Rove: Obama Copying Bush-Cheney Playbook

Karl Rove, the “architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, says the Barack Obama campaign is lifting pages from his playbook.

“For a campaign that says it wants to end the politics of the Bush-Cheney years, the Obama for President effort has cribbed an awful lot from the Bush-Cheney playbooks of 2000 and 2004,” Rove writes in a column in the Wall Street Journal.

Rove says that Obama is copying the Bush campaigning terms of organization, drawing lines of comparison between the two campaign’s microtargeting strategies and grassroots get-out-the-vote efforts.

The former White House adviser also says the Obama camp is following the Bush campaign in internet strategy and communications. “Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama has harnessed the Internet for persuasion, communication and self-directed organization,” Rove writes. “Another Obama adaptation of a 2004 Bush campaign technique is a stepped-up, rapid response effort. Charges do not go unanswered, the campaign stays relentlessly on the offense, using every channel of communication.”

Obama has also “copied” the Bush team in general election strategy, Rove says. The former White House adviser compares Obama’s efforts to win Virginia, the Carolinas and the Mountain West with Bush’s push in West Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Washington and Oregon.