Rove: Back Bush
GOP adviser draws big crowd, protesters
By ERIC MOSKOWITZ
Monitor staff
June 13. 2006 8:00AM
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060613/REPOSITORY/606130360He celebrated Bush for cutting taxes and trimming domestic spending. The results - 5.3 million new jobs since the recession bottomed out and high levels of home ownership - speak for themselves, Rove said. He also praised Bush as a man of personal resilience. A Texas friend who served as press secretary to Lyndon Johnson once presented Rove with a photograph of LBJ weeping over the pressures of the Vietnam War. The message, Rove said, was the same voiced by former president Warren Harding: "This damn job will kill you."
But Bush isn't like some of his predecessors, Rove said. The weight of the job "will not (kill) this man," he said. Rove has known Bush since the early 1970s. "He's just as funny, just as warm, just as thoughtful, just as incisive, just as quick as he was when I first met him many years ago," he said.
Rove said he once thought platforms and position statements mattered most in a candidate, but that was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "Sometimes history sends you something that you can't plan for,"he said. "And what really matters then is the character of the person who occupies (the White House)." Bush, Rove said, has demonstrated himself to be a man of integrity, purpose and clarity of vision. "Character matters," he said.
Rove reminded the crowd that New Hampshire's four electoral votes made the difference in the 2000 election. "Thank you for giving (the president) a chance to show his character and what he's made of," he said, earning an ovation. In 2004, New Hampshire voted for Kerry, not Bush. Rove said that was an aberration. "I've got confidence," he said. "I'm here to tell you this is a red state."