Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery Quotes
The first advice I have to give the party is that it should clean its slate.
5th Earl of Rosebery. This seems to be the origin of the phrase “clean slate” and “wipe the slate clean”. Slate was a black flat stone that was used as a blackboard by writing on the black stone with white chalk.
Archibald Philip Primrose Rosebery, 1847-1929, British Prime Minister (Liberal) Member of British Parliament, Speech. Chesterfield. December 16, 1901
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This brilliant statement to lift morale was skillfully designed not to make the polulation too optimistic because there was much bad news ahead. And the Battle of Egypt did not tip the balance of military power. But it was a win for the allies, and the first significant one.
It has been a common tactic to appeal to the extreme base of a party to win the primary election and tack back to the center for the general election. And this statement in most elections would not have been important or noteworthy. However, in 2012 the Republican party had become very extreme and ideologically conservative whereas when it was founded it was a liberal—even radical party. Romney, in his second try for the nomination, had changed almost all of his previously moderate positions and flip flopped many positions to assure the party base that he was very conservative. But many conservatives were not sure of Romney’s sincerity and suspected that he was just pandering to the base of the party and would reverse himself in the general election. As a result, Fehrnstrom’s statement set off a firestorm among the base and forced Romney into assuring them that he would not again flip flop back. This had the effect of denying Romney a traditional strategy to appeal to the middle in the general election as most of the undecided voters were in the middle. At the same time, the Democratic opponents used this quotation to accuse Romney of being deceptive and pandering to anywhere he could obtain votes. The political comedians all appeared on TV with Etch A Sketch devices. So the quotation had a major effect on the tactics and direction of the campaign.
Archibald Philip Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery, 1st Earl of Midlothian, KG, KT, PC, FRS, FBA was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from March 1894 to June 1895. Between the death of his father in 1851 and the death of his grandfather, the 4th Earl of Rosebery, in 1868, he was known by the courtesy title of Lord Dalmeny.
