Give Karl Rove a break. His meltdown on election night may not have been entirely about Fox News prematurely calling Ohio for President Barack Obama. After all, the poor guy had every right to get upset while watching the Republican Party nominee’s campaign crash and burn.
For all intents and purposes, Mitt Romney trampled on Rove’s once vaunted GOP playbook — and leaves a weakened GOP in his wake.
Once upon a time, Rove had hoped to build a big-tent Republican Party that would be well-poised to capture the support of a rapidly diversifying America. He was the mastermind behind George W. Bush’s Latino strategy, first when Bush won reelection as Texas governor in 1998 and again when he campaigned for the presidency in 2000. In ’98 Bush became the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in Texas to win overwhelmingly Mexican-American El Paso County. Two years later, he won a respectable 35 percent of the Latino vote nationally.
Initially at least, Latinos were a crucial part of Bush’s overall strategy. His ability to capture a sizable portion (40 percent) of the Latino vote while Texas governor was, in fact, the one concrete thing he could point to when trying to pitch himself as a “compassionate conservative.”
How did Bush do it? It certainly wasn’t a long list of promises he delivered as governor. Because there was no list. Nor was it those charming moments when he trotted out his elementary Spanish-language skills. And as governor, immigration policy wasn’t even in his wheelhouse.
