By any standard, Karl Rove must be considered one of the most successful political strategists in history. Perhaps only FDR’s political alter ego Louis Howe, who guided Roosevelt’s fortunes for more than 20 years and helped establish the Democratic party’s dominance in Congress, was more influential.

But where Howe eschewed promoting FDR’s agenda (except as it made his boss look good politically), Rove took on the dual role of political mastermind and policy wonk, a combination that worked quite well during the President’s first term. Prior to 9/11, Bush received high marks for reaching out to Congress on education and healthcare as well as laying the groundwork of his tax cuts. After the attack, Rove proved himself both a patriot and brilliant strategist as he showcased the President’s resolve to fight the War on Terror by taking the fight directly to the enemy. Bush’s numbers seemed to go up after every such appearance, much to the continuing discomfort of the Democrats.

For this, as well as his reputation for playing hardball politics, Rove earned the undying enmity of the left. He was “The Dark Lord” or “The Evil One.” The howls of rage heard from Democrats during the 2002 election as Rove engineered a vote to authorize force in Iraq, deducing correctly that the only way such a vote could receive bi-partisan support was if the timing was tied to the political survival of Democratic candidates, were exceeded only by the outcry against his seeming to question the patriotism of Democrats during the 2004 election.

Thus, Rove has been a lightening rod of sorts for Bush, taking some of the heat off his boss when the going got tough. But what worked well in the first term has fallen apart in the second. In the last year, there have been many so many missteps both in policy and public relations at the White House that Bush has decided that Rove should be relieved of his policy duties in order to concentrate fully on the upcoming 2006 mid term elections. The reason is simple; the survival of the Republican majority and perhaps even of Bush himself:

The prospect of the administration spending its last two years being grilled by angry Democrats under the heat of partisan spotlights has added urgency to the efforts by Karl Rove and Mr. Bush’s political team to hang on to the Republican majorities in Congress.

Newly shorn of the daily policymaking duties he took on after the 2004 campaign and now refocused on his role as Mr. Bush’s chief strategist, Mr. Rove is facing an increasingly difficult climate for Republicans, and an increasingly assertive Democratic Party.

The ambitious second-term agenda he helped develop has faltered even with a Republican Congress. His once-grand plans for creating a broadened and permanent Republican majority have given way to a goal of clinging to control of the House and Senate.

The prospect of Democrats capturing either, however, may be one of the best weapons Mr. Rove has as he turns to what he has traditionally done best: motivating his party’s conservative base to turn out on Election Day.

But Rove enters what is probably his final campaign limping. That’s because Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will have the final say on whether or not Rove will continue to manage the mid term effort or forced to resign as a result of being indicted:

Fitzgerald, according to sources close to the case, is reviewing testimony from Rove’s five appearances before the grand jury. Bush’s top political strategist has argued that he never intentionally misled the grand jury about his role in leaking information about undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003. Rove testified that he simply forgot about the conversation when he failed to disclose it to Fitzgerald in his earlier testimony.

Fitzgerald is weighing Rove’s foggy-memory defense against evidence he has acquired over nearly 2 1/2 years that shows Rove was very involved in White House efforts to beat back allegations that Bush twisted U.S. intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to sources involved in the case.

Rove is said to be worried about being indicted although he apparently hasn’t let the prospect bother him enough to throw him off his gameplan to maintain Republican majorities in Congress:

With so much on the line, Mr. Rove has taken to traveling the country to form strategies with individual candidates and local parties while brainstorming with the president’s political and policy teams on broad items the White House can pursue to help Republicans everywhere. He is focusing on only the major planks of Mr. Bush’s agenda and not the minutiae of policy that had consumed hours of his day.

In regular West Wing breakfast sessions catered by the White House mess, Mr. Rove and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, have already been reaching out to nervous and vulnerable Republicans, three at a time, laying out an emerging three-prong attack on Democrats over national security, taxes and health care.

In meetings at the White House, aboard Air Force One and in candidates’ home states, Mr. Rove is trying to rally Republicans to stand by the president and his agenda.

He has focused in particular on uniting them behind the administration’s proposals to overhaul immigration, which include guest worker provisions that conservatives despise; the Iraq war, which has driven Mr. Bush’s poll numbers sharply downward; and the Medicare prescription drug program, which the administration says will cost $872 billion from 2006 to 2014 and which Mr. Bush backed enthusiastically despite complaints from conservatives that it was a vast expansion of the social welfare state.

Clearly, the loss of Rove would leave a huge hole that Republicans would have a hard time filling. GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman is an able fellow, an adept fundraiser and a master at outreach programs to minorities. But he leaves much to be desired as a grand strategist. Rove had a certain heft about him, a gravitas that was the result of his close relationship with the President. When Rove talks, party leaders and GOP operatives listen. The loss of Rove would also probably mean an internal battle in the White House as aides would jockey for dominance. Rove’s presence on the White House staff precluded such internecine battles simply because of who he was and his dominant relationship with the President. Any such scrambling among White House staff would be enormously distracting and would add to the impression of a listing ship of state.

So what are the chances that Rove won’t even get a chance to carry the GOP to victory in November?

Robert Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, responded that “just because Rove was involved in the defense of the White House Iraq policy, it does not follow that he was necessarily involved in some effort to discredit Wilson personally. Nor does it prove that there even was an effort to disclose Plame’s identity in order to punish Wilson.”

Rove expects to learn as soon as this month if he will be indicted—or publicly cleared of wrongdoing—for making false statements in the CIA leak case, according to sources close to the presidential adviser.

An indictment would be devastating to a White House already battered by low poll numbers, a staff shake-up and a stalled agenda. If Rove is cleared, however, it would allow Bush’s longtime top aide to resume his central role as White House strategic guru without a legal threat hanging over him.

In Edwin O’Connor’s novel The Last Hurrah, the former long time Mayor Frank Skeffington is convinced to run for Mayor one last time after being out of office many years. But much to his chagrin, he finds that politics and elections have changed dramatically with the advent of television and mass media. The old ways simply didn’t work any longer as the courtly, glad handing ex-Mayor is defeated in his comeback bid. While some have likened the character in the novel to a former Boston Mayor Patrick Curley, others (including himself) said it was based on John F. Kennedy’s maternal grandfather who served several terms as Mayor of Boston and in the late 1940’s ran one last unsuccessful campaign.

JFK’s grandfather’s name? John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald.