in more than $400,000 through direct mail fundraising. Marriages In July 1976, Rove married Houston socialite Valerie Wainright. In January 1977, he moved to Texas. The couple divorced in January 1980. In January 1986, Rove married . Education and Teaching In addition to the University of Utah and the University of Maryland, Rove attended George Mason University (1973-1975) and the University Of Texas At Austin (1977+). He has no degree. In July 1999, the Washington Post quoted Rove as saying "I lack at this point one math class, which I can take by exam, and my foreign language requirement." From 1981-1999, Rove taught graduate students part-time at the University of Texas at Austin, as an instructor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and in the Department of Journalism. Residences and voting registration - Texas, DC, and Florida Rove left Texas after Bush was elected President in late 2000. He now owns a home in the District of Columbia that is valued at $1.1 million. Rove sold his longtime home in Austin in 2003. In September 2005, the Washington Post reported that Rove had agreed to reimburse the District for an estimated $3,400 in back taxes. The taxes were owed because since 2002, when the law changed, Rove was not entitled to a homestead exemption for his DC house because he was voting elsewhere (in Texas).3 Rove registered to vote in Kerr County, about 80 miles west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country, on May 26, 2004. The residence that Rove claims on Texas voter registration rolls is two tiny rental cottages, the largest being only 814 square feet. The cottages were part of the River Oaks Lodge that Mr. Rove and his wife, Darby, once owned on the Guadalupe River near Ingram. They sold the lodge in 2003, after renovating it4, but kept the two cottages, which the lodge rents to guests. (Darby T. Rove is listed as a director of the new owner of the lodge, Estadio Partners, LLC.) In early October 2005, a resident of Kerr County filed a complaint with the District Attorney of the county, requesting an investigation into whether Rove and his wife violated Texas state law by illegally registering as voters in Kerr County, since neither had ever lived there. {Link without Title} . Texas law defines a residence, for voting purposes, as "one's home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence."5 On November 3, 2005, Rex Emerson, the District Attorney, announced that he had determined there was insufficient evidence to prosecute either Rove or his wife, and that his office would close the case without further action.67 |
|
|