Republican strategist Karl Rove, left, and Democratic strategist Jim Messina speak to the media Wednesday before a Ringling College Library Association Town Hall Lecture Series event at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota.
Two of the nation’s top political minds told a Sarasota audience Wednesday that the Iowa caucuses exposed major weaknesses in GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign.
Trump has taken a commanding lead in national polls with an unconventional campaign centered around large rallies and provocative statements that generate constant media coverage. But the strength of Trump's field organization in Iowa was not proportional to the amount of attention he has received, Republican strategist Karl Rove and Democratic strategist Jim Messina said during the Ringling College Library Association’s Town Hall Lecture Series event at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.
“I think the lesson is that while politics is constantly changing some of the old rules matter,” Rove, the architect of former President George W. Bush’s two successful campaigns, said in kicking off a wide-ranging political discussion. “You have to have a ground game in Iowa, you have to be organized to get out your vote to these caucuses.”
Photo gallery: Karl Rove and Jim Messina in Sarasota
Messina, who ran President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, said Trump has the best command of social media of any candidate “in the history of our politics” but deserves a “D minus” grade for his overall campaign.
“I think there’s a difference between having a rally and running a campaign and I think he’s having rallies,” Messina said, adding: “I think he’s running a pathetic campaign and the fact that no one can tell – Karl and I have run the last two winning campaigns – we can’t tell you whose in charge of his campaign. Because the answer is: He is.”
Still, Messina is rooting for Trump, saying both the billionaire business mogul and Ted Cruz, the ultra conservative U.S. senator from Texas who topped Trump in Iowa, would be dream candidates for Democrats to run against.
“I’m pretty religious and I wake up every morning and drop to my knees and say please God give me Donald Trump,” Messina said, drawing laughs from the sold out crowd.
Messina received no pushback from Rove in questioning Trump’s general election viability. One of Trump's chief GOP critics, Rove wrote in the Wall Street Journal last month that if Trump is the Republican nominee “the GOP will lose the White House and the Senate, and its majority in the House will fall dramatically.”
Rove called Trump a “demagogue” Wednesday and joked to Messina that “God sometimes works in mysterious ways and sometimes he doesn’t give you what you want because there’s a greater good.”
Commenting on the approaching New Hampshire primary, Rove said Trump “should win” on the Republican side based on the polling. Messina predicted U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will be victorious in the Democratic contest against former first lady Hillary Clinton.
But they noted that New Hampshire often defies predictions and said both nomination battles are likely to drag on for an extended period. That’s a good thing, Messina said.
“I think both parties are strengthened by this process,” he said, arguing a drawn out 2008 primary season helped Obama organize in all 50 states.
Rove and Messina both are actively involved in the 2016 campaign through their political action committees. Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC is focused on attacking Clinton while Messina’s Priorities USA is supporting Clinton's campaign.
So it wasn’t surprising that the two men strongly disagreed over the question of whether Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state will be a major drag on her campaign.
“You can’t find a swing voter who cares about this,” Messina said.
Rove responded that “This email thing goes to the heart of her credibility.”
The strategists talked about the role Florida will play in the primary and general elections at a press event before they took the stage.
Rove said the GOP nomination fight is likely to continue all the way up to the Republican National Convention in July and “we may go, for the first time since 1948, to more than one ballot” at the convention. But he predicts there will be a clear frontrunner heading into the convention who will consolidate support.
Florida could be key in deciding who that frontrunner is because of the state’s large pot of delegates and winner-take-all primary.
“If somebody wins Florida and Ohio they will be the nominee,” Rove said. “It may take them awhile to get there but they will be the nominee.”
Rove declined to offer a prediction on how the race will play out through Florida's March 15 primary, though.
“We’re going to go through so many twists and turns and gyrations that it’s going to make us all dizzy by the time we get to the Ides of March,” he said.
