Am I the Only One Who Wishes Karl Rove Would Retire?

At some point, what Rove did in 2000 to get Bush elected should have an expiration date like James Carville still being relevant inside the Beltway despite not having done anything of note since 1992.

As a long-time reader of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), I can’t remember when Karl Rove’s weekly column didn’t criticize Donald Trump. It seems the entire WSJ editorial page is anti-Trump. As a Bushie, Rove has been and will remain a NeverTrumper who takes every opportunity to rib Trump. Given Trump’s criticism of Bush and Rove, I’m not shocked by his antipathy towards Trump. It just gets old week-after-week. I’m not saying his criticisms are always wrong or unfair (he is right about Trump and Iran), it is just he rarely balances those criticisms with praise of Trump.

I’ve quibbled with Rove in the past. In an interview in National Review I did with Kathryn Jean Lopez in September 2012, “Can Romney Win Ohio?,” I noted Rove was wrong that Mitt Romney could win the presidency without winning Ohio:

In terms of the broader election, I don’t want to be the one who contradicts Karl Rove’s view that Romney can win without Ohio, but he can’t. It isn’t just that historically no Republican has won the presidency without Ohio’s electoral votes that “proves” that point. It also is the fact that Ohio is a bell-weather state, so if a candidate cannot win Ohio — especially a candidate operating under a very-low-margin-of-error strategy — the likelihood that that candidate wins enough of the other five to nine toss-up states is not high. We are seeing that in the polling results in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Virginia. The election isn’t over, but it appears that Romney will need a big Obama misstep to win.

Post-Election: Rove 0, Mayer 1.

In 2016, Rove predicted Hillary Clinton would win the presidential election. I was one of the few who said Trump would win based on my analysis of the Electoral Votes. Rove 0, Mayer 2.

My latest beef with Rove is his erroneous recitation of history. Specifically, his claim in yesterday’s WSJ that “Republicans lost worse in 2018 than in 2006” is just wrong. I can understand why Rove wants to gloss over the disastrous 2006 election when an anti-George W. Bush Blue wave decimated Republicans at all levels, as he was the point person for Bush and Republicans that year. In case you have forgotten, in 2006, Republicans lost thirty U.S. House seats, six U.S. Senate seats, six state legislatures (over 300 state legislative seats), and six governor’s offices (dropped from 28 to 22). Critically, with the congressional loses in both chambers, control of Congress flipped from Republican to Democrat, which crushed Bush’s last two years.

I’m not arguing that 2018 was awesome, but it absolutely wasn’t worse than 2006. Critically, unlike Bush’s self-inflicted wounds from Iraq, Trump’s 2018 losses came from the Russia Collusion Hoax and massive media bias driven by that hoax, not by anything Trump had done. It is incredible 2018 didn’t turn out even worse than it did. Specifically, in 2018, Republicans lost forty-two U.S. House, six state legislatures (less than 300 state legislative seats), and seven governor’s offices (dropped from 33 to 26), BUT—and it is a very big BUT—Republicans GAINED two seats in the U.S. Senate, which prevented Democrats from controlling Congress and doing even more damage to Trump, his administration, and his agenda.

Maybe you disagree, but I don’t know anyone who would argue that Republican’s lost worse in 2018 than in 2006. Both elections were bad, but the 2006 U.S. Senate losses turned that chamber over to Democrats, which made that election worse than 2018. We will see how the 2026 election goes. Unlike in 2018, the results will be Trump’s fault for his handling of the Iran war and economic pain it has causes Main Street America. Either way, the score is now Rove 0, Mayer 3. At some point, what Rove did in 2000 to get Bush elected should have an expiration date like James Carville still being relevant inside the Beltway despite not having done anything of note since 1992. It is time to retire guys.

P.S. Before it was hip to criticize data centers, as is usually the case, yours truly said it first. Over a year ago in “The Opportunity Costs of JobsOhio’s Many Failures,” I wrote the above paragraph regarding the higher energy and water costs that consumers would get hit with, as well as the lack of long-term jobs that come with data centers once built. A year later, every candidate who was pro-data centers is now anti-data centers because what I said would happen in fact happened. Data center king Jon Husted likely will lose because of them. It is so hard being right so often:-)

P.P.S. WalletHub’s latest Best Real Estate Markets rankings came out this week. Not surprisingly, not one Ohio city made the top twenty-five. Columbus came in at 48th, with the rest of Ohio’s bigger cities falling below the 150 mark. Compare that to just the Greater Dallas-Fort Worth area (DFW) in which seven different cities made the top twenty-five. If Ohio really was the best state for business, its real estate markets would be far stronger than they are. DFW is crushing it because so many businesses have moved to or expanded in the area, thereby bringing workers with them from all over America creating a vibrant real estate market.

Based on 2025 data, Ohio has the fifth highest effective property tax rate in America at 1.32 percent. Without real property tax reform (versus impossible campaign promises) and a substantial jump in job creation, Ohio’s real estate market won’t be competitive for some time.