Rove on Bush via Gerson

Michael Gerson interviews Karl Rove about "Bushism," of which Rove, like Gerson himself, is "the most serious, tireless advocate":

Rove argues that Republicans win as activist reformers, in the tradition of Lincoln, McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. "We were founded as a reformist party," he said in our conversation this week, "not to be against something, but to help the little guy get ahead." The models he cites are 401(k)s and the mortgage interest deduction—government policies that encouraged individual wealth and ownership. Then Rove spent several minutes describing, with wonkish delight, the momentum and virtues of health savings accounts, a Bush-era innovation allowing individuals to save tax-free for routine medical expenses.

The activist use of government to help individuals get ahead may not sound controversial. Among Republicans, it is. In the 1996 presidential election, Dole's domestic message focused on the limits and flaws of the federal government—he talked endlessly of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which constrains federal power in favor of the states. In 2000, Bush's main domestic proposal concerned the use of federal power to catalyze state education reform—a head-snapping contrast.

Related: "The Compassionate Conservatism of George W. Bush."

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Politicians Are People, Too

They have a sense of humor.

Romney: "I asked Ann, my wife, 'Did you ever in your wildest dreams believe I would be running for President?' She told me, 'You weren't in my wildest dreams.'"

Rudy: "To have a description of my mistakes in 30 seconds?"

Fred Thompson: "I am sitting here with a long face and broken heart as I contemplate sunsets on the Mediterranean, which I will not see. . . . We must remember the unspoken vow that all United States senators take upon entering the Senate: I shall have no money, and I shall have no fun. I, of course regarding myself as an unconquerable soul, am still determined to break the second part of that vow."

Karl Rove: When his resignation from the White House was announced, some staffers at a Seattle Times news meeting cheered. Rove responded by sending a basket of cookies to the newsroom, with a note saying, "My wife shares in your enthusiasm."

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Why There Will Be No Rove Republicans

Hindsight is 20-20, but Karl Rove's agenda was bound to fail. David Frum explains:

It was a politics that aimed at winning elections. It was a politics that treated the problems of governance as secondary.

Moreover, Rovian governance itself contained a fatal flaw, which Joshua Green pinpoints with libertarian precision:

As Mr. Rove sought a political realignment that would create a durable Republican majority, he seized on government as his chief mechanism. He tried to realign American politics principally through the pursuit of major initiatives that he believed would reorient a majority of Americans to the Republican Party. . . .

Mr. Rove’s entire vision for Republican realignment was premised on the notion that he could command government to produce the specific effects that he desired. But as a conservative could have predicted, his proposed policies unleashed a series of failures and unintended consequences. . . .

Mr. Rove married a liberal’s faith in the potential of government to a conservative’s contempt for its actual functioning. This was the contradiction at the heart of “compassionate conservatism.”

Green has profiled Rove twice for the Atlantic, once in 2004, and again this month.

More on Rove's big-government conservatism here.

Jonathan Martin reprints Rove's exit e-mail to colleagues here.

Update (8/23/07): On the other hand, as the Economist recently noted, Rove gave the conservative movement what it wanted:

the invasion of Iraq for the neoconservatives (who had championed it long before September 11th); tax cuts for business and the small-government conservatives; restricting federal funding for stem-cell research for the social conservatives; and conservative judges to please every faction.

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Karl Rove Rejects "Big-Government Conservatism"

The label, not the idea. From Jeffrey Toobin's recent article in the New Yorker:

When I mentioned [Jeff] Flake’s objections [about the lack of fiscal restraint among Republicans] to Rove, he said, “I don’t accept the label ‘big-government conservatism.’ I think the object here is how do you fundamentally reform the big institutions of government in a way in which you drive them toward market choice, to the individual, to decentralization.” He went on, “Flake is one of the few people who are consistent. Because he will say, ‘Not only should we not have the prescription-drug benefit but also we shouldn’t have Medicare, either. But most members of Congress, virtually every conservative member of Congress, has said, ‘Look, we’ve settled that issue; we’re going to have Medicare.’”

See also "Big-Government Conservatism."

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Big-Government Conservatism

A couple weeks ago, I observed:

[T]he Right is at a crossroad. On one hand are those who have inured themselves to the relentless growth of government. Such people no longer want to downsize federal agencies but to harness them for their own ends.

A few days ago, David Keene, the longtime chairman of the American Conservative Union, confirmed that this philosophy dominates the current White House:

"I've been to no end of meetings where his [President Bush's] chief advisers have said, 'Watch not how much we spend but how we spend it.' But to the traditional conservative, how you spend it and how much you spend are both important."

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