I think it's important to distinguish between the Rovian *strategy* as laid out there - build from base to centre - and the Rovian *tactics* which caused such distaste in the last few elections, based on FUD, guilt-by-association, and other appeals to emotion rather than mind.
I had the same thought at first - how can he call Obama's campaign Rovian - but the article works better if you are looking at the campaign in strategic terms.
It's still heavily partisan, with comments like "the process of getting to 50.1% for a figure of the left is more complex and involves more concerted efforts at concealment and dissimulation," which are hardly neutral.
Where I disagree is that I (and more relevantly a fair portion of the US electorate) evidently did not see McCain's positioning as particularly moderate or centrist. Palin for example is a highly polarising figure. And, again, the Rovian tactics coupled with many of the originators of those tactics lost the centre.
IMO if McCain had stood on his own merits more, picked a moderate and calm VP (not Lieberman, as IMO he mirrors rather than complements McCain in too many ways) and run an inclusive rather than wedge campaign he might have won. Just think, he could have attacked the issues, highlighted Obama's stance, and let the voters judge on record which was more centrist. It'd have been very close, I think, and he might have won. (But of course the Republican RW would have loathed that stance, and probably would not even permit it: nor was it really available to him after the Rep primaries.)
The article misses this entirely, and seems to assume that McCain's pre-2004 persona was how he ran. So I don't think its underlying case is by any means proven.
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