Bush adviser Rove to speak at GOP dinner

Published Feb. 22, 2011 at 2:00 p.m.
Memo from former presidential adviser Karl Rove to N.C. Republicans: Don't worry about President Barack Obama carrying North Carolina again in 2012.

"There's that old saying, 'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me'," Rove said in a phone interview with the Observer. "Obama won North Carolina by promising to be a centrist. He's governed in a much different way."

That's part of the message Rove will deliver to Mecklenburg County Republicans on Saturday at their annual Lincoln-Reagan Day Dinner.

Rove, longtime adviser to President George W. Bush and now a political analyst for Fox News, also downplayed the payoff for Democrats holding their convention in Charlotte. He pointed to a pair of academic studies that show no electoral benefit to states that host conventions.

Rove, 60, also touched on other subjects:

The prospect of a government shutdown: "I don't think we'll get to that point," he said. "If we do, it's because the president and Senate refused to accept reasonable reductions in current spending."

Whether tea partiers will divide his party: "Nope," he said. "The tea party sentiment that government is spending too much...is deep and broad and strong, and it caused independents to vote for Republicans by a 59 (percent) to 38 margin (in 2010). That sentiment is out there and it's going to continue."

On Obama's handling of the Egyptian crisis: "I think people generally applaud what the president is doing. But if everything goes wrong, there's going to be big ramifications for the administration."

Who he likes in the 2012 GOP field: "I'm for the nominee."

The GOP's sleeper candidate: "They're all sleepers," he said, pointing to polls that show several candidates closely bunched. "There's no front-runners."

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