POLITICAL CONSULTANTS on both the right and the left are currently trying to minimize Rove’s achievements. Part of this is an attempt to take the longer view. Part of it stems from jealousy of Rove’s success. For instance, even though the Republicans retook the Senate, an event foreseen by few prior to the election, Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster, points out that 86 percent of incumbents won in the Senate, and the number was even higher in the House: 98 percent. Many even chalk up GOP successes in the South, where Republicans won seats in Tennessee, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, more to post–September 11 concerns about national security than to anything a political adviser pulled off. As for the governor’s races, political observers say they were a wash. Twenty states, after all, shifted from the control of one party to the other. New England states, such as Rhode Island and New Hampshire, saw governorships go from Democrats to Republicans; but the governors’ offices in usually Republican-leaning Western states, such as Arizona and Wyoming, went the other way. This means that, at least on the state level, there was more of an anti-incumbency mood aroused by fiscal matters than any broader party change. All of which detract from Rove’s accomplishments and could suggest potential peril for the 2004 presidential incumbent.

But don’t be fooled. Rove was the political-power story of 2002. Despite the influence he’s amassed, however, it might be hard for him to keep it. To do so, Bush must win re-election in 2004. And to do that, post–Trent Lott, it’s going to be hard for Rove and the rest of the Republicans to play the race card, which is how Bush finally surged ahead in the GOP primary in 2000. Remember South Carolina and Bush’s speech to the odious Bob Jones University, which bans interracial dating? Remember the racist push polls? (Sample question: did voters know that Arizona senator John McCain had an African-American daughter?)

Despite the GOP’s replacement of Lott, a retrograde conservative with a history of ties to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens, with, most likely, William Frist of Tennessee, a medical doctor well liked on both sides of the aisle, the Republican Party is still seen, and not without reason, as too easy on racists. Nobody’s asking Lott to leave the Senate, for instance. And just last week, controversy erupted when Republican congressman Cass Ballenger of North Carolina told the Charlotte Observer that he had "segregationist feelings" toward former Georgia congresswomen Cynthia McKinney, an African-American. They never faced each other in an election, but Ballenger was rankled by McKinney’s "divisive" comments, such as her criticisms of Bush for allegedly ignoring terrorist warnings prior to September 11, and of former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani for rejecting aid offered by a Saudi prince to rebuild New York City. (Not that race is the GOP’s only problem: in the same interview, Ballenger referred to McKinney as a "bitch.")

In the coming months, prominent Southern Republicans are going to be forced to show how they differ from Lott. Likewise, the days of Republican campaign stops at Bob Jones University are probably over. And Republican governors may not be able to get away with what Jeb Bush did in 2000, when his administration "mistakenly" excised the names of thousands of African-Americans from voter rolls. (The US Civil Rights Commission recently found that African-Americans in Florida were 10 times more likely than whites to have their ballots rejected.) One Republican strategist with experience in the South paints the predicament in stark terms. "The reality is that throughout the South, even in South Carolina, voters are not overwhelmingly red-neck, Bible-thumping types," he says. "They’re suburban professionals. And the suburbs of Charleston are not that different from the suburbs of Cincinnati or anywhere else." These moderate voters — not just African-Americans — will closely scrutinize their GOP leaders to see whether they are Lott Republicans or not.

All that said, Rove’s fortunes will rise and fall not just on the race issue, but on other forces, some of which are beyond his control. Without a doubt, another serious terrorist attack, a failure in the coming war with Iraq, and/or a continued economic slump will endanger the political plan Rove has set in motion. In politics, as in war, months are like years and years are like decades. General Rove had a great 2002, but he hasn’t yet won the war.

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell[a]phx.com