NYT : A Last Hurrah of Sorts for Bush-Rove Partnership

A Last Hurrah of Sorts for Bush-Rove Partnership

By JIM RUTENBERG | November 7, 2006

PENSACOLA, Fla., Nov. 6 — President Bush and his political partner, Karl Rove, ended it where they started it: in this sliver of Northwest Florida that arguably gave them their 2000 victory.

Like then, the two have utilized a symbiotic relationship in which, friends say, Mr. Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, is both mastermind and supplicant, and Mr. Bush is both leader and follower.

Where several members of the team that got Mr. Bush to the White House in 2000 are gone, Mr. Rove remains.

Mr. Rove helped to give Mr. Bush a winning strategy, first guiding him to the governor’s seat in Texas, then to the White House. Mr. Bush brought Mr. Rove along on a remarkable journey to the pinnacle of the political world. They have won every election they have taken on together.

Mr. Bush, who is more involved in the nitty-gritty of politics than he lets on publicly, gave Mr. Rove the clearance to run the White House midterm elections plan according to his standard playbook, even as other Republicans began to question Mr. Rove’s reputation for strategic brilliance and detach themselves from Mr. Bush and the Iraq war.

This year has not been easy on the two men, but in public at least, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove usually seem to be enjoying themselves. In the campaign’s waning days, Mr. Rove emerged as the campaign jester of Air Force One, a role he has taken on in all of Mr. Bush’s big campaigns.

On almost every leg of every trip, Mr. Rove appeared before the traveling group of journalists to alternately tease them or flatter them, all the while spinning scenarios pointing to yet another Republican victory in the face of forecasts to the contrary.

Thus, there last week was the man Mr. Bush calls “the architect” — and some liberal bloggers call an evil genius — walking into the Air Force One press cabin to distribute chocolate-covered caramels to the traveling reporters. His prediction for Election Day: “Victory, victory, victory.”

Another day while dispensing candy to the press, he shouted, “Sweets for my sweets!”

Mr. Bush is reveling in being on the campaign trail too, rolling up his sleeves and going into arenas where audiences explode at lines that get polite applause from the more moneyed crowds he has addressed this year. An aide to Mr. Bush recalled how, just before taking the stage at a booming gymnasium in Le Mars, Iowa, the president turned to him and several others and said, “All right, boys, I have some new chestnuts for ’em tonight,” adding, “They ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Despite several requests, the White House would not arrange an interview with Mr. Rove to discuss what is, in effect, his last big campaign for Mr. Bush. Indicating that he still plans on being relevant, along with Mr. Bush, two years from now, a White House aide said that Mr. Rove “disputes the premise.”

Post-Tuesday Thinking

Indeed, what happens after Tuesday is something of a sore subject with several of Mr. Bush’s advisers.

They refuse to discuss the possibility of life with a Democratic speaker of the House, presumably Representative Nancy Pelosi of California. And whenever the subject of the president’s last two years come up, the aides make sure everybody knows that Mr. Bush intends to go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Asked Monday about plans for a possible Democratic-controlled Congress, Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, repeated his standard refusal to discuss the topic, then added, “Here’s the thing that you do need to know, which is that the president plans for a very active final two years of his presidency.”

He added, “So the president is going to be very aggressive, and he’s not going to play small ball.”

Everywhere, though, there are reminders that Washington will soon begin to focus on 2008 — like, say, Wednesday. Charlie Crist, the Republican candidate for governor in Florida, skipped out on an appearance in Pensacola with Mr. Bush, choosing instead to appear in Jacksonville with Senator John McCain of Arizona, a favored contender for the Republican presidential nomination should he run.

A person close to Senator McCain said that his advisers had checked with the White House last week to make sure there was no conflict and noted the events were two hours apart. The senator is expected to start his 2008 political strategy sessions on Wednesday.

And last Saturday, Mr. Bush beckoned a reporter, Nedra Pickler of The Associated Press, to his cabin at the front of Air Force One, to say goodbye. She is leaving her job as a White House correspondent to begin covering the 2008 campaign.

Not-So-Sunshine State

Florida has been good to Mr. Bush over the years. Yet, there are signs of wear here, like elsewhere, and Mr. Crist is not the only Republican in the state with whom the White House has had its differences.

Representative Katherine Harris, the state’s former Secretary of State and onetime Bush loyalist who was credited with helping to secure Mr. Bush’s victory in 2000, is running for the seat held by Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat.

But Ms. Harris and the Bushes — that includes the president’s brother, Florida’s outgoing governor, Jeb Bush, are no longer allies; she defied their wishes that she not run for the Senate seat, and, despite a lot of trying, they were unable to persuade anybody else to run.

When Mr. Crist backed out of the Pensacola rally, Ms. Harris was the most prominent Republican candidate on the state ballot this year in attendance. Yet she was not up on the stage with Mr. Bush, his wife Laura, Governor Bush and Senator Mel Martinez.

Asked before landing in Pensacola whether Mr. Bush was “excited” to campaign with Ms. Harris, Mr. Snow said flatly: “He wants Republican candidates to win.”

If enough of them do not, it is going to be a very different world for him come Wednesday.