I hate to say it, but I saw Barack Obama's re-election coming.
I saw it coming many months ago.
Obama's favorable ratings were too high for a guy who had done everything in his power to wreck the greatest economy in the world, to embarrass the U.S. around the world and to attack individual liberty and state sovereignty at every turn.
I had hoped that the magnificent New York Times best-selling 
book by Aaron Klein, 
"Fool Me Twice," a clear blueprint of what he would do in his second 
term – if America was dumb enough to give him one – would have made the 
difference in this election.
Before the book was even published, I showed manuscript to the "geniuses" in the Republican establishment – including the so-called "Architect," Karl Rove.
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Rove knew better. He always knows better. He had no interest in taking the revelations of the book and using them in his ad campaigns. Instead, he ran a conventional campaign telling people what they already knew – what Obama had already done in his first four years.
In the meantime, he also went to war with conservative Republicans like Todd Akin, who, by the way, lost by a smaller margin than some of Rove's favorites – like Connie Mack in Florida.
At the end of the day, Rove failed at every goal he had been charged with – winning the presidency and winning the Senate. He didn't even come that close.
That's why I think Karl Rove is the big loser.
In fact, I think he needs a new nickname. "The Architect" just doesn't fit him.
I think he should be called "The Accountant."
Rove has made a personal fortune by acting like a political genius on the backs of other people's work. In 2012, the Peter Principle set in. He rose to the level of his incompetence.
How he got there is an interesting story. In 2000, he was the architect of a contested presidential victory over Al Gore. He never acknowledged the work of others who took Gore out in his home state of Tennessee, something no one, including Rove foresaw. Had Gore won Tennessee, he wouldn't have needed Florida and those hanging chads.
In 2004, he claimed credit for defeating John Kerry, when, in fact, the Swiftboat vets, whom he personally dissed, made that victory possible.
In 2010, Rove fought tea-party candidates like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska, preferring, as usual, to deny Republican Senate candidates who won their nominating races fair and square any resources to beat their opponents.
Why? Because Rove didn't like them. They weren't his kind of Republicans. I guess they didn't bow down and kiss his ring or some other part of his anatomy. Worse yet, they didn't go to the right country clubs. They were real conservatives.
That's why Rove denied Todd Akin in 2012, too. He never liked him. He supported another candidate in the primary election. He was miffed that his candidate got beat by a real conservative.
Rove's ads were not effective in 2012.
In Virginia, where Democratic Gov.-elect Tim Kaine ran as a phony "conservative," rarely ever even identifying himself as a Democrat, Rove's ads for former Sen. George Allen portrayed him as a liberal. I'm not kidding. Over and over again, I watched Rove ads attacking Kaine for cutting spending on public schools.
Had I not known these guys personally, I would have voted for Kaine on the basis of Rove's confusing ads.
At the end of the day, the problem is bigger than Rove. It's what Rove represents – the Republican establishment.
Rove personifies it. He practically programs the Fox News Channel and appears as the political guru on some of the biggest "conservative" talk-radio shows practically on a daily basis.
How has this man built such a reputation and such power? Why do honest, hard-working, wealthy conservatives give their money to him to spend so unwisely? Will his reputation and credibility remain intact after this fiasco?
Will he still be referred to as "The Architect"? Or will conservatives wise up and start referring to him as "The Accountant"?
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