I haven't seen a diary on this yet, so I will post on it.
Mike Allen just posted a story on the Time web site giving Rove's spin on the "thumpin'" that the Republicans took in the '06 mid-terms.
And here it is - it's normal to lose 29 seats and lose control of both houses of Congress!
More on the flip.
Meaningfully, here's Rove's justification for his abject failure:
Rove is famous for his political statistics, and his team has come up with an array of figures to contend that the Republicans' loss of 29 seats in the House and six in the Senate is not so out of whack with the historic norms. In all sixth year midterms, the President's party has lost an average of 29 House seats and 3 Senate seats, according to these figures. In all sixth-year midterms since World War II, the loss was an average of 31 House and 6 Senate seats. And in all wartime midterms since 1860, the average loss was 32 House and 5 Senate seat.
Of course, lost in all of those statistic is the fact that the public was thumping the President's party for being corrupt, or flat-out failing to do what's right. Johnson in '66 was mismanaging Vietnam. Nixon in '74 had resigned as a result of Watergate. President's parties get thumped in six-year elections because they have done the people wrong, not because of some invisible force that takes away seats. Sorry, Karl, it didn't happen in 1998 when Bill Clinton was actually doing the people's business.
Oh, and Karl says there was not really anger about the war, it was just frustration:
"Iraq mattered," Rove says. "But it was more frustration than it was an explicit call for withdrawal. If this was a get-out-now call for withdrawal, then Lamont would not have been beaten by Lieberman. Iraq does play a role, but not the critical, central role."
I guess the Democratic Senate leadership abandoning Lamont had nothing to do with it - nor the fact that Republicans abandoned their own candidate to carry Lieberman's water.
That further makes Lieberman's win more disgusting - Rove and Bush now interpret Holy Joe's win as a mandate for continuing the failed policies in Iraq. They choose to ignore Webb's victory in Virginia, Tester's win in Montana, McCaskill's win in Missouri, and Man-Dog-Lover's loss to Bob Casey in Penna. No, only the defeat of Lamont in Connecticut - voted on by 1.2 million people out of 80 million votes cast - matters in terms of the "people's will" towards Iraq.
There's your Rove spin. Winning one race - Connecticut - was like winning them all for him.