No More Karl Rove Candidates
photo credit: jd_wmwmKarl Rove has declared war on grass-roots conservatives and tea partiers. Rove, who had the richest super PAC in 2012 (American Crossroads, which reportedly spent $300 million in the 2012 election cycle), has started a new fund called Conservative Victory Project to spend big bucks in the 2014 Republican primaries to defeat Republican candidates not approved by the Establishment.
Rove’s big-money spending last year, which was similarly designed to help only Establishment candidates, especially if they had defeated a real conservative in the primary, was notoriously unsuccessful. Of the 31 races in which Rove aired TV ads, Republicans won only 9, so his donors got little return on their investment.
Establishment losers included Rick Berg who lost in North Dakota and Denny Rehberg who lost in Montana, even while Romney was carrying both those states. Other Establishment losers were George Allen in Virginia, Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, Connie Mack in Florida and Heather Wilson in New Mexico.
Meanwhile, Rove was helping Harry Reid to keep control of the Senate by trying to defeat real conservatives nominated by grass-roots Republicans. Rove made nasty and hurtful remarks about conservative candidates he didn’t like.
After Missouri Republicans nominated Todd Akin in the primary, Rove told his super PAC donors that they should all apply pressure to “sink Todd Akin,” and that if Akin were “found mysteriously murdered, don’t look for my whereabouts.” When this malicious comment was reported by Businessweek, Rove tried to pass it off as a joke, but suggesting the murder of a congressman is not funny.
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