A Rovian Catastrophe

In 2004, after he masterminded President Bush's re-election campaign, Karl Rove was hailed as a political genius who quite possibly had the key to keeping the GOP in power....well, forever, I suppose. Rove's strategy? Motivate the base and rely on that trusty get-out-the-vote effort in the days preceding the election. Of course, in the aftermath of last week's election losses, many were left wondering exactly where the Rovian genius had gone wrong.

Many people cite the War in Iraq or political corruption as the reasons for last weeks election results; and, when discussing Democratic and Independent voters, those citations are most likely correct. However, Karl Rove's strategy has never been aimed at swaying these two groups of voters. Indeed, the success of Rove's genius arose from his ability to get so many voters to the polls despite largely ignoring these two groups. In light of Rove's acknowledged strategy, the reason for Republican losses ends up having nothing to do with Democrats, the War in Iraq, a change of direction, or any of those other things Nancy Pelosi talks about - it's a simple question of why Republican voters either refused to vote, or voted against Republicans.

So, which Republicans failed Rove? Was it his ever-so-reliable Evangelical crowd? Hardly. The ever growing ranks of Conservative Christians and Neo-Conservatives certainly made their presence felt on Election Day. All but one of the proposed bans on same sex marriage passed. The one that didn't? Arizona's. Other interesting ballot measures that passed? Minimum wage increases. Now think about that. What's different about Arizona Conservatism? (Hint: think Barry Goldwater) And who would vote overwhelmingly against increases in the minimum wage?

The answer to both has to do with fiscal conservatism. And these fiscal conservatives are the ones who didn't show up at last Tuesday's elections. These Goldwater-esque Conservatives generally vote overwhelmingly Republican. So why didn't they? Easy. Look at the National Debt. Look at how much money Congress spends. Look at all the pork-barrel projects coming out of Congress. Look at Republicans not voting Conservatively once in office. I could list tons of other reasons why the current batch of Congressional Republicans is not, at least in a fiscal sense, all that Conservative. I could also talk about how Republicans failed to deliver on the Immigration issue - but that's not the point.

The point is that Conservative voters, aside from the Religious Right, felt like their Congress had not delivered results for them. Here we find the flaw in Rove's strategy. You can't expect to rely exclusively on one group of people (Conservatives) for your candidates' voting base and not pay attention to half of them (the fiscal half) when you get in office. That's were Rove went terribly wrong this year: he still thought he could get fiscal Conservatives' votes simply by spewing that 'we're bad, but they'll be worse' line. Unfortunately, while that might work with Democratic, Independent, or even socially Conservative voters; an extremely logical, results oriented, Barry Goldwater type, libertarian conservative just isn't going to buy it.

So here's the message to Karl Rove: if you want to start winning elections again, just get your Republican Congressfolk to vote like they're Conservatives. Afterall, as Margaret Thatcher often says, "the facts of life are conservative" - so how hard can it be for politicians to follow suit?