Bush's secret weapon
By Bill Schneider
CNN Political Unit
(CNN) -- Winning the election is nice. But winning the political Play of the Week -- now that's really special.
He's the toast of the town.
At the victory rally the day after the election, President Bush called his top political adviser, Karl Rove, "The architect."
Rove mobilized evangelical Christians. Some Democrats saw a stealth army of evangelical voters, organized below the media radar that pulled a surprise attack on Election Day and overwhelmed them at the polls.
Evangelicals did vote for Bush in large numbers. But that's not the whole story of this election, according to post-election polls.
Most voters on November 3 said they support abortion rights, which was about the same as in 2000.
Sixty percent favored some form of legal recognition of same-sex relationships.
The voters this year were no more religious than before. Were religious voters more for Bush?
In 2000, Bush carried 59 percent of the vote among churchgoers. This year? Sixty-one percent. A two-point gain.
Now look at non-churchgoers.
Their vote for Bush went up by 3 percentage points.
Bush had something going for him besides religion.
When asked what mattered most to them in deciding how to vote, Bush voters put strong leadership and clear stands on the issues, not religion, at the top of the list.
That was Rove's doing, too.
For eight months, the Bush campaign has kept up a relentless attack on Sen. John Kerry as a flip-flopper.
"And then he entered the flip-flop hall of fame, and as he entered that hall of fame, he said, 'I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it,' " said Bush at a speech in Dallas on November 1.
In order to win this election, Kerry worked to sell himself as a uniter.
"I will be a president who unites our country," said Kerry in Sioux City, Iowa, on October 27.
That is difficult to do if people see you as wavering and inconsistent, which is the image that Rove worked hard to create in full view of the media's radar screen.
So now, in full view of CNN's radar screen, Karl Rove wins the political Play of the Week.
Think of candidates who are known uniters.
John McCain, who got re-elected Tuesday with a huge majority. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who got a 69 percent approval rating from the same California voters who went solidly for Kerry.
Nobody has ever called McCain or Schwarzenegger a flip-flopper.