On Sunday, President Trump went after his Republican nemesis – the Andy Reid to his Nick Sirianni, the Professor Moriarity to his Sherlock Holmes, the Newman to his Jerry Seinfeld – Karl Rove, political commentator, consultant, and former Deputy Chief of Staff for President George W. Bush:

I don’t need to have Karl Rove of FoxNews to tell me what to do. The guy’s a total Loser who’s been wrong about almost everything!

Which brings up a good question – just how good of a political mind is Karl Rove’s?

I think I will attempt to answer that pressing question.

First, let’s look at Karl Rove’s record as a manager of presidential campaigns. He was the manager of both of George W. Bush’s victories, in 2000 and 2004.  

As I discussed before, in 2000, Rove was working for Bush, the popular two-term Republican governor of Texas who was also the son and namesake of the most recent Republican president. Bush was running against Al Gore, the sitting two-term vice president under Bill Clinton, who also had a prominent political family name and a much more extensive governmental resume than Bush. By October of 2000, Bush was running slightly ahead of Gore nationally and had a clear edge in the electoral college. The one concern voters had about Bush – that he was relatively inexperienced and untested – had largely subsided. But then, the news that Bush had been arrested for drunk driving in 1976 was released just five days before the election. 

As Karl Rove himself said, this probably cost Bush two percentage points nationally, made him lose the popular vote, and only win the presidency after a protracted legal battle in Florida. This was a huge mistake by Karl Rove, since Bush certainly had prior knowledge of his drunk driving incident, and Karl Rove, his campaign manager, either knew it or should have known it. The smart play for the Bush campaign was to, soon after the Republican convention, release that information to the public, far before the November election, to prevent it from being used as a political hit. (Hat tip: Robert Traynham, my former boss, the 2000 press secretary for Sen. Santorum.) But he didn’t, and it cost him bigly, and is a major blemish on Rove’s record.

Rove also made other mistakes in 2000.  As campaign manager, he must accept part of the blame for Bush’s poor performance in the debates against Gore. In the end, he was just lucky that Gore was so obnoxious that it didn’t matter. And he also decided to make a late play for California, which was just a waste of money.  

On the other hand, Rove did win the 2000 race. He also raised gobs of money, reinvigorated presidential campaigns with microtargeting and a focus on voter turnout, and positioned his candidate well to appeal to the voters, who were – after eight years of immorality and corruption under Bill Clinton – looking for non-Washingtonian, a “compassionate conservative” – whatever that meant – and a candidate of high moral principles.

In 2004, when Bush sought re-election against a Massachusetts liberal named John Kerry, Rove did much better. His campaign expertly picked apart Kerry, making great use of the Democrat’s two-faced nature, most importantly Kerry’s "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,” and wedge issues such as gay marriage. That year, Rove made no major mistakes – although he still didn’t prepare Bush adequately for the debates – and saw his candidate carry both the popular vote and the electoral college.  

Second, Rove also played a supporting role behind the scenes during Republican presidential campaigns in 2008 and in 2012. There, Rove was largely unsuccessful, although it is hard to know exactly what he was responsible for. He also had a notable meltdown on election night in 2012, indicating that he didn’t see the Romney loss coming, which reflects poorly on the idea of his having vast political smarts. (Although many political prognosticators didn’t see that one coming, since Obama won largely by playing the race card, which had never been done before.) 

Third, there is no question that Rove was a dominant figure in lesser political races, mostly in Texas, where he is universally acknowledged to have turned a solid Democrat state into a solid Republican one. 

Fourth, let’s look at some of his political commentary. The current nastiness erupted as a result of Karl Rove’s argument that Trump sounds like “Mr. Scrooge” with his posture on the state of the economy, which Rove believes is dragging Trump down in the polls. Certainly, Rove is relying on many biased left-wing polls to make his case that economic numbers are dragging down President Trump’s approval ratings, as I just discussed. In fact, the RCP average is up a little now from when I wrote before, as several less biased polls – Rasmussen, Trafalgar, Emerson – have balanced the average out more.  

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Other advice Karl Rove has given is not so far out of left field, however. He is correct in saying that Trump’s energetic administration, which is making yuge moves on multiple fronts, is “exhausting” to some Americans. This has happened before — see 1995-1996. Also, there is no question that President Trump should dial down some of his “mean tweets.” (If President Trump doesn’t believe me, perhaps he should believe his good Republican buddy, Ol’ Honest Abe Lincoln?)  

So, we clearly have a mixed record here. So, what is the final verdict on Karl Rove’s political acumen? Well, I think the decider here should be Karl Rove himself:

During George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign, Karl Rove told reporters he aimed to be the Mark Hanna of the 21st century. Like Hanna, the wealthy Cleveland industrialist who died in 1904, Rove would create a durable, conservative Republican majority by appealing to groups that had previously leaned Democratic — particularly Hispanics and white Catholics.

The fact is, Karl Rove failed to produce a durable conservative Republican majority. During the McKinley years, the GOP won four straight solid presidential victories, in both the popular vote and the electoral college, before finally losing the presidency when a former Republican president came back to divide the GOP vote and allow Woodrow Wilson to sneak into the presidency with only 42 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, after Bush’s two narrow victories, the GOP lost the presidency convincingly and only regained it under Donald Trump.

Which means that yes, according to his own standard, Karl Rove is a loser.