Mickey Kaus makes fun of Karl Rove’s attempt to assemble a durable (no human thing is “permanent”) majority. All grandiose projects look silly after they’ve failed. The ones that didn’t fail don’t look grandiose, in retrospect.
Actually, I’m not sure Rove failed, any more than Croesus of Lydia failed to destroy a mighty empire, as the Oracle had promised he would. Rove’s latest candidate, McCain, seems to have re-assembled the William Jennings Bryan coalition, consisting of people who live in rural areas, attend church, and distrust those who know more than they do. That coalition, both in 1896 and today, is capable of carrying the South and most of the Great Plains. That was, and is, a durable majority.
For the other side, of course.
