ABOUT THE MOUTH OF TRUTH

This memo was passed to us by a high administration source who wishes to be anonymous. Gene Ruffini

CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET

FROM: Erskine Pine, Cauldwell Group

TO: Karl Rove

Copies to: Ken Mehlman, Mark McKinnon, Matthew Dowd, Dan Bartlett, Nicolle Devenish, Brad Freeman, Sara Taylor, Karen Hughes

Thanks for your kind words about the campaign. We here at the Cauldwell Group were all deeply appreciative of them and look forward to being of further service through the next election in 2008.

As you requested, we are putting together a top secret report giving in detail all the activities we put into place to help GWB win; what follows is an informal overview of its contents and recommendations. It is advised that this memo be destroyed immediately after reading.

To begin with, we owe a great debt of gratitude to the Diebold and other voting maching gurus who were able to steal or "lose" so many Dem votes that would have caused our defeat. The other side has already begun trying to find out how we did it, but the lack of a paper trail of inner accountability will make that impossible. Have no concern about that.

However, it is advised that we immediately begin to place more of our people into positions on election boards and polling places so that the utmost difficulty be made to thwart any Dem votes in the future. It worked well in this election and we must do so again.

By the same token, we trust that our stalwarts in the House and Senate will stymie any attempt to put into a place legislation to insure voting machine accountability. A national voting administration or commission to insure uniform and efficient voting procedures around the nation must at all costs be blocked.

Any attempt to do away with the Electoral College must also be neutralized. Even though GWB won the popular vote this time, there is no guarantee that the next GOP candidate will enjoy the same plurality. The electoral vote guarantees us a solid voting bloc in the south and midwest which, as you know, served us so well this time around.

About the next time, we urge a repeal of the law barring a two-term limit on the presidency. We here at our consulting group have discussed this often with you and feel that with GOP control of congress and the Supreme Court the limits can be removed which would insure successive – if not lifetime – terms for GWB. The legislative agenda might also consider the possibility of increasing the length of term to eight years if not just awarding lifetime tenure to GWB.

If this can not be achieved, i.e., repeal, increased term or lifetime, then thought must be given immediately as to who will be nominated in 2008.

Arnold is a possibility if the constitutional wrinkle can be ironed out, but his accent may make him a bit of a hard sell. We urge English and elocution lessons for him, but not to the point where he pronounces all his "gs." GWB’s common vernacular and inability to speak proper English endeared him to all the common folk, God bless ‘em.

So, what we need is a candidate who can accomplish what GWB did (with our guidance, we must say): sound and look like the common man, the kind of a guy "you’d like to have a beer with" (even though GWB was born rich, enjoyed bourbon and is on the wagon now). Also, a guy who is rough and tough and is not afraid of a scrap. (Where is John Wayne when you need him, huh folks?), but he’s also God-Fearing and religious. A good family man. How about Mel Gibson? He’s Catholic which could be a downer in the South and our evangelical base, but we could overcome that with the right media manipulation. And don’t forget, Catholics were solid for GWB.

We also urge, and are pleased to note that our suggestions on this were adhered to, that simple issues, like right to life and the war against terror, be stressed and repeated constantly to continue to make the electorate fearful and paranoid and believe that our man is the only one who can protect them and their religious values and also tuck them safely into bed at night. In other words, and please pardon this metaphor, we must read them bedtime stories from the bible before they go to sleep.

By the same token, let us hope that the other side chooses another candidate like John Kerry who we were able to contrast as in effect, a wine-imbibing liberal effete who could not take decisive manly action. Our dream Dem candidate: Hillary Clinton.

We are pleased to see that our constant admonition that image is all that counts and not content was so well embraced by the campaign although, to be sure, we know too that this was a lesson already well-known to all of you. Nevertheless, we continued to stress it make sure that it was consistently applied.

Regarding image, it is our considered advice that the success we enjoyed with the media be strengthened and enlarged in the next four years. With our control of the executive branch, Congress and the Supreme Court, we can insure the growth of corporate control of the media and the partisanship of TV and radio anchors, news editors, newspapers and magazines, i.e., all of the media except for some tinny-voiced inconsequential magazines, some sites on the internet and minor broadcasting outlets (all of which we intend to stifle as will be outlined in our full report).

It’s because of the media that we owe a great deal of our success, make no mistake about it. Not only were our people able to keep or at least to greatly soften embarrassing news from reaching the public, but they were able to slip in our message by the use of word and image manipulation according to procedures outlined in our various directives (see Index B of final report).

It is not only essential that the public not be made aware of our actions so that we will be able to say anything without fear of contradiction or disbelief by our base, but also because we will be able to control the image of any opposing candidate.

Toward that end, we urge that the media begin to build up Hillary Clinton as the preferred Dem candidate in 2008 because she will be so easy to destroy as an Eastern intellectual, a sexually permissive wife, who winks at adultery, and a closet lesbian. Our anchor people, editors, commentators, reporters, columnists and the like can fall into line, as they so ably have shown they can do, to boost her candidacy. Once that is done and she can becomes, let us hope, the candidate, we can so easily destroy her.

Another aspect, and this is particularly essential, is the discouragement of reading and scholarship by the public. We have done a good job of this so far as can be noted by the inability of most Americans to write a decent sentence or read. Of course, we must always appear to be encouraging education as we did with the No Child Left Behind effort (while making sure it would never work by underfunding it).

Finally, we must continue to insure, by any means possible (Karl you know what we signify), that the other side fight on our turf as Kerry did. The more the Dems sound like us, the better the likelihood that we will defeat them time and time again. After all, we own the playing field. God forbid the Dems should espouse really progressive positions and mean what they say.

We were successful in siphoning off those elements in the opposition by supporting and sponsoring the Nader campaign. We have to keep him around and ready for 2008.

As for the Green party and other independents, don’t worry about them. They are too busy arguing amongst themselves to offer any threat. However, that does not mean that they too should not be encouraged to remain in the fray. A vote for their candidates is one less vote for a Dem.

Glad to be of help. And don’t forget to destroy this memo.

Yours in solidarity, Erskine Pine, CEO Cauldwell Group.