Rove, via Time:

“The profile of corruption in the exit polls was bigger than I’d expected,” Rove tells TIME. “Abramoff, lobbying, Foley and Haggard [the disgraced evangelical leader] added to the general distaste that people have for all things Washington, and it just reached critical mass.”

Well, Duh. Ever since Washington was taken over by bagmen and pedophiles, the distaste has grown palpable.

On Iraq:

“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.”

Translation: more blood for oil, more $$ for profiteering cronies.

On his role:

“My job is not to be a prognosticator,” he said. “My job is not to go out there and wring my hands and say, ‘We’re going to lose.’ I’m looking at the data and seeing if I can figure out, Where can we be? I told the President, ‘I don’t know where this is going to end up. But I see our way clear to Republican control.’ “

Even when Republicans were in control, they were out of control.

On the future:

Despite this week’s repudiation of the GOP, Rove said he believes the party can still achieve a long-term majority. “I see this as much more of a transient, passing thing,” he said. “The Republican Party remains at its core a small-government, low-tax, limit-spending, traditional-values, strong-defense party. I see the power of the ideas, even in a tough year.” He added that he has “fundamental confidence in the power of the underlying agenda of this President,” and cited fighting the war on terror, entitlement reform, energy, tax cuts, immigration reform, No Child Left Behind reauthorization, democracy agenda in the Middle East, reducing trade barriers, spending restraint and legal reform.

Sell the delusion, deny the real result of neoconvictionism: Supersize that government, make millionaires tax-free, outspend God, be God, blow shit up and pretend it ain’t genocide. Every item in the agenda is opposite the advertised deal.

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.

The Republican get-out-the-vote program Rove helped invent precluded even deeper losses, he says. “People were talking 35, 40 or more and it didn’t happen,” he said. “There were a number of elections which were supposed to be close and ended up not being close.”

I know of only three predicted to be close that weren’t, but otherwise, I agree. Which actually proves the point that against the historical projections, Rove’s ‘mastery’ made no dent at all. He only prevented it from being the worst ever, by the narrowest of margins ever.

Back to Time:

In addition, the party has calculated that the winner received 51 percent or less in 35 contests, and that 23 races were decided by two percentage points or fewer, 18 races were decided by fewer than 5,000 votes, 15 races were decided by fewer than 4,000 votes, 10 races were decided by fewer than 3,000 votes, eight were decided by fewer than 2,000 votes and five races were decided by fewer than 1,000 votes.

Rove is an enthusiastic historian, but even he has trouble coming up with a parallel for this wild week. “We may look back and see this as a unique expression,” he said. Republicans can only hope.

Let’s consider the other historical parallels:

Since the Civil War, only two 8-year Republican presidencies had coattails that carried another Republican in: Ulysses Grant and Ronald Reagan. Actually, those were the only two ever to serve eight years with a Republican successor.

As for using that 51% benchmark, consider how many times since WWII that Republican Presidential candidates exceeded that: Eisenhower (1952, 1956), Nixon (72) , Reagan (84) and Bush (88). Just 5 out of 14 tries and zero in the past four.

Conclusion: spin that 51% any way you want, but it’s a worthless benchmark. And downplay Iraq all you want but after every war stalemate (Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War) the opposition party took the Presidency.

No political operative has ever overcome that reality. Even in the big leagues, the national races, Rove’s only 2 of 4. And the real ‘architect’ who engineered both of those good years looked something like Borat, with a robe and a beard, sitting in Pakistan eating dogs.