Eight Heads In A Tea Bag

As Dave Weigel reminds us, the Tea Party has collected no less than eight heads from John Cornyn and the NRSC.

So why didn't the NRSC just blow smoke last night and avoid cheesing off the base? Well, reporters would have laughed in their faces. That's how this works. The base is right -- its pose of total confidence at all times may not convince the hacks, but it's what you need before an election. Because the alternative is denying O'Donnell a honeymoon and launching her campaign with two days of inside baseball stories about infighting.

Make no mistake, the NRSC is effectively done.  "Follow the money" is no cliche here in a post Citizens United world.  The real power is now in the hands of Karl Rove and the Super PACs.

At least 25 “super PACS,” including one linked to Karl Rove, are fueling a surge in money for this year’s elections following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down limits on corporate campaign spending.

These political action committees can take unlimited company, union and individual donations and explicitly urge voters to support or oppose candidates, unlike ordinary PACs and nonprofit groups. Like other PACs, they must register with the Federal Election Commission and disclose donors.

“They can say whatever they want politically in the advertising,” said Michael Toner, a former FEC chairman who’s among the lawyers dubbing them super PACs. “It’s very liberating.”

American Crossroads, a group advised by Rove, a top adviser to former President George W. Bush, said it has raised more than $17 million. That includes $1 million from Dixie Rice Agricultural Corp., a company led by Harold Simmons, also the chairman of Dallas-based Titanium Metals Corp. A trust controlled by Jerrold Perenchio, former chairman of New York- based Univision Communications Inc., also gave $1 million.

That may be just the beginning. American Crossroads also has an issue-advocacy group that doesn’t have to disclose donors, and it won’t say how much of the $52 million it plans to raise in this campaign will go toward that effort. Other groups aren’t even registering as PACs and will be able to spend millions on ads without disclosing their contributors as long as they steer clear of expressly advocating for or against a candidate. 

They're bypassing traditional fundraising groups and putting out their own ads directly for candidates and against Democrats.  These corporate-funded beasts are the real money behind the fundraisers.  They have tens of millions, and multiplied by dozens of Super PACs, that's hundreds of millions of campaign dollars being thrown at the election here in the last two months.  The NRSC's donations of a few hundred thousand here and there are literally meaningless now.

Don't be fooled by all the "Karl Rove versus Christine O'Donnell" crap you're hearing today.  It's a front.  Rove will donate as much as he can to get this seat in the GOP column.  Make no mistake:  massive corporate entities are now directly influencing our elections with unlimited donations to outfits like Karl Rove's American Crossroads.  And if Rove doesn't, another Super PAC will.

After all, GOP Senate incumbents Michael Bennett and Lisa Murkowski and now Mike Castle lost to their Tea Party challengers by a combined total of 6,100 votes.  It's all about turnout in 2010.  The more money thrown at the races, the more turnout to oust the incumbent Dems.

Count on it.  Karl Rove certainly is.