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Rove believes that ideological purity is not something real-world politicians can afford. (Last week he helped persuade Bush, the avowed free trader, to impose steel tariffs to protect Rust Belt jobs--and votes.) The same goes for impartiality, he says, since the parties are fighting for control of both the House and the Senate this November. "We would be making a mistake if we simply stepped off the battlefield when a lot is at stake and when a lot of people have rallied around one candidate who had become the presumptive favorite," Rove told TIME. "We've got a big road to climb, and we need to get behind somebody."
He doesn't pretend it's pretty. Representative Tom Davis, a Rove ally who is chairman of the House G.O.P.'s campaign committee, has set off howls by anointing individual candidates in contested primaries across the country. And Rove's minesweepers cleared the Republican field of all but token opposition for Senate candidates Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina, John Thune in South Dakota and Norm Coleman in Minnesota, who is running against incumbent Democrat Paul Wellstone. Rove called Coleman's expected primary rival, Minnesota house majority leader Tim Pawlenty, and asked him to step aside. After Pawlenty turned Rove down, Cheney called him with the same message--less than two hours before Pawlenty was set to announce. Pawlenty is now running for Governor.
--With reporting by James Carney/Washington