ELECTIONS Bush's political adviser puts a new spin on campaigning

No matter how he's seen, there's no denying his approach works.
BALTIMORE SUN
WASHINGTON -- On a blustery night in the New Mexico desert, President Bush was giving the next-to-last stump speech of a grueling campaign. The following morning, voters would decide his fate.
As he spoke, a man with nearly as much at stake was standing off to the side: Karl Rove. This was his show, too. He had spent nearly four years writing a re-election script, deciding where Bush would appear and how the campaign would woo voters.
Bundled up in a "W '04 Road Crew" jacket, Rove was regaling a flock of reporters. As his boss cracked a joke on stage, the balding, bespectacled adviser was performing his walking political calculator routine. He spewed numbers -- how many volunteers are in Florida, how much money was spent on advertising.
It all added up, Rove predicted, to a narrow Bush victory over Sen. John F. Kerry, with a margin of about 3 percent in the popular vote. He was dead on.
In his victory speech two days later, Bush thanked Rove, calling him "the architect" of his campaign.
Transforming Bush
Now Rove, 53, who has spent more than a decade helping to refashion George W. Bush from a baseball executive and former "first son" into a two-term president, is preparing for his next project, building the Republican Party into a durable national majority.
Admirers describe Rove as shrewd and ingenious, familiar with the political climate down to the county level, skilled at knowing where to find untapped Republican voters. Critics call him devious and willing to use smear tactics or distortion.
Rove, who was born on Christmas Day and whose middle name is in fact Christian, had talked for nearly two years about turning out millions more conservative Christians for the Republican cause by playing up Bush's faith and opposition to gay marriage. Conservative Christians responded by turning out in substantial numbers and giving Bush nearly 80 percent of their votes, according to exit polling.
Rove focused far more on increasing votes among hard-core Republicans than on attracting more centrist swing voters who are usually the target of politicians. However, picking off Jewish, Hispanic and black voters from the Democrats also was an important element of his plan.
The president's victory appeared to validate Rove's approach.
Relationship formed
A political marriage between Bush and Rove began in Texas in the late 1980s and landed them in the White House in 2001. Rove took over Hillary Rodham Clinton's West Wing office.
He had helped persuade Bush to run for Texas governor, and laid the groundwork for his successful 1994 campaign, crafting a conservative message, one that appealed to, among others, the religious wing of the party.
The two men first met in the early 1970s when Rove was a staffer in the Republican National Committee and Bush's father was chairman and would ask Rove to deliver car keys to his son.
The president has two nicknames for Rove, depending on the day -- "Boy Genius" and an unprintable moniker derived from Texas lingo for a flower that sprouts from cow manure. Detractors call him "Bush's Brain," taken from a book and documentary critical both of the president and of Rove.
Dan Schnur, a Republican political consultant who worked on Sen. John McCain's 2000 campaign, said he "doesn't agree with everything [Rove] has done," but no matter what critics say, Rove has "completely redefined" how campaigns in both parties will operate in the future.