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Tea Party Groups Attack Rove Machine

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Photo Credit: Breitbart.comWith Karl Rove under heavy fire after his group, the Conservative Victory Project, took to the pages of the New York Timesto attack the Tea Party, donors are beginning to turn on the Project. Politico reports Friday morning that the Project will “essentially preform oppo research and grade potential candidates on a variety of factors that might affect their ability to win a general election contest.” Some donors are overjoyed at the opportunity, including media honcho Stan Hubbard and Fred Malek of the American Action Network.

But others don’t trust Rove and the American Crossroads team to judge talent for office, says Politico: “the plan has sparked nearly unanimous opposition from anti-establishment deep-pocketed conservatives who have begun formulating their own big-money counter plans.” Those opponents could include other major super PACs who have long believed that Rove’s establishment bona fides prevent him from making truly conservative decisions about candidates.

And even some of Rove’s heretofore allies may be wary of his crystal ball strategy after the disastrous 2012 election cycle, which heralded not just the loss of Senate seats in Tea Party-influenced races like Indiana, but establishment strongholds like Wisconsin. American Crossroads had a mere 5.7% rate of return – just 5.7% of the money they spent on the 2012 election was actually spent on winning candidates.

Steven Law, president of American Crossroads, understands that he is now facing an uphill battle with conservative, especially given his group’s less-than-stellar 2012 performance. Law promises an investigation into “all of our activities last year, as well as external factors that contributed to last year’s deeply disappointing results.”

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Tea Party Changes Tack To Hit McConnell

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Photo Credit: Tom WilliamsSome individuals in the tea party movement will try anything to undermine Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, even going so far as to question the Republican’s tenacity in bringing money back to Kentucky.

It’s an unusual stance for a conservative movement best known for opposing federal spending on just about everything. But McConnell has long been a target of anti-establishment conservatives, and their latest attack on his failure to secure funding for a deteriorating bridge over the Ohio River would seem to bring them closer to President Barack Obama’s position on federal infrastructure spending.

After all, Obama used the Brent Spence Bridge as a backdrop for a September 2011 event in an attempt to pressure Republicans to back more infrastructure spending. That Obama picked a “functionally obsolete” bridge which carries motorists between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Ky., for the photo-op was no surprise. It connects the congressional district of Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, with McConnell’s Kentucky.

Despite the notoriety the president brought to it, efforts to upgrade the bridge remain delayed. So last month, a former Northern Kentucky Tea Party leader named Cathy Flaig used the deferred construction to criticize McConnell, questioning, “What has he done for Kentucky?”

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Rove’s Plan To Shape GOP Primaries Turns Into Personal Fight

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Photo Credit: Spencer PlattKarl Rove’s plan to prevent people he views as “lousy candidates” from winning Republican primaries has taken a turn for the personal. This morning, a spokesman for Rove’s Conservative Victory Project labeled the Media Research Center’s Brent Bozell “a hater” in response to Bozell’s description of Rove’s allies as “fake conservatives.”

“Bozell is a hater and he also has a long, sordid history hating Karl Rove too,” Conservative Victory Project (CVP) spokesman Jonathan Collegio, who previously worked for Crossroads GPS, said this morning on WMAL. “He has weird, personal axes to grind.”

Bozell had criticized CVP as an attempt by moderate Republicans to stamp out Tea Party conservatives. “We don’t need a second Democrat Party in Washington,” he said in a statement this week. “These fake conservatives need to go away before they do more damage.” He also noted that “if we had listened to them, there would be no Pat Toomey, no Marco Rubio, no Mike Lee, no Rand Paul, and no Ted Cruz in the Senate today.”

Earlier in the WMAL interview, Collegio explained that “what we can’t do is push these lousy candidates over the finish line — and that goes for Tea Party candidates, but it also goes for the so-called establishment candidates. We need better candidates across the board.”

Rove’s American Crossroads and GPS groups enjoyed some success helping Republicans in 2010, but their millions spent came to naught in 2012. This new initiative marks the first time his groups have openly become involved in Republican primaries.

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Obama Praises Abortion Advocate Who Called Tea Party ‘Racist,’ Suggested Mitt Romney Who Wants To Heave Rape Victims Into Water

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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn KasterPresident Barack Obama sent a video message to the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) Pro-Choice America dinner Tuesday night, welcoming incoming NARAL president Ilyse Hogue — an activist who has called the tea party “racist” and suggested Mitt Romney wants rape victims thrown into the water.

Obama’s 2012 deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, spoke at the event, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that paved the way for contemporary abortion rights. The dinner was held at the Washington Hilton. Tables ranged from $3,000 to $25,000.

“Tonight we celebrate the historic Roe v. Wade decision handed down 40 years ago, but we also gather to recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care,” Obama said in his video message. (RELATED BLOG: The most vile pro-choice argument you’ll hear all week)

“And I welcome Ilyse Hogue, who we know will continue Nancy’s legacy of outstanding leadership of this organization,” Obama said, referring to Hogue’s replacement of Nancy Keenan as NARAL president.

Hogue is a veteran left-wing activist who said that freedom to choose is “foundational to every other thing we want to achieve” in a video released Tuesday by NARAL called “Meet Ilyse Hogue.”

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Blaming the Tea Party For Bush’s Mess

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A group aligned with Karl Rove’s super PAC believes it can rescue the Republican Party from itself. These self-appointed saviors of the GOP call themselves the Conservative Victory Project, but many Republicans suspect they’re out to prevent conservative primary victories.

This new outfit’s spokesman claims, “Our party has lost six Senate seats over the last two election cycles not because of our ideas but because of undisciplined candidates running weak campaigns.” There is more than a kernel of truth to this. Todd Akin and Christine O’Donnell were terrible candidates whose abysmal performance in turn highlighted gaffes by other slightly less ham-fisted GOP candidates, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

But Akin wasn’t necessarily the tea party favorite in the Missouri Republican primary. Democrats spent heavily to promote his candidacy for a reason. Moreover, in only two of those six races — Delaware and Indiana — was the establishment candidate a sure bet to win the race the conservative upstarts ultimately lost. Unless you believe, for example, that a candidate who blows a primary lead against Sharron Angle would have proved more adept against Harry Reid.

Moreover, Tommy Thompson, George Allen, Rick Berg, Denny Rehberg, Linda Lingle, and Heather Wilson were all establishment favorites in the primaries. They all won the Republican nomination. They all lost the general election.

It also seems likely that Senators Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul will do more to advance conservative principles than Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist, David Dewhurst, and Trey Grayson would have.

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Karl Rove Declares War On Tea Party

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The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stand Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism.

Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s effort to win control of the Senate.” The group points to candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Richard Mourdock in Indiana as examples of Tea Party primary picks going sideways in major Senatorial battles.

But it is American Crossroads and its ilk that have run the GOP into the ground. Spending millions of dollars on useless 30,000-ft. advertising campaigns during the last election cycle, training candidates to soften conservatism in order to appeal to “moderates,” blowing up the federal budget under George W. Bush as a bipartisan tactic – all of those strategies led the party to a disastrous defeat in 2012. The Tea Party, which may nominate losers from time to time, also brought the Republicans their historic 2010 Congressional victory. If Tea Party candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good candidates; if GOP establishment candidates lose, it’s because they weren’t good conservatives. The choice for actual conservatives should be easy.

But it isn’t. The Bush insider team that helped lead to the rise of Barack Obama insists that they, and only they, know the path to victory.

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Second Amendment Takes Center Stage as Conservatives Rally Around the Republic

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsCONCORD, N.H. – An immigration debate is raging and a budget crisis looms in Congress, but the conservative activists gathered outside the New Hampshire Statehouse had just one thing on their minds: guns.

“The Second Amendment is there to protect us from losing the rest of them,” said Adam Brisebois, 34, of Hudson, who cradled his 3-year-old daughter on his right shoulder and a rifle on the left. “If we don’t fight, we’ll lose our rights.”

Thursday’s rally, organized by tea party leaders, drew nearly 500 people, many of them waving signs and carrying loaded weapons, to the state capital. Conservative leaders elsewhere report a wave of similar protests as grass-roots activists from Florida to Colorado seize on a new rallying cry for a tea party movement, which is trying to recover from a painful 2012 election season.

Many activists aren’t happy with the GOP’s sudden embrace of more lenient immigration proposals and they’re monitoring the approaching congressional deadline to avoid massive cuts to military programs. But for now at least, the debate over guns and the perceived threat of losing them tops their list.

It’s an “organic” movement with little coordination from national conservative organizations, according to Amy Kremer, chairman of the Tea Party Express. “It’s happening by itself,” she said.

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Palin: ‘We Haven’t Yet Begun to Fight!’

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In my research for the film I made on Governor Palin, The Undefeated, I was constantly amazed at the anti-establishment stands she took at every step in her rise to power. Moves that a conventional politician would run from, she embraced: in Wasilla, in Juneau, and in the rise of the Tea Party. Her ability to see “over the hill” to what is really important, what really matters, is what sets her apart.

Andrew Breitbart embraced the Governor as a fellow warrior in the long struggle against a detached and venal political/media complex. He lives on in spirit and through the work of those he inspired—including, but not limited to, those who report and contribute at his site.

The Governor has been at the forefront of the fight against the Permanent Political Class and, as such, inspired Peter Schweizer and myself in our work last night on Fox News with Sean Hannity’s special “Boomtown.” We consider ourselves honored at Breitbart News to have her share with us her thoughts on the road ahead in this exclusive Q & A.

1. What’s next for you?

Short term: I encourage others to step out in faith, jump out of the comfort zone, and broaden our reach as believers in American exceptionalism. That means broadening our audience. I’m taking my own advice here as I free up opportunities to share more broadly the message of the beauty of freedom and the imperative of defending our republic and restoring this most exceptional nation. We can’t just preach to the choir; the message of liberty and true hope must be understood by a larger audience.

Focus on the 2014 election is also imperative. It’s going to be like 2010, but this time around we need to shake up the GOP machine that tries to orchestrate away too much of the will of constitutional conservatives who don’t give a hoot how they do it in DC. DC is out of touch, obviously. Voices on the right like Mark Levin, Rush, and the writers here at Breitbart have come out strongly against the “go along to get along” politicians who wave the white flag before the battle even begins. We’re not going to be able to advance the cause of limited constitutional government unless we deal with these big government enablers on our side. And this all ties into the problem of crony capitalism and the permanent political class in the Beltway. We need to consistently take them on election after election – ever vigilant.

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False Fiscal Conservatives And Budget Crisis Realism

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Dear Socially Liberal Fiscal-Conservative Friend,

That’s pretty toothy, so I’m going to call you “Bob.” But whatever specific name you go by, Bob, you know who you are. You’re the sort of person who says to his conservative friends or co-workers something like, “I would totally vote for Republicans if they could just give up on these crazy social issues.”

When you explain your votes for Barack Obama, you talk about how Republicans used to be much more moderate and focused on important things such as low taxes, fiscal discipline, and balanced budgets.

When Colin Powell was on Meet the Press the other day, you nodded along as he lamented how the GOP has lost its way since the days when it was all about fiscal responsibility.

And, Bob, you think Republicans are acting crazy-pants on the debt ceiling. You don’t really follow all of the details, but you can just tell that the GOP is being “extreme,” thanks to those wacky tea partiers.

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Death of Tea Party Exaggerated? Members in House Appear to Hold Key Fiscal Vote (+video)

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The Tea Party has had an up-and-down political ride since the movement helped Republicans take control of the House in 2010, but those elected in the midterm elections still appear to wield considerable power in the fiscal negotiations.

The roughly 50 members elected to the House two years ago have been a challenge for the more moderate House Speaker John Boehner since they took office. Perhaps most memorably, many of them refused last year to support a debt-ceiling bill because they said it didn’t reduce federal spending enough.

Just last week they squashed Boehner’s fiscal plan by refusing to compromise and vote on a tax increase for any American, despite the House speaker — in his so-called “Plan B” — having suggested extending tax cuts only for those making more than $1 million annually.

And their most powerful vote might be yet to come, should Tea Party-backed House members reject a possible Senate proposal over the next two days to extend tax cuts and perhaps avert massive federal spending cuts that start January 1.

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