Poor Tommy Thompson, even in defeat he gets pushed to the back of the media pile. News of the former governors departure from the campaign trail was squashed today by the departure from the White House of a much bigger figure, Karl Rove.

If you haven’t heard the news yet Mr. Rove is stepping down, officially on August 31st. I honestly have to say I believe Rove is one of the most interesting figures we’ve seen in politics in the last few years. It wasn’t just that he plucked George W. Bush out of Texas politics and into the national spotlight but how for a short time in American history Rove commanded such an amazing amount of power.

The history books still need to be written and so we don’t entirely know what Rove’s role has been in some of the most interesting and divisive moments in American politics. We have clues, we have theories, all we know is that it was undoubtedly pretty big, perhaps pivotal.

In happier days, friends expected Rove to serve — whether in government or not — as the liaison between Bush and the ’08 GOP presidential nominee. Now Rove recognizes the nominee needs to be his own man, with separation from an unpopular administration, so any role he plays will be very behind the scenes, according to colleagues. - The Politico

His is something of a tragic figure to me. Many people in politics are. He road into the White House with high praise and more than a little mystique. Not only did Rove engineer the election of George W. Bush to the presidency he helped the Republican party reach the pinnacle of their thirty year campaign to dominate Washington and he wasted little time in using conservative capitol to move Washington.

Rove was all over the 2002 mid-term elections and of course the 2004 presidential campaign. I remember watching the returns on both nights. Especially in 2002 the Democratic party seemed all but defeated. Behind it all Democrats saw Karl Rove as some kind of “evil genius” bent on doing anything to take them down. Democrats were probably right about the genius in strategy, but the brilliance of Rove and others wasn’t so much in working some evil angle. Instead he was able to create the environment, to shape the atmosphere in which those elections were held and to define the opposition. Then he simply had to step back and let the opposition hang themselves. Rove squeezed votes out of those places that they were needed most. He did so by dividing and conquering and a good chunk of that was simply framing the environment. The Democrats were the ones who stayed inside, played it safe and spent their time on defense.

The mystique of Rove has since fallen and of course with it the tragedy has set in. It was during the 2006 elections when Rove, ever the optimist, gave both parties a moment to pause and ruminate on just what kind of strategist sat in the White House. Rove had taken an enormous role in shaping policy as well as managing politics. By 2006 though the administration was in disarray, the positive & upbeat vision of Iraq spread by Bush & Rove was being deflated as was nearly every assessment of policy they put out. Rove’s sunny predictions about that years elections began to seem not just out of sorts but out of touch, a label increasingly given to everything in the Bush White House.

The outcome of 2006 was as brutal to Republicans as it had been for Democrats in 2002. Worst of all was a report that Rove, whose shine was wearing already because of the Valerie Plame scandal, was set to give a speech that showed why all his numbers were right and how he bested the media by predicting a Republican hold on the Congress. Suddenly doubt in Karl Rove had a basis and scorned Republicans were reported to stop taking so many of his calls. Bush had lost the popular vote and in an election where most Americans said Republican corruption was their number one reason for voting Dem or staying home, all eyes pointed to the scandal ridden administration and the poster-boy for their divisive but sunny strategy.

Rove will now forever be locked in the fate of Iraq and charges of corruption. As is the game in politics few remember your wins, most remember your losses. 2006 was a major turning point in the country. Regardless of how democrats spread their newfound political capitol it is obvious now that Rove & Bush spent their own.

Will it be the last time we see Rove? I doubt it. Resurrection in politics is nothing new but if and when he does come back to the table it will be with more skepticism and levity than it was before.