Dennis Cardoza
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 18th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2003
Preceded by	Gary Condit
Member of the California State Assembly from the 26th district
In office 1996–2002
Preceded by	Sal Cannella
Succeeded by	Greg Aghazarian
Personal details
Born	(1959-03-31) March 31, 1959 (age 53) Merced, California
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Dr. Kathie McLoughlin
Residence	Atwater, California
Alma mater	California State University, Stanislaus, University of Maryland, College Park
Occupation	rancher, small business owner
Religion	Roman Catholic

Dennis A. Cardoza (born March 31, 1959) is the U.S. Representative for California's 18th congressional district, serving since 2003. The district takes in a large swath of the Central Valley, from Stockton to Fresno. He is a member of the Democratic Party. On October 20, 2011 he announced he would retire from Congress at the end of 2012.

He first won election to Congress after defeating former Congressman Gary Condit in the March 2002 Democratic Party primary election.

Early life[link]

Cardoza was born in Merced, California, of Portuguese ancestry.^[1] He grew up in Atwater, California and graduated from Atwater High School. He was educated at the California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock, California then transferred to University of Maryland, College Park. He is a member of Theta Chi Fraternity.

Political career[link]

Cardoza's interest in public service began in college when he interned on Capitol Hill during the summer of 1979. The first in his family to graduate from college, Cardoza went on to run a successful small business. Cardoza served as a city council member in both Merced and Atwater and was a Member of the California State Assembly from 1996 to 2002. During his six years in the Assembly, he chaired the Rules Committee and helped found the Moderate Democratic Caucus.

Cardoza currently represents California's 18th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. The seat was previously held by Gary Condit. When Cardoza was starting out in politics, he served as Condit's Chief of Staff while Condit was still in the California Assembly.^[2] When Condit's career came under a cloud because of his extramarital affair with murdered intern Chandra Levy, Cardoza ran against him in the 2002 Democratic primary and won. Cardoza then faced Republican State Senator Dick Monteith in the November election. This race was considered to be the only potentially competitive House contest in California; redistricting after the 2000 census gave most of the state's 53 congresspersons safe districts. However, the Democratic-controlled state legislature had been concerned about a growing Republican trend in the 18th even before Condit's career imploded. The district and its predecessors had been in Democratic hands since 1955. The legislature shifted a Republican-leaning portion of eastern Stanislaus County to the heavily Republican 19th District. They replaced it with a mostly Democratic spur in and around Stockton, which gave the district a plurality of Latino voters. Cardoza defeated Monteith, 51 percent to 43 percent. He has been reelected four times against only nominal opposition.

Cardoza is considered a conservative Democrat by California standards, which is typical for Democrats from the Central Valley. However, his voting record is slightly more liberal than that of Condit. During the 109th Congress, Cardoza was a co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate to conservative House Democrats of which Condit was a founding member. He was a member of the Resources Committee, Agriculture Committee, and International Relations Committee.

For the 112th Congress, Cardoza sits on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, as well as the Agriculture Committee where he is ranking member of the Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Subcommittee. He remains a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, but his co-chairmanship has been assumed by Congressman Mike Ross.

Media accounts suggest that Cardoza's decision to retire stemmed from the 2012 redistricting map, which substantially altered his district.^[3]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Agriculture
  • Subcommittee on General Farm Commodities and Risk Management
  • Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry
• Committee on Foreign Affairs
  • Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
  • Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

Caucus memberships[link]

• Congressional Hispanic Caucus
• International Conservation Caucus
• Moderate Democratic Caucus
• Sportsmen's Caucus

References[link]

1. ^ "Distinguished Americans & Canadians of Portuguese Descent". Archived from the original on 2007-12-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071212161136/http://www.portuguesefoundation.org/famous.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-09. 
2. ^ " Condit Loses House Race To Former Aide" by Evelyn Nieves, March 6, 2002. New York Times. Accessed 22 March 2008.
3. ^ http://www.rollcall.com/news/Dennis-Cardoza-retirement-California-Blue-Dog-209651-1.html

External links[link]

• U.S. Representative Dennis Cardoza official U.S. House site
• Dennis Cardoza Our Congressman official campaign site
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Profile at SourceWatch

Karl Rove
Official portrait
White House Deputy Chief of Staff
In office February 8, 2005 – August 31, 2007 Served with Joe Hagin and Joel Kaplan
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Harriet Miers
Succeeded by	Joel Kaplan
Senior Advisor to the President
In office January 20, 2001 – August 31, 2007
President	George W. Bush
Deputy	Barry Jackson
Succeeded by	Barry Jackson
Personal details
Born	Karl Christian Rove (1950-12-25) December 25, 1950 (age 61) Denver, Colorado
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Valerie Mather Wainwright (m. 1976–1980) «start: (1976)–end+1: (1981)»"Marriage: Valerie Mather Wainwright to Karl Rove" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Karl_Rove) (divorced) Darby Tara Hickson (m. 1986–2009) «start: (1986)–end+1: (2010)»"Marriage: Darby Tara Hickson to Karl Rove" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Karl_Rove) (divorced)
Children	Andrew Madison Rove
Alma mater	University of Utah University of Texas-Austin University of Maryland, College Park George Mason University
Occupation	Political Consultant
Website	http://www.rove.com

Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950) was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives. Since leaving the White House, Rove has worked as a political analyst and contributor for Fox News, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal.

Prior to his White House appointments, Rove was a Republican political consultant and strategist. He is credited with the 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial victories of George W. Bush, as well as Bush's 2000 and 2004 successful presidential campaigns. In his 2004 victory speech Bush referred to Rove as "the Architect". Rove has also been credited for the successful campaigns of John Ashcroft (1994 U.S. Senate election), Bill Clements (1986 Texas gubernatorial election), Senator John Cornyn (2002 U.S. Senate election), Governor Rick Perry (1990 Texas Agriculture Commission election), and Phil Gramm (1982 U.S. House and 1984 U.S. Senate elections).

Early years[link]

Family, upbringing, early education[link]

Rove was born in Denver, Colorado, the second of five children, and was later raised in Sparks, Nevada. His biological father left the family when Rove and his older brother were children. His mother, Reba Louise (née Wood), was a gift shop manager, and his mother's second husband, Louis Claude Rove, Jr. (1928–2004), who adopted him^[1] and whom Rove knew as his father, was a geologist whose ancestry was Norwegian.^[2][3]

In 1965, his family moved to Salt Lake City, where Rove entered high school, becoming a skilled debater.^[4] Rove described his high school years as "I was the complete nerd. I had the briefcase. I had the pocket protector. I wore Hush Puppies when they were not cool. I was the thin, scrawny little guy. I was definitely uncool." Encouraged by a teacher to run for class senate, Rove won the election. As part of his campaign strategy he rode in the back of a convertible inside the school gymnasium sitting between two attractive girls before his election speech.^[5] While at Olympus High School,^[6] he was elected student council president his junior and senior years. Rove was also a Teenage Republican and served as Chairman of the Utah Federation of Teenage Republicans.

Entry into politics[link]

Rove began his involvement in American politics in 1968. In a 2002 Deseret News interview, Rove explained, "I was the Olympus High chairman for (former United States Senator) Wallace F. Bennett's re-election campaign, where he was opposed by the dynamic, young, aggressive political science professor at the University of Utah, J.D. Williams."^[7] Bennett was reelected to a third six-year term in November 1968. Through Rove's campaign involvement, Bennett's son, Bob Bennett — a future United States Senator from Utah — would become a friend. Williams would later become a mentor to Rove.

In December 1969, the man Rove had known as his father left the family, and divorced Rove's mother soon afterwards.^[8][9] After his parents' divorce, Rove learned from his aunt and uncle that the man who had raised him was not his biological father; both he and his older brother Eric were the children of another man. Rove has expressed great love and admiration for his adoptive father and for "how selfless" his love had been.^[10] On September 11, 1981, Rove's mother committed suicide in Reno, Nevada.^[11]

College and the Dixon campaign incident[link]

In the fall of 1969, Rove entered the University of Utah, on a $1,000 scholarship,^[12] as a political science major and joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Through the University's Hinckley Institute of Politics, he got an internship with the Utah Republican Party. That position, and contacts from the 1968 Bennett campaign, helped him land a job in 1970 on Ralph Tyler Smith's unsuccessful re-election campaign for Senate from Illinois against Democrat Adlai E. Stevenson III.

In the fall of 1970, Rove used a false identity to enter the campaign office of Democrat Alan J. Dixon, who was running for Treasurer of Illinois. He stole 1000 sheets of paper with campaign letterhead, printed fake campaign rally fliers promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing", and distributed them at rock concerts and homeless shelters, with the effect of disrupting Dixon's rally. (Dixon eventually won the election). Rove's role would not become publicly known until August 1973. Rove told the Dallas Morning News in 1999, "It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it."^[13] In his memoir, Rove wrote that when he was later nominated to the Board for International Broadcasting by President George H.W. Bush, Senator Dixon did not kill his nomination. In Rove's account, "Dixon displayed more grace than I had shown and kindly excused this youthful prank."^[14]

College Republicans, Watergate, and the Bushes[link]

In June 1971, after the end of the semester, Rove dropped out of the University of Utah to take a paid position as the Executive Director of the College Republican National Committee. Joe Abate, who was National Chairman of the College Republicans at the time, became a mentor to Rove.^[10] He enrolled at the University of Maryland in College Park in the Fall of 1971, but withdrew from classes during the first half of the semester.^[15]

Rove traveled extensively, participating as an instructor at weekend seminars for campus conservatives across the country. He was an active participant in Richard Nixon's 1972 Presidential campaign. A CBS report on the organization of the Nixon campaign from June 1972 includes an interview with a young Rove working for the College Republican National Committee.^{[citation needed]}

Rove held the position of executive director of the College Republicans until early 1973. He left the job to spend five months, without pay, campaigning full time for the position of national chairman of the organization, for the 1973-1975 term in the same years he attended George Mason University.^[10] Lee Atwater, the group's Southern regional coordinator, who was two months younger than Rove, managed Rove's campaign. The two spent the spring of 1973 crisscrossing the country in a Ford Pinto, lining up the support of Republican state chairs.

The College Republicans summer 1973 convention at the Lake of the Ozarks resort in Missouri was quite contentious. Rove's opponent was Robert Edgeworth of Michigan (the other major candidate, Terry Dolan of California, dropped out, supporting Edgeworth). A number of states had sent two competing delegates, because Rove and his supporters had made credentials challenges at state and regional conventions. For example, after the Midwest regional convention, Rove forces had produced a version of the Midwestern College Republicans constitution which differed significantly from the constitution that the Edgeworth forces were using, in order to justify the unseating of the Edgeworth delegates on procedural grounds,^[10] including delegations, such as Ohio and Missouri, which had been certified earlier by Rove himself. In the end, there were two votes, conducted by two convention chairs, and two winners — Rove and Edgeworth, each of whom delivered an acceptance speech. After the convention, both Edgeworth and Rove appealed to Republican National Committee Chairman George H. W. Bush, each contending that he was the new College Republican chairman.

While resolution was pending, Dolan went (anonymously) to the Washington Post with recordings of several training seminars for young Republicans where a co-presenter of Rove's, Bernie Robinson, cautioned against doing the same thing he had done: rooting through opponents' garbage cans. The tape with this story on it, as well as Rove's admonition not to copy similar tricks as Rove's against Dixon, was secretly recorded and edited by Rich Evans, who had hoped to receive an appointment from Rove's competitor in CRNC chairmanship race.^[16] On August 10, 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, the Post broke the story in article titled "GOP Party Probes Official as Teacher of Tricks".^[17]

In response, then RNC Chairman George H.W. Bush had an FBI agent question Rove. As part of the investigation, Atwater signed an affidavit, dated August 13, 1973, stating that he had heard a "20 minute anecdote similar to the one described in the Washington Post" in July 1972, but that "it was a funny story during a coffee break".^[18] Former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean, who was implicated in the Watergate break-in and became the star witness for the prosecution, has been quoted as saying "based on my review of the files, it appears the Watergate prosecutors were interested in Rove's activities in 1972, but because they had bigger fish to fry they did not aggressively investigate him."^[19]

On September 6, 1973, three weeks after announcing his intent to investigate the allegations against Rove, George H.W. Bush chose Rove to be chairman of the College Republicans. Bush then wrote Edgeworth a letter saying that he had concluded that Rove had fairly won the vote at the convention. Edgeworth wrote back, asking about the basis of that conclusion. Not long after that, Edgeworth stated "Bush sent me back the angriest letter I have ever received in my life. I had leaked to the Washington Post, and now I was out of the Party forever."

As National Chairman, Rove introduced Bush to Atwater, who had taken Rove's job as the College Republican's executive director, and who would become Bush's main campaign strategist in future years. Bush hired Rove as a special assistant in the Republican National Committee, a job Rove left in 1974 to become executive assistant to the co-chair of the RNC, Richard D. Obenshain.

As special assistant, Rove also performed small personal tasks for Bush. In November 1973, Bush asked Rove to take a set of car keys to his son George W. Bush, who was visiting home during a break from Harvard Business School. It was the first time the two met. "Huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flight jacket, wonderful smile, just charisma - you know, wow", Rove recalled years later.^[17]

The Texas years and notable political campaigns[link]

1977–1991[link]

Rove's initial job in Texas was as a legislative aide for Fred Agnich, a Texas state representative, in Agnich's Dallas office. Later in 1977, Rove got a job as executive director of the Fund for Limited Government, a political action committee (PAC) in Houston headed by James A. Baker, a Houston lawyer (later President George H.W. Bush's Secretary of State). The PAC eventually became the genesis of the Bush-for-President campaign of 1979–1980.

His work for William Clements during the Texas gubernatorial election of 1978 helped Clements become the first Republican Governor of Texas in over 100 years. Clements was elected to a four-year term, succeeding Democrat Dolph Briscoe. Rove was deputy director of the Governor William P. Clements Junior Committee in 1979 and 1980, and deputy executive assistant to the governor of Texas (roughly, Deputy Chief of Staff) in 1980 and 1981.^[20]

In 1981, Rove founded a direct mail consulting firm, Karl Rove & Co., in Austin. The firm's first clients included Texas Governor Bill Clements and Democratic congressman Phil Gramm, who later became a Republican congressman and United States Senator. Rove operated his consulting business until 1999, when he sold the firm to take a full-time position in George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

Between 1981 and 1999, Rove worked on hundreds of races. Most were in a supporting role, doing direct mail fundraising. A November 2004 Atlantic Monthly article estimated that he was the primary strategist for 41 statewide, congressional, and national races, and Rove's candidates won 34 races.^[21]

Rove also did work during those years for non-political clients. From 1991 to 1996, Rove advised tobacco giant Philip Morris, and ultimately earned $3,000 a month via a consulting contract. In a deposition, Rove testified that he severed the tie in 1996 because he felt awkward "about balancing that responsibility with his role as Bush's top political advisor" while Bush was governor of Texas and Texas was suing the tobacco industry.^[22]

1978 George W. Bush congressional campaign[link]

Rove advised the younger Bush during his unsuccessful Texas congressional campaign in 1978.

1980 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign[link]

In 1977, Rove was the first person hired by George H. W. Bush for his unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign, which ended with Bush as the vice-presidential nominee.

1982 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign[link]

In 1982, Bill Clements ran for reelection, but was defeated by Democrat Mark White.

1982 Phil Gramm congressional campaign[link]

In 1982, Phil Gramm was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a conservative Texas Democrat.

1984 Phil Gramm senatorial campaign[link]

In 1984, Rove helped Gramm, who had become a Republican in 1983, defeat Republican Ron Paul in the primary and Democrat Lloyd Doggett in the race for U.S. Senate.

1984 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign[link]

Rove handled direct-mail for the Reagan-Bush campaign.

1986 William Clements, Jr. gubernatorial campaign[link]

In 1986, Rove helped Clements become governor a second time. In a strategy memo Rove wrote for his client prior to the race, now among Clements's papers in the Texas A&M University library, Rove quoted Napoleon: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack."

In 1986, just before a crucial debate in campaign, Rove claimed that his office had been bugged by Democrats. The police and FBI investigated and discovered that the bug's battery was so small that it needed to be changed every few hours, and the investigation was dropped.^[23] Critics, including other Republican operatives, suspected Rove had bugged his own office to garner sympathy votes in the close governor's race.^[24]

1988 Texas Supreme Court races[link]

In 1988, Rove helped Thomas R. Phillips become the first Republican elected as Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Phillips had been appointed to the position in November 1987 by Clements. Phillips was re-elected in 1990, 1996 and 2002.

Phillips' election in 1988 was part of an aggressive grassroots campaign called "Clean Slate '88", a conservative effort that was successful in getting five of its six candidates elected. (Ordinarily there were three justices on the ballot each year, on a nine-justice court, but, because of resignations, there were six races for the Supreme Court on the ballot in November 1988.) By 1998, Republicans held all nine seats on the Court.

1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign[link]

In 1989, Rove encouraged George W. Bush to run for Texas governor, brought in experts to tutor him on policy, and introduced him to local reporters. Eventually, Bush decided not to run, and Rove backed another Republican for governor who lost in the primary.

Other 1990 Texas statewide races[link]

In 1990, two other Rove candidates won: Rick Perry, the future governor of the state, became agricultural commissioner, and Kay Bailey Hutchison became state treasurer.

One notable aspect of the 1990 election was the charge that Rove had asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigated major Democratic officeholders in Texas. In his autobiography, Rove called the whole thing a "myth", saying:

• The FBI did investigate Texas officials during that span, but I had nothing to do with it. The investigation was called "Brilab" and was part of a broad anticorruption probe that looked at officials in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Los Angelele, and Washington, D.C., as well as Texas. ... An official for the U.S. Department of Agriculture spotted expenses claimed by Hightower's shop that raised red flags ... enough to indict some of Hightower's top aides; they were later found guilty and sent to prison.
• The myth that I had something to do both with spurring the investigation and with airing all of this has stuck around because it is convenient for some to blame me rather than those aides who ran afoul of the law. [1]

1991 Richard L. Thornburgh senatorial campaign and lawsuit[link]

In 1991, United States Attorney General Dick Thornburgh resigned to run for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, one made vacant by John Heinz's death in a helicopter crash. Rove's company worked for the campaign, but it ended with an upset loss to Democrat Harris Wofford. Rove subsequently sued Thornburgh alleging non-payment for services rendered. The Republican National Committee, worried that the suit would make it hard to recruit good candidates, urged Rove to back off. When Rove refused, the RNC hired Kenneth Starr to write an amicus brief on Thornburgh's behalf. After a trial in Austin, Rove prevailed.^[10] Karl Rove & Co. v. Thornburgh was heard by U.S. Federal Judge Sam Sparks (who had been appointed by George H.W. Bush in 1991).

1992 George H. W. Bush presidential campaign[link]

Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief Robert Mosbacher Jr. (Esquire Magazine, January 2003). Novak provided some evidence of motive in his column describing the firing of Mosbacher by former Senator Phil Gramm: "Also attending the session was political consultant Karl Rove, who had been shoved aside by Mosbacher." Novak and Rove deny that Rove was the leaker, but Mosbacher maintained that "Rove is the only one with a motive to leak this. We let him go. I still believe he did it."^[25] During testimony before the CIA leak grand jury, Rove apparently confirmed his prior involvement with Novak in the 1992 campaign leak, according to National Journal reporter Murray Waas.^[26]

1993–2000[link]

1993 Kay Bailey Hutchison senatorial campaign Rove helped Hutchison win a special Senate election in June 1993. Hutchison defeated Democrat Bob Krueger to fill the last two years of Lloyd Bentsen's term. Bentsen resigned to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration.

1994 Alabama Supreme Court races In 1994, a group called the Business Council of Alabama hired Rove to help run a slate of Republican candidates for the state supreme court. No Republican had been elected to that court in more than a century. The campaign by the Republicans was unprecedented in the state, which had previously only seen low-key contests. After the election, a court battle over absentee and other ballots followed that lasted more than 11 months. It ended when a federal appeals court judge ruled that disputed absentee ballots could not be counted, and ordered the Alabama Secretary of State to certify the Republican candidate for Chief Justice, Perry Hooper, as the winner. An appeal to the Supreme Court by the Democratic candidate was turned down within a few days, making the ruling final. Hooper won by 262 votes.

Another candidate, Harold See, ran against Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice and the son-in-law of George Wallace. The race included charges that Kennedy was mingling campaign funds with those of a non-profit children's foundation he was involved with. A former Rove staffer reported that some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile.^[21] Kennedy won by less than one percentage point.

1994 John Ashcroft senatorial campaign In 1993, according to the New York Times, Karl Rove & Company was paid $300,000 in consulting fees by Ashcroft's successful 1994 Senate campaign. Ashcroft paid Rove's company more than $700,000 over the course of three campaigns.

1994 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign In 1993, Rove began advising George W. Bush in his successful campaign to become governor of Texas. Bush announced his candidacy in November 1993. By January 1994, Bush had spent more than $600,000 on the race against incumbent Democrat Ann Richards, with $340,000 of that paid to Rove's firm.

Rove has been accused of using the push poll technique to call voters to ask such things as whether people would be "more or less likely to vote for Governor Richards if [they] knew her staff is dominated by lesbians". Rove has denied having been involved in circulating these rumors about Richards during the campaign,^[27] although many critics nonetheless identify this technique, particularly as utilized in this instance against Richards, as a hallmark of his career.^[28][29][30]

1996 Harold See's campaign for Associate Justice, Alabama Supreme Court A former campaign worker charged that, at Rove's behest, he distributed flyers that anonymously attacked Harold See, their own client. This put the opponent's campaign in an awkward position; public denials of responsibility for the scurrilous flyers would be implausible. Rove's client was elected.^{[citation needed]}

1998 George W. Bush gubernatorial campaign Rove was an adviser for Bush's 1998 reelection campaign. From July through December 1998, Bush's reelection committee paid Rove & Co. nearly $2.5 million, and also paid the Rove-owned Praxis List Company $267,000 for use of mailing lists. Rove says his work for the Bush campaign included direct mail, voter contact, phone banks, computer services, and travel expenses. Of the $2.5 million, Rove said, "[a]bout 30 percent of that is postage". In all, Bush (primarily through Rove's efforts) raised $17.7 million, with $3.4 million unspent as of March 1999.^[31] During the course of this campaign Rove's much-reported feud with Rick Perry began, with Perry's strategists believing Rove gave Perry bad advice in order to help Bush get a larger share of the Hispanic vote.^[32]

2000 Harold See campaign for Chief Justice For the race to succeed Perry Hooper, who was retiring as Alabama's chief justice, Rove lined up support for See from a majority of the state's important Republicans.^[21]

2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign and the sale of Karl Rove & Co.[link]

In early 1999, Rove sold his 20-year-old direct-mail business, Karl Rove & Co., which provided campaign services to candidates, along with Praxis List Company (in whole or part) to Ted Delisi and Todd Olsen, two young political operatives who had worked on campaigns of some other Rove candidates. Rove helped finance the sale of the company, which had 11 employees. Selling Karl Rove & Co. was a condition that George W. Bush had insisted on before Rove took the job of chief strategist for Bush's presidential bid.^[22]

George W. Bush Administration[link]

Rove with George W. and Laura Bush

When George W. Bush was first inaugurated in January 2001, Rove accepted an appointment as Senior Advisor. He was later given the title Deputy Chief of Staff to the President after the successful 2004 Presidential election. In a November 2004 speech, Bush publicly thanked Rove, calling him "the architect" of his victory over John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.^[33]

In April 2006, Rove was reassigned from his policy development role to one focusing on strategic and tactical planning in anticipation of the November 2006 congressional elections.^[34]

Rove resigned from his position effective August 31, 2007. Bush hugged his old friend saying, "Karl Rove is moving on down the road ... I'll be on the road behind you here in a little bit."^[35]

Activities since leaving the White House[link]

This article or section may be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective. (October 2010)

Shortly after leaving the White House, Rove was hired to write about the 2008 Presidential Election for Newsweek.^[36] He was also later hired as a contributor for the Wall Street Journal and a political analyst for Fox News. Rove was an informal advisor to 2008 Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, and donated $2,300 to his campaign.^[37] His memoir, Courage and Consequence, was published in March 2010.^[38] One advance reviewer, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, said of the book that Rove "revives claims discredited long ago".^[39] The controversial book has inspired a grassroots rock and roll compilation of a similar name Courage and Consequence^[40] that was released a week before the memoir.

Rove has also spent significant time on the road giving speeches to schools and other groups. Rove was scheduled to give the commencement address at Choate Rosemary Hall, a New England boarding school, but canceled after protests from students and faculty.^[41] He instead made a private appearance at the school on February 11, 2008.^[42]

On March 9, 2008, Rove appeared at the University of Iowa as a paid speaker to a crowd of approximately 1,000. He was met with hostility and two students were removed by police after attempting a citizen's arrest for alleged crimes committed during his time with the Bush administration. Near the end of the speech, a member of the audience asked, "Can we have our $40,000 back?" Rove replied, "No, you can't."^[43]

On May 22, 2008, Rove was subpoenaed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to testify on the politicization of the Department of Justice. However, on July 10, Rove refused to acknowledge his congressional subpoena citing executive privilege as his reason.^[44][45]

On June 24, 2008, Rove said of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, "Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone."^[46]

Rove agreed to debate one-time presidential candidate and former Senator John Edwards on September 26, 2008, at the University at Buffalo.^[47] However, Edwards dropped out and was replaced with General Wesley Clark.^[48]