Veteran GOP strategist Karl Rove went into more detail about his decision to split with his party in the upcoming elections with a blistering op-ed.
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Earlier this week, the Texas Tribune reported that Rove, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and longtime Texas GOP political consultant, said he will vote for Houston Democrat Jon Rosenthal to serve on the Texas Railroad Commission.
Rove announced his split during a members-only lunch event at the Headliners Club in Austin, where he explained that he made his decision after Republican Bo French posted racist comments about South Asian students at the University of Texas. However, in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rove tore into the GOP, saying it wasn’t just French that turned him off from his own party.
“The GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas,” Rove wrote. “Conservatism and the party it dominates have an increasing number of bigoted advocates of a ‘heritage America’ composed of white descendants of the original European settlers.”
Rove never responded to the Texas Tribune’s reporting, but his op-ed echoed much of what the outlet had reported. French’s post came after footage showed UT students celebrating the victory of the Longhorns football team over the top-ranked Ohio State with a last-minute touchdown.
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“How did Bo French—a UT grad and Republican statewide candidate for Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry—mark this special moment?” Rove asked in his WSJ post, which also described the final moments of the game at length.
Rove explained in the op-ed that French reacted to “a picture of screaming, joyous, celebrating burnt-orange-clad students” by declaring, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
“Mr. French’s not-so-subtle claim that UT has too many Hispanics and South Asians—he later said his issue is too many ‘foreigners’—is raw, uncut bigotry,” Rove blasted. “These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. I’ll have no part of it.”
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