Republican political consultant and policy advisor Karl Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation in 2007.
First helping Bush win the Texas governorship, and later directing Bush’s two successful campaigns for the Oval Office, Rove was labeled Bush’s “boy genius” for his innovative electoral blueprints. In Bush’s 2004 re-election victory speech, the President referred to Rove as “the Architect” for delivering the wins.
(Rove headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives for Bush White House.)
Currently working as a political analyst on Fox News, Rove has been critical of former president Donald Trump and his 2024 re-election campaign on its strategic merits. In May, Rove called Trump’s campaign rhetoric against stalled rival Ron DeSantis, “petty, small and unimportant.”
This week in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Rove warned both parties about their presidential frontrunners, pointing to recent polling suggesting that Americans are dreading a rematch between Trump and Biden.
Rove wrote: “Both party’s front-runners have enormous weaknesses. Joe and Jill Biden are deluding themselves if they believe only he can defeat Mr. Trump.” He added: “But the GOP leader could sink his own campaign with his constant trashing of his intra-party rivals and their supporters. Turned off, they could fail to turn out or even turn away from the GOP.”
Rove also suggested that the party “that picks a fresh face will likely win the White House” (fresh being not Trump or Biden), and that if former South Carolina governor and US Ambassador to the United States Nikki Haley were to become the GOP nominee, she “would beat Biden in all six swing states — outperforming Trump in many key races.”
