Bush strategist Karl Rove takes victory lap after election win

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Karl Rove, architect of President George W. Bush
(news - web sites)'s re-election, took a victory lap around the US
talk shows, relishing the victory he had stage-managed from the
shadows, and saying Bush will seek a ban on gay marriage in his second
term.

Rove told "Fox News Sunday" that the president would continue to push
for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

"Without the protection of that amendment, we are at the mercy of
activist federal judges or activist state judges who could, without
the involvement of the people, determine ... that marriage no longer
consists of a union between a man and a woman," Rove said.

"Marriage is a very important part of our culture and our society. If
we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the
ideal. And the ideal is that marriage ought to be and should be a
union of a man and a woman," he said.

Rove said the president does support civil unions, which give limited
legal rights to gay couples.

Opposition to gay marriage -- along with a hard line on embryonic stem
cell research and certain abortion procedures -- were key conservative
planks of the Republican platform that was credited with drawing
conservative Christians to vote for president.

The strategy devised by Rove recruited millions of new conservative
voters to cast ballots for Bush.

Opposition Democrats vilify Rove as the master strategist "attack dog"
of many political hatchet jobs, although his fingerprints are rarely
found.

Rove is sometimes called "Bush's brain." Bush himself dubbed Rove the
"architect" of Tuesday's win. And he engineered Bush's 2000 squeaker,
after which Bush called him "Boy Genius."

"This country was a narrowly divided country in 2000," Rove said of
the election in which Bush lost the popular vote, but won in the
Electoral College (news - web sites).

"The country has slid to a 51-48 percent Republican majority. We
gained seats in the US Senate, now have 55. We gained seats in the US
House. This is the first president since Franklin Roosevelt to win
re-election while adding to his party's numbers in the House and
Senate.

"The country is still close, but it has moved in a Republican
direction. This election confirmed that," Rove said.

Rove pointed to several key events in the campaign. One of those came
as the Bush campaign pressured challenger John Kerry (news - web
sites) to explain why he had voted for a congressional resolution
authorizing war in Iraq (news - web sites) but then criticized the
invasion.

Kerry was also lampooned by the Bush campaign over his comment early
in the campaign on a Senate vote on funding for Iraq. "I actually did
vote for the 87 billion (dollars) ... before I voted against it,"
Kerry had said.

The phrase helped Rove build his case that Kerry was a "flip-flopper"
who changed position on key issues. The phrase was repeatedly replayed
on Republican attack advertisements.

"It's the gift that kept on giving," Rove told Fox.

Rove, who has known Bush since the 1970s, when both first got involved
in politics, said he is not taking Republican dominance for granted.

"There are no permanent majorities in American politics," he told NBC.

"It's important for people who come here to realize that we are here
for only a time and we have an obligation of service and we need to
keep things in perspective," Rove said.

"Those that the gods destroy they first make prideful."

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Karl Rove, architect of President George W. Bush
(news - web sites)'s re-election, took a victory lap around the US
talk shows, relishing the victory he had stage-managed from the
shadows, and saying Bush will seek a ban on gay marriage in his second
term.

Bush strategist Karl Rove takes victory lap after election win

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Karl Rove, architect of President George W. Bush
(news - web sites)'s re-election, took a victory lap around the US
talk shows, relishing the victory he had stage-managed from the
shadows, and saying Bush will seek a ban on gay marriage in his second
term.