Rove's Failure Harper's Downfall?

I have said for a long time and in many places that Harperite Conservatives see no operative distinction between 'politics' and 'policy' and that this was a trait Harper had absorbed osmotically as a result of his idolatry of US movement conservatism.

In today's New York Times I find ,to my bemused horror, that I have an ally of sorts.

In a comment piece on the departure and legacy of Karl Rove I read, "As a political strategist, Karl Rove offered a brilliant answer to the wrong question. The question he answered so successfully was a political one: How could Republicans win elections after Bill Clinton steered the Democrats to the center? The question he unfortunately ignored was a policy question: What does the nation need — and how can conservatives achieve it?... Instead of seeking solutions to national problems, “compassionate conservatism” started with slogans and went searching for problems to justify them... This was a politics of party-building and coalition-assembly. It was a politics that aimed at winning elections. It was a politics that treated the problems of governance as secondary...Building coalitions is essential to political success. But it is not the same thing as political success. The point of politics is to elect governments, and political organizations are ultimately judged by the quality of government they deliver."

Change a few references and you have Harper's politics to a tee.

As to my bemused horror, the author of the piece is David Frum.