Rove on GOP Decline: Blame historical cycles and an overeager press, not me

Later, he was asked to explain why his vision for an "endurable" Republican majority - a political game plan that he helped put in place following George Bush's election in 2000 - had sputtered so miserably. Acknowledging that the GOP was "in a bad place today," Rove nevertheless refused to bear any burden for the party's woes, chalking it up to historical cycles and an overeager press hell bent on ginning up scandal.

"Let's go back to 2006 for just a minute since this was your jumping off point. Remember, this is an average off-year election. If you look at the second midterm elections of presidents, the White House party loses an average of 29 seats in the house and five seats in the senate. We lost 30 in the house and six in the senate. And we lost them by awful slim numbers. Out of over 80 million votes cast in U.S. house races the Republicans... lost by 85,000 votes. We lost control of the Senate by 3,562 votes in Montana. Now, we lost. I don't disagree, we lost. But let's put it in proper context. This was a very narrow defeat. In fact, if you look at it the Democrats were very smart. They ran culturally conservative candidates and accentuated one issue for the house. Scandals... The war, if you take a look at people who voted Republican in '04 who voted Democrat in '06 for congress, the number one issue was scandals."

"You're just not going to look backward, are you?" asked a somewhat flummoxed Stephanopoulos

"Well, look, elections are about the future," Rove replied. "And the answer -- the question -- the answer to your question is what do you do in order to put yourself in a better place in and the way you put yourself in a better place is to talk about the things that got you there in the first place."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/25/rove-doesnt-deny-involvem_n_103475.html