- Karl Rove
Karl Rove, who was former president George W. Bush‘s political strategist for decades, including eight years in the White House, will make his second appearance before a Tennessee audience in two years, and this appearance, on January 20 at Rhodes College, will apparently be a closed affair like the previous one — Rove’s 2008 keynote address at the state Republican Party’s annual “Statesmen’s Dinner” in Nashville.
The exclusiveness of that earlier address to the party faithful, explicitly closed to the media, aroused protests — some of it from Republican Party elders themselves.
The announcement from Rhodes has this to say:
“…The lecture, presented by the Rhodes College Lecture Board and Young America’s Foundation, is open only to the Rhodes community and begins at 8 p.m. in the McCallum Ballroom.
>“Seating is by ticket, and in early January, students, faculty and staff will be notified where to pick up tickets. Tickets also will be available for purchase by alumni….”
Rove’s appearance will precede by a little over a month an address by current national Republican chairman Michael Steele at the local GOP’s annual Lincoln Day Dinner in March.