Karl Rove tries to cheer up Republicans

All is not lost for the Republican Party. In fact, the GOP is poised to make a dramatic comeback in the 2010 mid-term elections.

That's the assessment of none other than Karl Rove, the man credited with putting George W. Bush in the White House in 2000 and 2004.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Rove says things are not as bad as they appear after the Nov. 4 drubbing Republicans took at the polls. Despite the huge advantage Democrats had in voter registration, the blue tide never materialized on Election Day, Rove contends.

From his column:

First, the predicted huge turnout surge didn't happen. The final tally is likely to show that fewer than 128.5 million people voted. That's up marginally from 122 million in 2004. But 17 million more people voted in 2004 than in 2000 (three times the change from 2004 to 2008).

Rove also points out that Barack Obama's improvement over John Kerry in 2004 came largely from minority voters. Without Obama at the top of the ticket on 2010, Democrats can't count on a huge minority turnout.

From Rove's column:

Four out of five of these additional votes came from minorities. Mr. Obama got nearly 3.3 million more votes from African-Americans than did Mr. Kerry; 2.9 million of them were from younger blacks aged 18-29. A quarter of Mr. Obama's improvement among blacks -- 811,000 votes -- came from African-Americans who voted Republican in 2004. Mr. Obama also received 2.5 million more Hispanic votes than Mr. Kerry. Over a third of these votes -- 719,000 -- cast ballots for Republicans in 2004.

The reason Obama won the 2008 presidential race, Rove says, was that Hispanic voters went overwhelmingly for the Democrats this year, and the fact that millions of Republicans stayed home on Nov. 4.

From Rove's column:

There were 4.1 million fewer Republicans voting this year than in 2004. Some missing Republicans had turned independent or Democratic for this election. But most simply stayed home. Ironically for a campaign that featured probably the last Vietnam veteran to run for president, 2.7 million fewer veterans voted. There were also 4.1 million fewer voters who attend religious services more than once a week. Americans aren't suddenly going to church less; something was missing from the campaign to draw out the more religiously observant.

Population trends also favor the Republicans with states in the South and West (traditionally Republican) picking up population while Northeastern states (traditionally Democratic) continue to lose population, Rove says.

The GOP has history on its side heading into 2010, Rove argues.

From his column:

Since World War II, the out-party has gained an average of 23 seats in the U.S. House and two in the U.S. Senate in a new president's first midterm election. Other than FDR and George W. Bush, no president has gained seats in his first midterm election in both chambers.

Now, don't you feel better?

Read the full column at the newspaper's Web site.