Why are we still talking about Karl Rove?

The Associated Press

Still a mastermind?

Featured Topic | Posted 30 weeks 2 days ago

Why are we still talking about Karl Rove?

Ladies and gentlemen, Karl Rove has not left the building. He's on Fox News, giving election analysis. And he looms in the minds of Democrats looking to November, as they plan a defense against the types of strategies he used to help George W. Bush win the presidency in 2000 and 2004.

Karl Rove isn't campaigning this year. Why are we still talking about him?

Ben likes: Karl Rove through the fog

Rich Lowry/National Review

Rove's wins can never be taken away from him, especially when in 2000 and 2004 he had so little margin for error. It's in his ambition to realign American politics that he fell short. Big government "compassionate conservatism" degraded into the indefensible excesses of the late GOP congressional majority. The vision of an "ownership society" foundered with the failure of Social Security reform. Outreach to Hispanics backfired when it was based on a nonenforcement of immigration laws offensive to law-and-order conservatives.

If a Republican wins the presidency in 2008, it will have to be Rove-style -- a masterful, but narrow victory won in parlous political circumstances.

Joel likes: The repudiation of Rove

Harold Meyerson/The Washington Post

Blessed, in Romney, with an opponent who approaches the Platonic Ideal of Inauthenticity, McCain has racked up primary-season successes more because of the personal contrasts between the two candidates than because of differences of program. But his personal merits have yet to sway those Republicans who classify themselves in the polls as very conservative.

A more direct affront to the Republican strategy devised by Karl Rove -- to build support within the party's right-wing base and then try to win over just enough moderates to carry elections -- cannot be imagined. McCain's whole campaign is anti-Rovian