Republicans learn lesson...

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Rove off the hook as party blames Iraq

By Caroline Daniel, Holly Yeager and Krishna Guha

Published: November 10 2006 02:20 | Last updated: November 10 2006 02:20

When President George W. Bush lobbed a barb at Karl Rove, his chief political strategist, at his press conference, “I was obviously working harder on this campaign than he was,” there were notable “oohs” from the audience at the public slapdown.

Republican analysts on Thursday said the jibe was unfair. The election was an indictment of Mr Bush’s Iraq policy, not political tactics. “Nobody thinks that Karl is in charge of the occupation of Iraq,” said Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, who has close ties to Mr Rove. “I haven’t heard any complaints about him. In a conference call with conservative groups no one faulted the turnout effort.”

Although Mr Bush said they had faced a “thumping”, Mr Rove’s strategy of targeting the base was effective. White evangelical, born-again Christians, a group he wooed in 2004, remained firmly within the republican coalition – 71 per cent voted Republican, a one per cent drop on 2004. Turnout remained high at 24 per cent, against 23 per cent in 2004.

While the Republicans held on to their base voters, according to the American Enterprise Institute, this was trumped by the fact that self-identified moderates voted Democrat by a margin of 57 to 39, the biggest Democrat share in 20 years.

“In just a few months of divisive campaigning and ill-considered strategy, President Bush and Karl Rove managed to dismantle the Republican party’s governing majority by appealing to only the most conservative elements of its base. The returns reveal that the neo-conservatives/radical agenda drove off voting blocks that turned to the Democrats,” said John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress.

Republicans also lost support of suburban voters. The districts that switched most were more than 90 per cent white, with a 9 per cent drop in support from suburban areas, especially in Missouri and Virginia. In 1994, the middle class voted 54 per cent for Republicans. On Tuesday the Democrats won 53 per cent of these voters. House exit polls showed Democrats also won every income category under $100,000.

This loss suggests the White House team miscalculated efforts to re-frame the election around taxes and terrorism. Mr Bush admitted: “I thought when it was all said and done the American people would understand the importance of taxes and of security.”

The election also confirmed Mr Rove’s efforts of ushering in a grand Republican realignment have stalled. The most obvious rebuff was the Hispanic vote. Mr Bush courted them with immigration policy. House republicans scotched that. They paid a price. Hispanics voted 70 per cent for Democrats, up from 55 per cent in 2004.

Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, said: “Republicans lost the gains they made among Hispanics by the harshness of their tone and policies on immigration, particularly the bill to erect a wall between the United States and Mexico.. it sent a terrible signal, and you could see it specifically in races, in Arizona, in Colorado.”

The Democrats also held their overwhelming majority of black voters at 89 per cent, the same as in 2004, in spite of the Republicans fielding a handful of prominent black candidates. Ken Mehlman, chairman of the RNC, bleakly warned on Thursday that the party was “in danger of party of whites.”

Mr Rove’s efforts to broaden the coalition to include conservative Jews and Catholics also delivered few gains. There was a 23 per cent drop in support for Republicans from Jewish voters, and one per cent fall in Catholic support. In districts, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Democrats handpicked candidates, such as Bob Casey, an anti-abortion Catholic, there was an 11 per cent swing from Catholics.

While most evangelicals voted Republicans, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said they had made inroads by broadening the issue of values beyond abortion. “To the extent that there was a fall-off among evangelicals, that was a Bush problem, the morality, the scandals. To the extent that we got roughly a third of the white evangelical vote, that was our values message.”

Mr Rove may have put too much faith in historical political facts, such as that incumbents tend not to be defeated, with 97.5 per cent getting reelected since 1996, and that there were fewer open races small, with only 20 open seats, less than the Democrats faced in 1994. A week before the election he confidently predicted keeping the House and Senate, yet that may have been driven by bravado not belief.

Although some glitz has come off Mr Rove, Republicans have been more eager to blame botched campaigns and individual ethics scandals. “Bob Sherwood’s seat [in Pennsylvania] would have been overwhelmingly ours, if his mistress hadn’t whined about being throttled,” said Mr Norquist. Any lessons from the campaign? “Yes. The lesson should be, don’t throttle mistresses.”