President Barack Obama was the topic of choice for Karl Rove on Wednesday during a talk in Goldstein Auditorium.

‘It is going to be a very close, very hard fought race. But if you look at the numbers, it shouldn’t be close,’ Rove said, launching into statistics on Obama’s approval ratings. ‘No president’s ever been re-elected in the modern era with numbers this low a year out.’

Rove addressed the crowd for 30 minutes on what he views as the failures of the Obama administration and the big issues for the 2012 election. He then answered audience questions on topics ranging from his involvement with the super PAC American Crossroads to the difference between national politics and Texas politics to Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The College Republicans hosted the event. The audience filled about half of the auditorium, and many audience members were not Syracuse University students.

Out-of-control spending, unemployment and government overreach with the health care bill were the focus of Rove’s critique of Obama. He showcased his deep political knowledge by getting specific on the issues and tossing out statistics while remaining conversational.

Rove began by citing unemployment numbers under the Obama administration. By those numbers, he said, this is the worst recovery of any national recession since World War II. The reason? ‘Maybe because we tried to spend our way out of it,’ he said.

This led into Rove’s next major critique of Obama and what he said is one of the biggest issues for 2012: tackling the deficit. The president, he said, is unwilling to take on entitlement spending. He also blasted the president and Congress for not passing a budget before the start of the fiscal year, something he said has not happened since 2007.

‘No wonder the country’s got grave financial difficulties,’ he said.

Rove’s passion ignited when addressing the health care law, which he views as an ineffective government overreach that will increase both costs and the deficit. The president’s statistics on the number of people without health insurance, 45 million, is a shocking number, he said, but one that is misleading. The true focus should be on the working poor, about 5 million or 6 million people who don’t have health insurance.

‘Maybe we oughta be focused on designing health care answers to help them, not to discombobulate everybody,’ Rove said. The solution, he said, is giving help directly to the individuals, not to their employers.

Rove then sat down for a Q-and-A. The questions touched on Rove’s personal experiences — how Texas politics are different than national politics — to current topics, such as whether Rove thinks taxing the 1 percent will end America’s problems.

On the latter, Rove gave an emphatic answer.

‘It won’t. Love your sign, man,’ he said to an audience member, ‘but it ain’t gonna work.’ He went on to highlight his view that America is a place where hard work and determination are rewarded.

‘I am sick and tired of people saying, in this country of ours, that there oughta be a limit on what people can dream and do,’ he said, evoking the achievements of Bill Gates, which drew applause from the audience.

Rove continued to hammer Obama throughout the Q-and-A, calling the stimulus bad policy and saying the president needs to be someone who brings everybody together. Rove referenced the development of the Bush tax cuts, and said former President George W. Bush and his team gave several concessions to the Democrats to work together to pass the cuts.

When questioned on his involvement with American Crossroads, a super PAC, Rove said he thinks the effect of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision will be ‘relatively small.’ The decision allows for independent groups to raise and spend unlimited sums of money from individuals and corporations on activities such as political advertising. The money flowing into the super PACs will be from individuals, not companies, he said.

Members of the audience ranged from students to community members and Democrats to Republicans. Dylan Rocke, vice president of the College Republicans, said he liked the talk because Rove used an unbiased approach by using numbers and statistics to make his points. Rocke enjoyed hearing Rove’s thoughts on the health care bill and taxing the 1 percent.

But the facts didn’t impress Amy Snider, president of the College Democrats, quite as much. Snider is a political science major and said she understands that statistics can be manipulated to work to a certain advantage. In politics, she said, opinion often trumps facts.

By bringing Rove to campus, the College Republicans hoped to attract a variety of people with different ideologies and saw the event as an educational opportunity. Zach Weiss, chairman of the group, expressed that sentiment when he addressed the crowd.

Said Weiss: ‘No matter which side of the aisle that you’re on, we just want to see a strong turnout this election season. We want to see a lot of students making informed decisions.’

kronayne@syr.edu  

Published on February 15, 2012 at 12:00 pm