This just in from AJ, a frequent TaklLeft reader:

My friends in Plano tell me that Karl Rove was intimately involved in the decision for Bush to pardon David McCall. McCall's son, David McCall III, asked Texas state senator Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) to intercede with Karl Rove and the White House. As you can see from this excerpt from a Boston Globe story on Rove, Florence Shapiro's first state senate race was managed by Karl Rove:

The Boston Globe, July 23, 2000, Sunday

GEORGE W. BUSH'S MAIN MAN AS CHIEF STRATEGIST FOR THE BUSH CAMPAIGN, KARL ROVE TELLS THE CANDIDATE WHAT TO SAY, WHEN TO SAY IT, HOW TO SAY IT, AND WHERE TO SAY IT. AND BUSH IS LISTENING.

By David M. Shribman, Globe Staff

There may be no Classic Rove Campaign - the strategist says he trims his advice to fit the frame of each candidate - but the state senate campaign of Florence Shapiro provides something of a template. In the early 1990s, Shapiro was the mayor of Plano, Texas, a sprawling mass of irrigated Texas subdivisions that provided the setting for the television show Dallas. The road from there to Austin, however, was rough: Shapiro would have to plunge into a Republican contest against two male opponents, face the possibility of a run off after the primary, and then, if she hadn't been pummeled to a pulp politically, take on a general-election battle against a 13-year Democratic incumbent. There are easier ways to make a living.

Shapiro had heard good things about Rove, and she went after him. He became the strategist, but he was more than that. He was really an educator,
teaching her how to build political relationships (the lesson: People like to support a candidate they feel they can be in touch with), reminding her to look at the primary, not at the general election, preaching that she should never - not for a single moment - rely on her emotions, tutoring her in the technique of calculating every move.

"The skill I think Karl brings is to take the long view," says Shapiro. "He knows every possible move, and he knows every possible response. He lays out a plan for you that is day-in, day-out." Shapiro's gerrymandered district was rural, metropolitan, and suburban, all in one. Rove taught her that her campaign message had to be plausible to all three, and he helped her map a political strategy designed to play to her strengths. On it was education (it helped her reinforce her experience as a teacher). Also business (she owns a small advertising firm). And children (she has three). She learned her lessons well. She's been in the state senate for eight years.