Many people I know - liberals especially - regard Karl Rove as an evil genius or dark wizard. Now that Bush's tenure looks increasingly like a hiccup in a long slow trend toward Democratic dominance, it's especially tempting to think that the baleful sorcery of this one political strategist was the only thing that gave Bush his one-and-a-half razor-thin victories.
I've always felt that the Cult of Rove had it all wrong. Bush did much worse than he should have in 2004, given the decent economy and the fact that there was a war on. And if Rove gets credit for Bush's victories, he certainly must share the blame for the Republican disaster of 2006, when he coordinated strategy for the party.
But even beyond his win-loss record, Rove must be judged based on his contribution to the long-term health of the Republican party. And it's there that his disastrous failure becomes most evident. Clive Crook, one of the most intelligent conservative commentators on the web, writes:
What makes no sense at all is the even more prevalent view in the party that fence-sitters such as Mr Specter should have been purged already – that the path back to power lies in ideological purity and a re-energised conservative base...Rove's key "insight" was that centrist swing voters no longer mattered in winning elections - what mattered was turning out the base. The idea seemed to be that the 80s and 90s had crystallized American politics; we were essentially permanently split into a 50-50 nation, with no true "swing voters" left. Bush's victory in 2004 seemed to prove that point.
The Republicans’ emulation of [the most] proven model of political failure takes on an even more farcical aspect when you consider the conservative ideas to which party purists say they want to return...Their platform, if you can call it that, is a compendium of slogans and prejudices, bound together by disgust at the Obama administration. With the economy in its present state, this is no time to be saying “government is the problem” – especially if you have nothing further to add and the economy’s troubles are universally understood to be the legacy of a Republican president.
The problem was, this strategy completely ignored even the near future. Focusing only on the base deprived Republicans of both the moderate policy positions and the campaign infrastructure necessary to arget swing voters. And when world-shaking events - Katrina, Iraq, the financial crisis - disrupted that 50-50 balance even slightly, swing voters became essential once again, and the Republicans were lost in Sarah Palin-land.
Like most dark wizards in the movies, Rove just blew up his own castle in a mad quest for power. Rove's "focus on the base" strategy purchased a couple razor-thin victories at the cost of what may well be decades of crushing defeats; it was the political-strategy equivalent of the Bush tax cuts. Of course, Rove himself is by now safely ensconced at his Fox News gig, where he can avoid taking the blame for mounting Republican losses and dispense his "wisdom" to worshippers who cant put 2 and 2 together.
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