I don't have the brain power to put it down as well as Mr. Cole, so I'll just agree with everything he said in his article, "Why Rove Failed":[I]n my opinion, the real problem is Rove and company’s complete reliance on gutter politics.Yeah. What he said.
If you look back at every stinking pile of excrement pushed by this administration, in every debate, there had to be an opposition group, the outgroup, to villify in order to push the agenda du jour (as noted in the comments, any disagreement in any form was considered to be treasonous). In every case, they were attacked viciously, with the full-fury of the Wingnuttosphere launching assault after assault until a modest 51% victory was achieved, and a mandate was declared. Anyone who spoke out of turn, or who opposed this administration was confronted by the Voltron formed of an unholy alliance of grass-roots organizations, party flacks, the blogosphere, and cronies in the ideological press (NRO and the Weekly Standard come to mind) as well as talk radio, and phasers were set on smear.
And it works great, especially when you are dealing with a portion of the population who really thinks the media is out to get them and who really are convinced Democrats are a bigger threat than Osama. A few times. Until you get to the point where everyone, due to the varying nature of ideological differences on issues, has felt the wrath of the Rove’s gutter politics.
Instead of forging a permanent coalition, he destroyed the party from within with internecine warfare, and his gutter politics now leave behind a bitter and broken GOP, with differing factions that at best distrust each other, at worst, despise each other (I am actively rooting for a rout of the GOP in the Presidential election in 2008, and voted for Democrats in 2006). Rove’s key to success, his willingness to viciously attack his opponents, was also the key to his and the Republican’s downfall. If he and this administration had stuck to waging their nasty wars against only Democrats and people external to the GOP, I doubt we would be having this conversation. But they couldn’t, because they had no real principles — just issues to win the next little political victory as they moved onward, damned whoever gets in their way. As such, there is no real party left. All the alleged principles are gone — there are no core “conservative beliefs” left — those were all picked off one by one for some short term political victory or another.
(photo credit: Citypages)
UPDATE:
I'll toss in Andrew Sullivan as well, in toto:
The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power — which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government's reach and and drain on the productive sector. In the re-election, the president with a relatively strong economy, and a war in progress, managed to eke out 51 percent. Why? Because Rove preferred to divide the country and get his 51 percent, than unite it and get America's 60. In a time of grave danger and war, Rove picked party over country. Such a choice was and remains despicable.
Rove is one of the worst political strategists in recent times. He took a chance to realign the country and to unite it in a war — and threw it away in a binge of hate-filled niche campaigning, polarization and short-term expediency. His divisive politics and elevation of corrupt mediocrities to every branch of government has turned an entire generation off the conservative label. And rightly so. It will take another generation to recover from the toxins he has injected, with the president's eager approval, into the political culture and into the conservative soul.
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