Karl Rove is to give up his job as the Bush administration’s policy tsar to focus on this year’s mid-term elections, it emerged on Wednesday, as alarm grows in the White House that the Republicans are in danger of losing control of Congress.
The administration also set about changing its public face with the resignation of its spokesperson for the past three years, Scott McClellan. But the news that Rove would relinquish his role overseeing policy after just over a year was widely seen as an acknowledgement that the presidency’s problems run deep.
The announcements are unlikely to be the last staff changes. The White House’s new chief of staff, Joshua Bolten — who installed a close colleague, Joel Kaplan, as Rove’s successor — has reportedly told administration staff he aims to ”refresh and re-energise” George Bush’s team.
Bush has tended to stick with loyal employees under fire, but this shake-up comes at a time when his popularity has hit record lows and still seems to be falling. The polls also suggest that if November’s congressional elections were held today the Democrats would win back the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate.
”They realised they could not continue with the same path and same policies,” said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and strategist. ”It got worse and worse and just when they said it can’t get any worse, it got worse again … if they lose control of Congress nothing will happen in the last two years of this administration.”
Since Rove became deputy chief of staff for policy last February, fusing politics and policy in a uniquely powerful portfolio, the administration’s domestic agenda has largely stalled. In particular, a flagship programme to part-privatise the federal pension system has got nowhere in the face of nervousness in the Republican party that it is too big a gamble.
It was also reported last year that Rove, who has orchestrated all Bush’s election campaigns since the early 1990s, had lost the president’s trust after it emerged he had participated in leaking the identity of a CIA agent in 2003.
But observers from across the political spectrum said they doubted that the reshuffle was intended to be punitive, pointing out Rove would retain the title of deputy chief of staff and his role as the president’s chief political adviser. They said the main reason for the move was the clamour from desperate Republicans for his proven electoral skills.
”The administration’s highest priority over the next seven months is to ward off what now looks like a Democratic victory in the November elections,” said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at Washington’s Brookings Institution, adding he did not see the change as a rebuff to Rove. ”It’s hard to believe his stock has fallen that low with the president. Karl got him re-elected, and Karl was not a champion of war in Iraq.”
Stephen Hess, a former staffer in earlier Republican administrations, agreed: ”This president’s problem is Iraq. And Iraq isn’t Rove’s policy.”
The two principal advocates for the Iraq war, besides the president, both seem assured of their jobs for the time being. The Vice-President, Dick Cheney, remains a driving force in the White House, and Bush has stood determinedly behind Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, despite calls from retired generals for him to resign. ”I’m the decider, and I decide what is best,” Bush said on Tuesday. ”And what’s best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defence.”
Rove’s departure is not expected to lead to immediate changes in administration policy, but could influence a significant ongoing debate inside the administration. Rove is reported to be an opponent of military action in Iran. – Guardian Unlimited Â