Karl Rove was dubbed "The Architect" by an appreciative President Bush after his masterful management of the President's 2004 re-election campaign. He is unparalleled as a political tactician. He knows where to find Republican voters and how to get them out to the polls. John Kerry would be President today were it not for Rove. But Rove's brilliance in that area did not carry over to the public policy assignment he took on at the beginning of Bush's second term - which is why Republicans on Capitol Hill believe it is a good thing he is surrendering that assignment now to focus on politics again.
Last January, Rove took a beautifully simple idea - reforming Social Security with personal retirement accounts - and, trying to appease Democrats, developed a program too complicated to sell.
Then he was in the midst of last fall's disastrous Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination, and more recently was a prime mover behind the President's effort to enact an amnesty for illegal aliens. Conservatives, recalling his good work of 2004, are delighted his next project will be retaining the Republican majority in Congress.
