Karl Rove’s humor and insights were the highlights of his visit to PBA at the invitation of the LeMieux Center on March 3rd, 2015.
During his public presentation, “Inside View of the White House,” Rove, who served as senior adviser to President Bush and later deputy chief of staff, spoke about how he became involved in politics and what he learned in the White House. Rove is credited with being “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and he was one of the first strategists to use microtargeting for political advertising, said former U.S. Sen. LeMieux. He also learned that “you’d better not think you’re a big deal. Because everybody’s watching, and people who think they’re big deals, they tend to flame out faster.” He described the pace of the typical workday as “drinking for a firehose 24 hours a day” and added that the president not only has to understand what is happening but also needs to think ahead. Rove also spoke in detail about the hours following the September 11th terrorist attacks and the lengths that were taken to whisk President Bush safely from a school in Sarasota back to Washington, D.C. Rove was the first to tell the president about the first jet plowing into the World Trade Center–before anyone realized what was going on. When asked what motivates him in a hostile environment to keep doing what he does, Rove said, “I love politics and I love my country… I do what I do because I care about our country, and I want it to be as great and grand for my son as it has been for me.”