With Karl Rove's responsibilities shifting from policy back to politics following Josh Bolten's ascension to the position of White House chief of staff Republicans are pushing a meme to journalists that the move will improve the party's chances in November because of Rove's political prowess. But will it?
Many words have been written and spoken about Karl Rove's ability to win elections through unorthodox, if sometimes nefarious, tactics. To take just a few examples, it's widely believed that Rove bugged his own campaign and tried to pin the blame on his competitors and that he created a whisper campaign insinuating that the incumbent his candidate was challenging was a pedophile.
Many also point to Rove's success in getting George W. Bush reelected in 2004 as further proof of his unmatched talents. After all, going into the election season, the President's approval rating hovered near 50 percent -- not the strongest position for any incumbent. But how much of an achievement really is it to get an incumbent with an approval rating in the low 50s or in the high 40s reelected? Perhaps Rove increased Bush's backing among the public from 49 percent to 51 percent -- nothing to sneeze at, but also not a groundshaking achievement.
What's more, there are real questions about Rove's ability to measure the pulse of the American people. As John Dickerson writes for Slate, Rove was woefully wrong on the issue of Social Security reform, sinking Bush's second term before it even began.
That Rove still runs the political show should not necessarily hearten Republicans. Rove was the architect with Bush of the Social Security gambit that got the president's second term off on its bus-plunge trajectory. Not only were the Bushies offering the American public a grand new program for private accounts, they were offering Republican politicians a new view of politics. Don't worry about the time-tested political penalty that came with tinkering with Social Security, Rove argued. If you take on a bold challenge, voters will embrace you for your leadership. That may have sounded good in theory, but Rove royally botched the politics. Bush and his team misunderstood voters' fears about the safety net and made little attempt to meet potential Democratic allies halfway. The president sold his vague principles through masterfully inauthentic, sham town halls that increased opposition the more he talked. The notion failed so miserably that it fell off the national agenda completely.
Rove also oversaw, at least in part, the effort to reform America's immigration policy, which has erupted in great division within the Republican Party -- particulary within the party's base as corporatists and nativists square off on the "guest worker" program. Helping create a major split in the GOP is not the type of thing a Republican strategist would brag about.
Given the fact that Rove's political acumen just might not be all that it's cracked up to be, is he really up to helping a Republican Congress that is 25 points less popular than George W. Bush was in 2004 -- especially without a single Democratic bogeyman to kick around a la John Kerry? Even though this might contradict Beltway wisdom and GOP spin, I happen to believe that the answer is no. And if the Republicans put all of their stock in Rove's ability to pull off another victory this November, they're going to be sorely disappointed when they see the composition of the 110th Congress come January.
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