Questions about Rove’s legacy linger

? President Bush once nicknamed him “the architect,” heaping gratitude on his chief strategist for helping engineer two presidential victories and two cycles of congressional triumphs.

But as Karl Rove resigns from the administration, a question lingers over his legacy: What, exactly, did the architect build?

His advocates credit him with devising a winning strategy twice in a row for a presidential candidate who seemed to start out with myriad weaknesses. His detractors blame Rove for a style of politics that deepened divisions in the country, even after the unifying attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Both sides attributed outsize qualities to him, and he enjoyed mythic status for much of the Bush presidency.

But few people – not even his Republican allies – believe Rove succeeded in what he set as his ultimate goal: creating a long-lasting Republican majority in the country that could reverse the course set 70 years ago by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“He had visions of building a long-term coalition like the New Deal coalition for the Democrats,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-Va., who spent two years at the head of the National Republican CongressionalCommittee, which works to elect Republicans to the House. “The party right now is not moving forward. It’s moving backward. The branding for the party is at a generational low.” Davis said that is largely due to the war in Iraq.

Rove’s admirers and friends say he deserves credit for two undeniable accomplishments: building the Republican Party in Texas in the 1990s and securing Republican control at the national level, at least for a time, at the turn of the 21st century.

“He put together a strategy that defied all expectations and all conventional wisdom, and established a Republican majority in the presidency and then the two houses of Congress for the first time since 1936,” said Mark McKinnon, who worked closely with Rove on both Bush elections and is now an adviser to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Once dubbed “boy genius” – another nickname Bush gave him and the title of a 2003 biography – for his mastery of the political landscape and his seeming ability to grasp the electoral zeitgeist, Rove never clung to one political theory over time but shifted as events required. Perhaps his greatest consistency was his likeness to Lee Atwater, the ruthless and effective South Carolina operative who made Rove a protege.

“His problem is that he’s inexorably linked to Bush,” said former RNC chairman Rich Bond. “And the degree to which Bush is viewed favorably by history, so, too, will it Karl Rove. The degree to which history judges George Bush harshly, so, too, will it judge Karl Rove.”