So says king strategist Karl Rove, who writes in his column today in The Wall Street Journal:

The 20th century’s closing decades saw the rise of the TV ad man as the most potent operator in presidential campaigns. The 21st century’s opening decade is seeing the rise of the communications director and press spokesman as the more important figures on a campaign staff. It is the age of the Internet, cable TV, YouTube, multiple news cycles in one day, and the need for really instantaneous response. Ads and ad makers are still vital — but not nearly as much as they were just a few years ago.

That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my bosses for years. Maybe “500 miles and a briefcase” will make them take note. Just kidding, guys!

Seriously, communication methods have completely changed and revolutionized how campaigns are run. When I started as a reporter, I could do my job with a notebook and a pay phone. Today, reporters are journalist generalists doing everything from news gathering to news delivery, with video editing and blogging spiced in for good measure. The same is true on campaigns.

When I made the switch to politics — when fax machines still had paper on rolls — it was what release are we sending out today, or right now. The communication shop supported the broader message of what was up on the airwaves. Today, that’s completely inverted.

Your modern, well-stocked campaign will have a communication shop that rivals anything on Madison Ave., complete with in-house video and audio production crews, writers, bloggers, Web coders, press handlers, spokespersons, researchers and more. Running the show is a person who has more in common with the executive producer of a major network news channel than the old comm. dir. who was not much more than a good writer with a fancy title.

There’s a logical reason for this shift. As communication mediums “flattened out” — meaning that more and more people were able to produce and receive content directly from a source — so did campaign communication efforts. Campaigns now can provide content directly to potential voters without having to go though an intermediary (newspaper or TV broadcast or paid advertisement.) If I can send a 30-second video message from my candidate directly to 300,000 cell phones or e-mail “boxes” in an instant, why would spend all day trying to get a reporter to cover the same issue, run it through the filer that is his or her own natural bias and the bias of three to five editors who also will “touch” the story, and then put it up on a website that — maybe — 40,000 people will visit in an average day? I wouldn’t, and don’t.

When there are no news cycles because there is always a new news cycle on the horizon, and when campaigns can communicate directly with voters in an instant, with a message targeted toward issues they car about, the role of the campaign communication director will continue to ascend.