Rove: Bo French Exposes Need for GOP Housecleaning

Karl Rove says he voted for the Democrat over Bo French for the Texas Railroad Commission, and he wants you to treat it like a solemn act of conscience. Funny how these bursts of moral urgency always seem to land on the Republican side of the ledger. He’d already taken a swing at French by calling him a “bigot” over a social media post involving a photo of people who appeared to be Asian American. Then he went a step further and crossed the line from criticism to sabotage. If you think your party’s nominee is unfit, you don’t fix that by helping Democrats win.

We’re not here to defend dumb posts. Republicans should be able to say, “That was stupid, knock it off,” without breaking into civil war. But Rove didn’t just make a point about tone or judgment. He made the story about himself, and he picked the one move that guarantees headlines and guarantees damage. This is the old consultant reflex: scold on cable, then cash the attention. If he wanted “housecleaning,” there are primaries, party committees, donor pressure, and a thousand unglamorous ways to do it that don’t hand power to the other team.

There’s also the uncomfortable fact that the Texas Railroad Commission is not a book club. It’s an energy regulator in an energy state. The people who pay for the mistakes are Texans, and the people cheering loudest when Republicans kneecap themselves are Democrats who’d love to steer energy policy in a very different direction. Rove can call it character, but voters can call it what it looks like: a vendetta dressed up as virtue. You don’t protect the brand by burning the product.

If Bo French gave Republicans a self-inflicted wound, fine, say that plainly and deal with it. But watching a former Bush adviser publicly brag about voting Democrat as a form of “cleanup” is not leadership. It’s theater. And it’s a reminder that some of the loudest voices demanding purity are perfectly comfortable with surrender, as long as they get to narrate it.