Opinion: Karl Rove’s future and decision to go home

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Karl Rove’s friends knew something was up.

In recent weeks he was uncharacteristically coy about his future. When a friend asked him during a recent lunch if he planned to stay to the end of President Bush’s term in January 2009, rather than answer directly, as is his wont most times, Rove responded with another question, ‘What do you think I should do?’

The fact is, with the end of Bush’s term in sight and little chance of any new major initiatives to shepherd, Rove began considering a departure last summer. He found it hard to pull the trigger, however, as he and the president have been close friends for 34 years, their days built around frequent contact. From Bush’s days as governor they would call each other on cellphones at all hours of the day and night with various ideas and start the conversation without identifying themselves, so familiar were their voices to each other.

There was rough kidding at times, but the intimate mental symmetry between the two was clear, as was their intense loyalty to each other. Also uncharacteristically, Rove grew emotional at today’s announcement.

But like most Bush intimates from the campaign and gubernatorial days, Rove wanted to return to Texas, where his only child, Andrew, is in college and where he has kept a home. He is building another house in the Florida Panhandle.

The Roves still maintain a home outside Austin, where they lived for many years in the country, but it’s unlikely they’ll ...

... spend much time in that liberal university bastion. ‘You can’t walk across the Target parking lot without someone accosting you about your politics,’ Rove complained to one friend.

The high-energy Rove could be sharp-tongued and ruthless with enemies; he’ll revel in such denunciations as John Edwards’ ‘good riddance.’ And Rove was chronically good-natured with colleagues. He even has running jokes with individual waiters in the White House Mess, who appreciate the recognition.

Even during the roughest days of a campaign, asked how he was, Rove would reply, ‘If I was any better, I’d be subject to arrest.’ About once a week he would walk through his offices with a shopping bag full of ice cream bars handing them to staff. ‘Ice cream time,’ he’d say.

In retirement, Rove, who did not graduate from college, so strong was the lure of politics, is unlikely to sit around reading, although he remains a student of history.

He is an inveterate phone caller and e-mailer, regularly checking in with an immense list of friends and political contacts around the country, taking the political pulse from years of friendships cultivated since he was a Young Republican traveling -- and sometimes sleeping -- in a beat-up car.

It was those contacts that first tipped Rove off in the summer of 1999, six months before the New Hampshire primary, that the Bush organization had serious trouble with the campaign of Sen. John McCain, who, sure enough, went on to thump Bush handily there the next winter. But Rove already had a plan to bounce back in South Carolina, which Bush did.

After some time off with his family before school starts for the fall, Rove intends to travel the country giving speeches, which could be a lucrative year while the Bush presidency winds down and the ’08 election campaign winds up.

Then he intends to write a book about his long political life from Texas politics to the Oval Office of the White House. Chances are, despite the 2006 election setbacks suffered by Republicans, many Republican campaigns from House primaries to the GOP struggle for the presidential nomination will seek his advice in coming months, which he has said he will offer. But he does not intend to return to political consulting. Rather, he plans eventually to set up a strategic business consulting company.

Aboard Air Force One today enroute to Texas Rove had a long conversation with reporters.

Rove’s departure leaves basically only two close aides in the White House from the first presidential campaign, Josh Bolten, who was campaign policy director and now is chief of staff, and John McConnell, still a senior speech writer. Bolten recently told White House staff: If you don’t leave before September, you’re here for the duration. Which prompted the final Rove decision last Friday and today’s announcement. The Times’ Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten examine Rove’s political legacy here and Maura Reynolds’ news story is here.

-- Andrew Malcolm