It’s largely faded from memory, but it’s worth noting that Karl Rove was demoted from his job as White House chief of staff back in April for one reason: the GOP establishment wanted him to focus exclusively on the midterm elections. He’d been given all kinds of policy responsibilities — including heading up the administration’s reconstruction effort after Katrina — but in April, he was freed up to devote his time and attention to the campaign cycle. Indeed, he had nearly seven months to figure out exactly how to keep the Republicans in the majority. Plenty of time to craft a killer plan.
How’d that work out?
For years, many of us on the left (and I include myself in this category) seem to have struggled with Rove-envy. He’s the “genius” mastermind; the “architect;” the strategist without which the GOP would crumble. Except, as we’re finally beginning to realize, he’s not really any of those things. Rove is more snake-oil salesman than Svengali.
Yesterday, during his press conference, the president was asked how his book-reading competition was going with Rove. Bush said he was losing. “I obviously was working harder on the campaign than he was,” the president said. After reporters responded with surprised laughter, Rove “wore a sheepish grin and stared at his lap.”
And with good reason. Rove crafted a can’t-miss gameplan, told everyone that there was no way Dems could reclaim Congress, and made key decisions that helped dictate the outcome. Except, as Matt Yglesias noted, those decisions were rather foolish: “It’s worth pointing out that this election ought to demolish the Myth of Karl Rove.”
From the GOP perspective, while losing five senate seats is worse than losing four, losing six is much worse than losing five. Since the 2006 climate clearly wasn’t favorable to the Republicans, the obvious thing to do would have been to concentrate resources on Republican incumbents running in red states — Virginia, Montana, Missouri, and Tennessee. I feel like there’s good reason to think the GOP could have won two out of those four had they focused. Instead, they tried an ambitious strategy of picking off Democratic seats in New Jersey and Maryland, two solidly blue states.
Interestingly, Rove made the exact same error in 2000, engaging in an absurd late-game effort to campaign in California. He then lost the election, only to wind up with Bush securing the White House through a series of incredibly unlikely events plus a partisan Supreme Court. Then in 2004, he did something similar with weird last minute gambits in Hawaii and New Jersey that put his candidates perilously close to losing Ohio (and with it the presidency) not withstanding a decent-sized popular majority. Learning nothing from his good fortune except an unhealthy sense of infallibility, he proceeded to do it again and then, finally, have things genuinely blow up in his face.
I’m also reminded of the time Rove had a sure-fire strategy to help Bush win the New Hampshire primary in 2000 and seal-up the nomination after the Iowa caucuses. It was a great plan, right up until McCain won by 16 points.
For that matter, Rove has managed to convince a surprisingly large swath of the political world into believing a party can win by doing nothing but turn out its base.
For six tumultuous years President Bush has provoked intense opposition while mobilizing passionate support for an ambitious conservative agenda. On Tuesday, that perilous strategy crumbled — and triggered his party’s abrupt fall from power.
Republicans lost control of the House, and teetered on the edge of losing the Senate as well. The widespread losses will present Bush and the GOP with a sharpened challenge from congressional Democrats eager to command attention for their policy priorities, such as raising the national minimum wage, and to investigate the administration’s performance on Iraq, global warming and other issues.
In the long run, the reversals raise fundamental questions about the viability of the strategy Bush and his chief political advisor, Karl Rove, have pursued to build a lasting Republican political majority.
Bush and Rove placed their main emphasis on unifying and energizing Republicans and right-leaning independents with an agenda that focused squarely on the goals of conservatives.
But Tuesday’s broad Democratic advance underscored the risks in that approach: In many races, Republicans were overwhelmed by an energized Democratic base and a sharp turn toward the Democrats by moderate swing voters unhappy with the president’s performance.
One almost gets the sense Rove believes he can win tough races by sheer force of will, which allows him to make foolish gambles.
May every GOP strategist be this much of a “genius.”
