GOP revolt: White House told Rove is out of touch
insightmag.com
Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, left, greeted presidential adviser Karl Rove at Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station on March 24. President Bush was attending a fundraising event for Santorum in Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
An increasing number of House Republican members are urging President Bush to keep Karl Rove out of the driver's seat in the 2006 congressional campaign.
GOP sources said House members have argued that Mr. Rove, White House deputy chief of staff and powerful Bush political adviser, is hampering what they believe could represent a comeback effort to retain control of Congress. The sources said Mr. Rove has been high-handed and out of touch with the interests of Republican constituents.
"There's been increasingly greater ego and less substance in this man," a senior GOP source said. "He's caused so much needless friction between the president and Congress."
The sources said many House members have urged the White House to sideline or even replace Mr. Rove as the GOP’s top strategist for the 2006 campaign. They said several candidates have been proposed, but would not specify.
"Once names get out, they're finished," another source said. "The names that are out there [in the media] are just smokescreens."
For his part, Mr. Bush has not ruled out major changes in the White House staff.
At a press conference on March 22, the president, with Mr. Rove standing nearby, suggested that he was mulling advice from GOP leaders.
"Well, I'm not going to announce it right now," Mr. Bush said.
At the same time, Mr. Bush endorsed Mr. Rove and Chief of Staff Andrew Card. The president termed the two "good, hard-working, decent people."
"I can remember '02 before the elections, there was a certain nervousness," Mr. Bush said, referring to the 2002 midterm elections, which saw Republicans make unexpected pickups in both House and Senate seats.
"There was a lot of people in Congress who weren't sure I was going to make it in '04, and whether or not I'd drag the ticket down,” he said. “So there's a certain unease as you head into an election year. I understand that.”
Mr. Rove has been regarded as Mr. Bush’s leading political strategist. The president referred to Mr. Rove as “the architect” behind Mr. Bush’s successful 2004 re-election campaign. GOP sources said Mr. Rove has served as what they term "the enforcer" of the president, ensuring that House and Senate Republicans support the administration's agenda or face a cutoff of financial and political support.
The sources said Mr. Rove was put in charge of GOP strategy for the 2006 congressional campaign in the wake of Mr. Bush's re-election victory in 2004. Mr. Rove was credited with drafting and executing a strategy that stressed Mr. Bush's commitment to the war against terrorism, national security and the vision of a democratic Iraq.
Over the last few months, Mr. Rove has sought to impose the same strategy on the GOP congressional campaign. But House members complain that Mr. Rove undermined his own strategy when he failed to prevent Mr. Bush from making serious miscues on several issues, particularly the attempted takeover by a United Arab Emirates company of major U.S. ports.
The GOP sources said several House and Senate members have refused to appear with Mr. Bush in campaign appearances in an effort to distance themselves from an unpopular administration. They did not elaborate.
Instead of Mr. Rove's pro-security agenda, House Republicans have pressed the White House for greater spending allocations to GOP-held congressional districts that face serious Democratic challengers. The sources said constituents have been judging the candidates by their ability to bring government funding and jobs to their districts.
"If we can't deliver the pork, then we're out of business," the senior GOP source said. |
