Karl Rove on Terror Attacks
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: That's going to do it for us, here. Victor and I, both back at 10:00 but do stay with us. "SMERCONISH" is next.</s>MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Michael Smerconish. Here we go again. That's what my colleague Brooke Baldwin said here on CNN Wednesday as the earliest news started trickling out of San Bernardino. She meant semi-automatic weapons, innocent victims, lockdown, manhunt, shoot-out, manhunt, fear, outrage. But here we go again, sadly, also applies to what came after. Politicians immediately suited up in their usual jerseys and resorted to the same old playbooks. Republicans again said it was time to pray. The "New York Daily News" run a controversial cover noting that God wouldn't fix this. Democrats again made calls for gun control. The "New York Times" tried something different, putting an editorial on the front page of this morning's newspaper, the first time they've done that since 1920, calling for outlawing of civilian ownership of weapons capable of mass killing. But will it make any difference? More telling is that my most popular tweet of the week by far was when I quoted a "Times" blogger wondering why the paper even has a comment section on such stories since it can used use "the same ones each time there's a mass shooting in the USA." This morning, news broke that ISIS radio claiming the San Bernardino attack was carried out by supporters yet when we learned in the midst of the attack that the female shooter had posted a tribute on Facebook to the leader of the ISIS, that simply rebooted the tiresome debate whether to use the words radical Islam. Now you would think the presidential campaign season might offer an opportunity for the airing of detailed plans to combat ISIS, but no.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I would handle it so tough, you have no idea. You don't want to hear, you don't want to hear how I'd handle it.</s>SMERCONISH: Instead, sound bites get rewarded, especially that candidate whose deep thinking on ISIS consists of a platform to build a wall, create a Muslim database and kill the families of ISIS members. Look when 9/11 happened, the country rose above partisan politics. Now we're so polarized that in the words of columnist Reuben Naverret, quote "we may not have to worry about our enemies defeating us, we're together a splendid did job all by ourselves." Now to talk about the impact of the latest shootings on the 2016 race, I'm joined by Karl Rove, he, of course, was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush. He previously was involved in more than 75 campaigns for president, governor, senator. And he's just published a very relevant book. "The Triumph of William McKinley, why the election of 1896 still matters." Karl, I read and thoroughly enjoyed the book. I'll get to it in a moment. React, if you would, to my commentary.</s>KARL ROVE, FMR. SNEIOR ADVISER TO PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I think you're right. The initial response to this was to fall back into the old pattern. But let's realize, this is not the old pattern. This is an internationally-inspired act of terrorism inside our borders. We had people who appear to have been radicalized over the internet. There may have been some seeds planted in Miss Malik's background, her upbringing in Pakistan and in Saudi Arabia. In Pakistan, it appears when she graduated from college in an area that's known to have sectarian strains, that she destroyed her personal computer telling family members that it contained personal information on it. So maybe the seeds of radicalization were there. But this is not an issue of gun violence or workplace violence. This is an act of terrorism inside our borders. And we should not freight this with either discussions in my opinion about gun control or about the efficacy of prayer. We ought to focus on why this happened and realize that America's future is at stake. If we do not resolve and fight them abroad, we're going to see more instances like this here. These people associated themselves with the Islamic state, apparently, not because the Islamic state is losing but because the Islamic state looks like it's winning in the Middle East. And until we push them back, until we make it, in essence, unattractive to be associated with the people who are losing strength, being killed. People losing power, people being wiped out, we're going to see more of these, not less of these.</s>SMERCONISH: Well, let's talk about how it will impact the 2016 race. I've got some data points that I want to run through with you. A brand-new CNN ORC survey, just released this week although conducted before the attack in San Bernardino. There you see it, Donald Trump at the top of the heap with 36 percent of the vote. Karl, what I find of significance is that he wins all the internals, including when you ask the question regardless of who you're voting for, who is best equipped to handle ISIS, Trump comes out with 46 percent of Republican support followed by Ted Cruz at 15. Analyze that for me. Why is he being perceived among Republicans as the being best equipped to deal with ISIS?</s>ROVE: Because he looks the toughest. I mean, he is - loo , he has a sound bite. And the people attracted to Trump are not really interested in - you know, and policy statements, that are not really interested on the fact that he's been all over the board on this. Remember, it was a matter of weeks ago in which he dismissed the ISIS threat. He said leave it to the Russians to take care of. Then he said, you know what, let ISIS take out Assad in Syria. Now, he wants to bomb the expletive out of ISIS. So they really don't care the specifics of the policy. As long as he's up there pounding the podium and saying I'm going to be so tough there's an element inside the Republican party that is attracted to that strong man image. Now, whether or not it's enough to win the nomination is really up in the air. I'd be careful about reading too much into any one given poll. This particular poll is an outlier in terms of the sense of the strength. If you look at the real clear politics average he's seen there in the high 20s. 27, 28, 29. But he has shown an inability - there's been an episodic poll that has shown him lower and higher than that and some had shown him lower than that. But the average is in the high 20s and in resistance inside the Republican Party - look, he has the highest unfavorables and lowest -- excuse me, lowest favorables and highest negatives of any of any of the major candidates. Then you take him into the general election campaign, and his image gets even worse.</s>SMERCONISH: But nevertheless, in the same survey I think it was echoed by the Quinnipiac data that came out this week, 52 percent say they believe he has the strongest chance to win the general election. I think Karl Rove just told me, you don't agree with that?</s>ROVE: Well, no I agree - that's what they think now. But if you go back to 2012 you'll find a period of time where people thought Herman Kane had strongest chance of becoming the nominee and Newt Gingrich had the highest chance of being the nominee. In the aftermath of the New Hampshire primary in 2000, people thought John McCain had the best chance of becoming the republican nominee. So you need to differentiate between the questions and the poll that ask people to comment as spectators and pundits and those that say what do you believe about what you're going to do.</s>SMERCONISH: OK. So I'm asking you directly - what do you believe, do you believe that he's the republican who has the best shot of winning the White House? Yes or no?</s>ROVE: No.</s>SMERCONISH: Who is?</s>ROVE: Well I don't know but think he has a high floor and a low ceiling. I think you have to look at the candidates who have higher favorables and lower knowing negatives who a lot more people could see themselves voting for than Trump. Trump has the strength that comes from being a strong definitive personality. He also has the weakness that that includes things like disparaging Latinos. That it involves mocking a disabled reporter. That it involves calling every one of his opponents a clown, a looser and a moron. These are not the kind of things that ignite the party. In order to win the nomination, a candidate has to unite the party at some point. You can't simply win the nomination by saying everybody else who is running against me is a jerk. So are there supporters in essence. You know, calling people and mocking people inside the party who are accomplished individuals, who have supporters and adherence to their own the kinds of things that he calls them is not, in my opinion, a winning recipe for either uniting the party or winning the nomination with the united party and carry it into the general election. You mentioned my book, we have a candidate in the 1896 campaign William Jennings Brian who excoriates most, a big chunk of the country. He announced that he's going to accept his - the party's nomination in New York. He announces at a train station in Lincoln, Nebraska, I go on to the enemy's country. And he attacks his opponents as tools of the Wall Street blood suckers and the money grubbers of Lombard Street and shylocks of the Rothschilds. I mean, he uses language that is designed to divide the American people and it helps divide the American people and it helped divide them against himself, particularly when his opponent, William McKinley uses language designed to draw the country together. In which he says, we're all in this together. We're a common country no east, no west, no south, quoting George Washington.</s>SMERCONISH: Here's what I thought of as I read your book. I thought of - and I've got a slide to show you on this. I thought of the fact in 1988, Papa Bush, Bush 41, gets 59 percent of the white vote and it earns him 426 electoral votes. 2012, Mitt Romney same percentage, guess what -- it's only worth 206 electoral votes. Due to a variety of factors not the least of which is the changing demographic of the country. What I learned from your book is that William McKinley saw the need to build the tent. So who is the tent- builder in this array of GOP candidates?</s>ROVE: Well it's almost everybody except Donald Trump and to a lesser extent Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz says "the way we can win this election is get a missing army of conservatives who have historically reliably voted Republican and then didn't do so in 2012 because Mitt Romney was a liberal. That's simply not true. You look at the exit polls there are 580,000 more self identified conservatives who turned out to vote in 2012 than the previous high in 2008. And 2.2 million more conservatives voted for Mitt Romney than voted for John McCain. You're right, 59 percent of the white vote went for Mitt Romney, 59 percent went for George W. Bush in 2004, 59 percent or thereabouts, in 1988. And in 1984, but what McKinley looked at was the changing demography of the country in which there were increasing numbers of Catholic industrial workers, particularly in our big cities, in the midwest. And people who were not from the historic places that we've got immigration before. We had for decades had immigration coming primarily from the British isles, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and from Germany and increasingly in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, we had increasing amounts of immigration from new places. Scandinavia, from the Ukraine, from Belarus, from southern Europe - from Spain and Portugal. And McKinley was smart enough to say "my party's only going to be able to win if I can draw those people into my coalition." In which he did, he got 37 percent more votes than his predecessor had done.</s>SMERCONISH: But respectfully, I don't see the outreach taking place today - I mean McKinley, as you document, was the first candidate to openly go campaign for black vote.</s>ROVE: Right.</s>SMERCONISH: Where is the outreach? I mean, you say everybody but Trump and to a lesser extent Cruz. I don't see it happening with these other candidates?</s>ROVE: Well, Michael, first of all - remember, he does this outreach in the year of the general election after he's largely secured the nomination. So there's plenty of time left. But look at the language. Look at the people who acknowledge this is the issue and whether it is Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich and others you find plenty Republican candidates who say we need to have the confidence in our conservative messages to carry to every community in America, young people, Latinos, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, people who have not voted for us before and it's been - I thought it was a good sign. When you have Rand Paul saying I'm going to go to Berkeley. And Jeb Bush saying why don't we campaign more in the Latino community. And Marco Rubio speaking Spanish to Spanish-speaking audiences, when you have all of these candidates acknowledging we need to broaden our party and grab this demographic because we ought to have confidence that they will be attracted to our conservative views, I find that heartening. And the question is going to be - do they do it in the general election. Right now, they're focused on the one of the nomination as McKinley was. But McKinley, when he secured the nomination and therefore was -</s>SMERCONISH: I lost Karl Rove, what a shame because I was so eager to say to him and it's almost unfair to raise it "are you saying that they can't make that case to expand the tent until after primary season?" To be continued. What do you think? Tweet me @smerconish. I'll read some of the best at the end of the program. Coming up, in the wake of another shooting, Americans are on edge, but is our fear unfounded? A guest of mine thinks our reaction is overblown. But first, Karl Rove just mentioned Senator Rand Paul. Well, he's here to respond to today's front page editorial of "The New York Times."