One Utah

Karl Rove was willing to do whatever it took to get his man elected as far back as 1968, according to schoolmates at Olympus High School in Utah. Article.

GOP wizard Karl Rove has been crowing this week that, despite discouraging poll numbers, his party will hold on to both the House and Senate in the midterm elections. But that’s no surprise to folks who remember when Rove himself was a candidate - for president of his high school’s student senate.
Alumni of Olympus High, outside Salt Lake City, say the man now known as “Bush’s Brain” showed his political cunning way back in 1968.
“He had every social disadvantage imaginable,” recalls Brian Moench, then Olympus’ student body president. “Physically immature, no athletic ability, wasn’t good with the girls, nothing.”
A non-Mormon in a mostly Mormon town, the bespectacled nerd carried a briefcase and wore three-piece suits everywhere, even to football games, classmates tell James Ross Gardner in November’s GQ. What’s more, he was up against John Sorensen, who’d been class president during his soph and junior years.
But Rove “had a way of intimidating his opponents,” says classmate Carey Jones. While most debaters would bring a few note cards, he brought thousands.
Grooming his public image, he posed for a yearbook photo holding hands with Kathy Wagstaff-Emery, the senior class president’s girlfriend. “I found Karl endearing, but he was too flippin’ geeky,” she recalls. “The truth is, Karl grabbed my hand just before the photo was taken.”
Then came the day he was due to take on the incumbent in a gymnasium debate. Sorenson had just finished his speech, when Rove arrived sitting on the back of a VW Bug convertible with two of the school’s cutest girls.
The audience jumped to its feet as Rove and his adoring Rovettes made a lap around the gym, Gardner reports.
A spokeswoman for the White House deputy chief of staff insists that Rove wore suits only to student senate meetings and didn’t bring thousands of note cards. She had no comment on the VW Bug stunt.
“It was classic Karl, an inner cockiness tempered by a little self-deprecating humor,” remembers Jones. “He’s making fun of himself and the campaign process while at the same time making good use of it.”
By the way, the nerd won.

This entry was posted Sunday, October 29th, 2006 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Republicans, Salt Lake City. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.