Trolled By Turd Blossom

Even I have to admit that this is some pretty epic trolling by Karl Rove.

Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush who is working on a book about President McKinley, told Time that he'd expect Obama to be "more gracious" to the man "who made it possible for him to be President." 

"In a serious vein, I would hope that he would find a gracious way to honor McKinley, who is an important figure in American history. And I’m not certain he has the authority to have done what he did; the designation was granted by law of Congress in 1917," Rove told the magazine. "In a more jocular way, the guy ought to be more gracious to the guy who made it possible for him to be President." 

Obama was born in 1961 in Hawaii, which was annexed in 1898 during McKinley's presidency.

A swipe at the President and the Birther idiots in his own party?  Yeah, you get a point for that, Karl.

And several million negative points for, you know, being Karl Rove.

The Real 2014 Election Winners

Let's not forget that the real winners in last week's elections were the billionaire Republican donors who bought eight new Senators for their oligarchy.

To get from the 2012 doldrums to the 2014 victory, GOP groups went through significant transformations. The network of groups backed by David and Charles Koch started buying attack ads with a new super-PAC instead of the nonprofit it used two years ago. The upside for them is the operation is more efficient (tax rules require nonprofits to spend at least 50 percent of their budget on nonpolitical activity, so every dollar on TV political ads must be matched with nonpolitical work). The downside is donor names are disclosed.

Perhaps the greatest example of a turnaround is Rove's American Crossroads. The group was the biggest loser two years ago, dumping more than $120 million into campaigns and watching 10 of the 12 Senate candidates it backed go down in defeat. This time Rove's group won 8 of the 11 Senate races where it made investments.

Crossroads went on a well-publicized soul searching mission last fall, including a donor meeting that kicked off the week of the government shutdown in 2013--an event that infuriated the business community. Despite the group's efforts to improve it's image, big checks were slow to come in. Over the summer Republicans were outspent in key races, Crossroads President Steven Law said in an interview. "Many of our candidates hit Labor Day and were underwater with their image," Law said. 

Unlimited money made all the difference this year.

The donor freeze started thawing in September when polling began to tighten in a number of races and big-names such as Sheldon Adelson started opening their wallets. He wrote a $10 million check to Crossroads GPS in September, a nonprofit arm of the Rove organization. GPS, as a nonprofit, is not required to disclose its donors. Adelson's windfall was leaked to the news media. "Typically donors who support Crossroads are pretty sophisticated consumers of political information," Law said. "My guess is donors paid attention to what they saw on sites like Real Clear Politics."

The group scraped together $36 million to put into television for senate races in the last 90 days of the campaign, according to figures provided by Crossroads. It was the lead spender in Colorado, Arkansas and Alaska, where GOP Dan Sullivan is about 8,000 votes ahead of Democrat Mark Begich.

And money buys cooperation.

However, resources weren't arriving evenly or predictably. That forced Crossroads and some of the other GOP groups to cooperate this year in ways they've never done before. One example came in October when Crossroads realized there was a "hole in our budget" for Colorado, Law said. 

Law emailed Brain Baker at Ending Spending Action Fund, the super-PAC backed by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts and the two worked out a deal—the Ricketts group would go up on the air and continue pounding incumbent Democrat Mark Udall while Crossroads took a week off. "Ending Spending filled a gap," Law said. "The take away for all of us was sharing information and strategy was smart for all of us." Udall lost to Republican Cory Gardner. 

Ending Spending took the lead in other places, including Georgia where Republican David Perdue beat back Democratic challenger Michelle Nunn, in a race that was widely thought would go to a runoff.

So these GOP billionaires joined forced and coordinated their attacks worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  As a result, Democrats were utterly crushed across the country.

There's a lesson here if Democrats wish to choose to learn it.  You'd better believe the 2016 ads designed to depress voter turnout are already starting too.

Billionaire Republican donors bought Congress outright with this election.  If they get the White House as well, this country is done.

And it doesn't look like anyone can stop them unless we vote.  While you still can, that is.

Where Are The Women, Karl Rove Asked

Republicans are still trying to figure out why women hate the GOP, so Karl Rove and some of his buddies paid for a pretty detailed study as to why there's a massive gender gap that favors women voting for Democrats.  The results are pretty hysterical, frankly.

A detailed report commissioned by two major Republican groups — including one backed by Karl Rove — paints a dismal picture for Republicans, concluding female voters view the party as “intolerant,” “lacking in compassion” and “stuck in the past.”
Women are “barely receptive” to Republicans’ policies, and the party does “especially poorly” with women in the Northeast and Midwest, according to an internal Crossroads GPS and American Action Network report obtained by POLITICO. It was presented to a small number of senior aides this month on Capitol Hill, according to multiple sources involved.

I can't imagine why that would be, with Republicans vowing to eliminate affordable health care under the ACA, trying to shut down abortion clinics in dozens of states, refusing to raise the minimum wage and basically pretending that only married women with kids, living in the exurbs matter.

The report is blunt about the party’s problems. It says 49 percent of women view Republicans unfavorably, while just 39 percent view Democrats unfavorably.

It also found that Republicans “fail to speak to women in the different circumstances in which they live” — as breadwinners, for example. “This lack of understanding and acknowledgment closes many minds to Republican policy solutions,” the report says. The groups urge Republicans to embrace policies that “are not easily framed as driven by a desire to aid employers or ‘the rich.’”

Two policies former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor promoted as a way to make inroads with middle-class women and families — charter schools and flexible work schedules — were actually the least popular policies among female voters.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that every male Republican senator voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act every time it was brought up in the last six years, and that Republicans consider single women, especially working single women, to be immoral and dirty.  Maybe it has to do with Republicans happily embracing the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby ruling that your boss gets to decide if they cover birth control because of religion, when the law says it gets covered.

I'm just spitballing here.

When female voters are asked who “wants to make health care more affordable,” Democrats have a 39 percent advantage, and a 40 percent advantage on who “looks out for the interests of women.” Democrats have a 39 percent advantage when it comes to who “is tolerant of other people’s lifestyles.”

Female voters who care about the top four issues — the economy, health care, education and jobs — vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Most striking, Democrats hold a 35-point advantage with female voters who care about jobs and a 26 percent advantage when asked which party is willing to compromise. House Republicans say jobs and the economy are their top priorities.

You don't say.  35, 40 point advantages for Democrats among women.  And what's the GOP response?

The groups suggest a three-pronged approach to turning around their relationship with women. First, they suggest the GOP “neutralize the Democrats’” attack that Republicans don’t support fairness for women. They suggest Republican lawmakers criticize Democrats for “growing government programs that encourage dependency rather than opportunities to get ahead.” That message tested better than explaining that the GOP supports a number of policies that could help fairness for women.

Second, the groups suggest Republicans “deal honestly with any disagreement on abortion, then move to other issues.” And third, “pursue policy innovations that inspire women voters to give the GOP a ‘fresh look.’” The report suggests lawmakers and candidates inject “unexpected” GOP policy proposals into the debate as a way to sway female voters. Suggestions include ways to improve job-training programs, “strengthening enforcement against gender bias in the workplace” and “expanding home health care services by allowing more health care professionals to be paid by Medicare for home health services.”

Yes, because "fairness for women" apparently means "You don't want to be seen as a lazy whore on government programs, do you?"  The GOP plan is literally slut-shaming women into rejecting programs designed to help women and families.  This is their message.

And they wonder why they are overwhelmingly losing women to Democrats.

On the other hand, if Democrats don't vote in midterms and Republicans do, it doesn't matter how awful Republicans treat women, now does it?  They'll win anyway, and will never change.

Last Call For Scott Perp Walker

The long-rumored campaign finance corruption case against Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker has finally been unsealed, and it's a doozy.

Prosecutors allege that Gov. Scott Walker was at the center of an effort to illegally coordinate fundraising among conservative groups to help his campaign and those of Republican senators fend off recall elections during 2011 and '12, according to documents unsealed Thursday. 

In the documents, prosecutors lay out what they call a "criminal scheme" to bypass state election laws by Walker, his campaign and two top deputies — R.J. Johnson and Deborah Jordahl. 

The governor and his close confidants helped raise money and control spending through 12 conservative groups during the recall elections, according to the prosecutors' filings. 

The documents include an email in which Walker tells Karl Rove, former top adviser to President George W. Bush, that Johnson would lead the coordination campaign. Johnson is also chief adviser to Wisconsin Club for Growth, a conservative group active in the recall elections. 

"Bottom-line: R.J. helps keep in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin. We are running 9 recall elections and it will be like 9 congressional markets in every market in the state (and Twin Cities)," Walker wrote to Rove on May 4, 2011.

Yep, not only is Walker at the center of this case, but so is Karl Effin' Rove.  Get out the popcorn kids, things just got real in Cheeseland.  Chris Christie in NJ, Bob McDonnell in Vorginia, and now Scott Walker in Wisconsin.  Seems like the flood of GOP governors in purple states has been more like orange...as in prison jumpsuits.

Well If Karl Rove Thinks So...

Good news, Democrats!  Looks like we might be off the hook in November, because Karl Rove sees the GOP taking back the Senate, and Karl Rove hasn't been right about anything in 6 years.

"With 14 seats in play on the Democratic side and a couple of seats in play potentially on the Republican side, I think it's highly likely that Republicans pick up the majority,” he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Rove identified seven potential pickup opportunities for the GOP in West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, where Democratic senators are retiring, and in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina, where Democratic incumbents face serious challenges. The Republicans need a net gain of six seats to retake the Senate.

He dismissed worries that tea party candidates might cost the GOP winnable races, as in 2012, when Republican Senate hopeful Todd Akin's numbers tanked after he said victims of "legitimate rape" rarely become pregnant.

"I think it's going very well. First of all, it's not about beating the tea party candidate, it's about keeping us from having Todd Akins," Rove said, adding, "So we've got to avoid situations like that, and if you take a look at the Republican candidates ... we have a very good cast of characters that are running."

Fourteen Democratic seats aren't "in play" first of all.  The number is really the seven he listed there, and Republicans would have to effectively run the table.  Remember, in 2012 the Democrats were "doomed to lose the Senate" and ended up gaining seats because of how awful their individual Tea Party candidates were.

The simple fact of the matter is if Democrats show up to the polls, we win.  If we stay home like in 2010, the Republicans will.  Period.  Senate races are 100% about turnout.

Karl Rove Is Still Wrong About Everything

Karl Rove is convinced that Democrats are afraid of Chris Christie.

Democrats are raising a fuss about the closure of the George Washington Bridge because they are afraid of Gov. Chris Christie's (R) chances in 2016, according to former President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove.

“The reason the Democrats are doing this is because Gov. Christie is a strong potential candidate in 2016 and they’re going to try to smother every Republican presidential possibility they can,” Rove said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“They know that this race in 2016 is going to be difficult for the Democrats, hard to get a third term, particularly after the two terms of Obama.”

Meanwhile, Rand Paul and Mitt Romney keep going on teevee bringing up Monica Lewinsky.  You know, because the economy was so awful when Clinton was President, especially compared to the mess Bush made of it and that Obama's still trying to dig out of with no help from the GOP.

Seems like it's the GOP who is afraid if the best they have is stuff from 15 years ago on Big Dog.  They've got no plan for the economy, no plan for tackling climate change or immigration, no plan for anything other than "We hate Obama, so we'll hate Clinton too."

Scared kids.

Last Call For Cruz Control

GOP Sen. Ted Cruz tried to weasel out of responsibility for his role in taunting House Republicans over not being Tea Party enough to shut down the government over Obamacare.  The House GOP promptly called Cruz out, and now he's thumping his chest again in his dog and pony show.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested Thursday that he would stage a talking filibuster to block a Senate government spending bill that funds Obamacare.

"I will do everything necessary and anything possible to defund Obamacare," Cruz told reporters. When asked about a talking filibuster specifically, a la Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and drones, he said: "Yes, and anything else, any procedural means necessary."

The House will vote Friday on a spending bill that would defund the health care reform law. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that such a bill would be "dead" in that chamber.

Meanwhile, Karl Rove is trying to be the voice of reason, screaming "What are you morons doing?" over a shutdown playing into the President's hands.

But won't voters be swayed by the arguments for defunding? The GPS poll tested the key arguments put forward by advocates of defunding and Mr. Obama's response. Independents went with Mr. Obama's counterpunch 57% to 35%. Voters in Senate battleground states sided with him 59% to 33%. In lean-Republican congressional districts and in swing congressional districts, Mr. Obama won by 56% to 39% and 58% to 33%, respectively. On the other hand, independents support by 51% to 42% delaying ObamaCare's mandate that individuals buy coverage or pay a fine.

The desire to strike at ObamaCare is praiseworthy. But any strategy to repeal, delay or replace the law must have a credible chance of succeeding or affecting broad public opinion positively.

The defunding strategy doesn't. Going down that road would strengthen the president while alienating independents. It is an ill-conceived tactic, and Republicans should reject it.

It may not matter.  The beast is slouching towards Washington, waiting to be born, and the now completely fractured GOP may not be able to do anything to stop it.

Last Call

History is rewritten by the winners. Here's a serious question for the assemblage: If President Obama's record is so awful, why are the Republicans so eager to rewrite the history of what he's accomplished? Greg Sargent:

Keep an eye on this one, too, because it will also be central to GOP efforts to rewrite the history of the Obama presidency. In his big Wall Street Journal Op ed piece today attacking Obama’s campaign documentary and minimizing the magnitude of the economic crisis Obama inherited, Karl Rove also claims the killing of Osama Bin Laden was no big deal.

Yeah, stop for a sec. Rewind. Play back. The crisis was minimal, so it was really President Obama's unnecessary efforts at government intervention that "created" the financial crisis and ramped up unemployment. And as far as our late former Saudi ally is concerned, well Big Dog would have made that call too, Rove says. How can this President possibly take any credit for that?

 Rove goes on to say that the President has been lying about everything: the stimulus, health care reform and his mother's battle with insurance companies and cancer, Afghanistan, Iran, and of course the death of bin Laden. But hold on, I thought the President hadn't accomplished anything, that he sat on his hands all day and campaigned for re-election for the last several years. Basic stuff is now disappearing down the memory hole, like the lies that Mitt Romney regularly tells about the President's record.

 Now we're seeing a concerted effort to define the Obama administration as the source of the financial crisis. Romney of course said yesterday that it was President Bush and his SecTreas, Hank Paulson, who "prevented another Great Depression" while the FOX News crew keeps insisting that the bank bailout was all President Obama's idea, equating the stimulus to the bailout. They're not the same. The GOP wants it to be.

They want to rewrite history to say that the financial meltdown would have been fixed by Bush except Obama came in and screwed everything up and made it worse. The fact that Bush's policies helped create the crisis in the first place is irrelevant to this President's re-election. So yes, the race is now on to define the "crisis" as only existing from January 20, 2009 and on. Sargent himself adds this:

This comical level of dissembling and mendacity is to be expected from Rove. But it’s a bit surprising that the Journal’s editors either didn’t think to check such an obviously ridiculous representation of Clinton’s quote, or worse, that they just waved Rove’s dishonesty through in the full knowledge of what Clinton had actually said.

You haven't been paying much attention to how this works much, have you Greg? Spreading mendacious dishonesty is what Karl Rove does professionally.

Moving Forward At Your Own Perry-il, Part 3

Wow, it's only been like three days, and Rick Perry has already racked up enough demerits for KP duty.  Brian Beutler:

Texas governor, and freshly minted GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry will have to explain what he meant when he said "we would treat [Fed chairman Ben Bernanke] pretty ugly down in Texas" if he prints money -- or, more charitably, printing more money than usual. Likewise, he'll have to explain why he thinks printing money -- or prints more money than usual -- would be "almost treasonous," at least as compared to, say, secession.

But what's gone completely unnoticed in the wake of candidate Perry's first big flap is his rationale for opposing a looser Fed policy in this depressed economy: specifically that it would work, boost the economy, and thus make it harder for the GOP to defeat President Obama.

"If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous -- in my opinion."

To recap, exercising Fed policy to save America's economy when a Republican is president, vital and necessary.  When that President is Barack Obama, it's treason.   Also, Texans will attack central bankers on sight.  This from, as Beutler mentioned, a proponent of the state's secession from the union.

I told you guys the opposition research on Perry would be miles of laughs, right up until this jackass gets the nomination.

I will give Perry credit for one thing however:  he's pissing off Karl Rove.  Meanwhile, President Obama is having fun with the newbie.

You know, Mr. Perry just got into the presidential race. I think that everybody who runs for president, it probably takes them a little bit of time before they start realizing that this isn't like running for governor or running for senator or running for Congress, and you've got to be a little more careful about what you say. But I'll cut him some slack. He's only been at it for a few days now.

 Classic Obama, folks.  Classic.

Moose And Rover Must Fight

The battle for 2012 is officially underway in the GOP, as Karl Rove has launched a salvo at Sarah Palin.

Karl Rove told a British newspaper Wednesday that he has serious doubts about Sarah Palin's viability as a presidential candidate.

The former senior adviser to George W. Bush told The Daily Telegraph of London that he questioned whether Americans thought the former Alaska governor had the "gravitas" for the "most demanding job in the world."

It was a stronger stand than Rove took earlier in the week in addressing Palin's prospects for 2012.

Ouch. Oh, it gets worse.

"With all due candor, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office,'" Rove told the Telegraph, which said he remains a considerable force on the U.S. political scene.

Rove cited the promotional clip for "Sarah Palin's Alaska," saying it could be especially detrimental to any political campaign as it features the mother of five in the great outdoors saying "I would rather be doing this than in some stuffy old political office," the Telegraph reported.

Folks, if Karl Rove, the man who wants the GOP to win and have a permanent chokehold on our country, is trying to sink Sarah Palin two years before the election, he knows she has no real chance to beat Obama.

No matter happens Tuesday, the road to 2012 is going to be brutal, ugly, and devastating. If anything, America seeing how the Tea Party reacts with just a taste of power may be the impetus for stopping them cold in 2012.

So Proud They Are Anonymous

The NY Times discovers that people are giving millions to Karl Rove's super PAC in order to influence the midterms precisely because they can make anonymous, unlimited donations to Republicans who will write laws to benefit them.

Stoking the flow of dollars has been the guarantee of secrecy afforded by certain nonprofit groups. Mel Sembler, a shopping mall magnate in St. Petersburg, Fla., who is close to the Republican strategist Karl Rove, said wealthy donors had written six- and seven-figure checks to Crossroads GPS, a Rove-backed group that is the most active of the nonprofits started this year. Republicans close to the group said that last week, the group received a check for several million dollars from a single donor, whom they declined to identify.

“I think most people are very comfortable giving anonymously,” Mr. Sembler said. “They want to be able to be helpful but not be seen by the public as taking sides.” 

Sure.  Because giving a million dollar to Karl Rove's Super PAC doesn't mean you're taking sides at all.

Republicans involved in Crossroads say the groups owe their fund-raising success to a hope that a Republican Congress would undo some of the Obama administration agenda. But they also credit their fund-raising strategy.

When Mr. Rove and Ed Gillespie, the former Republican chairman, began their efforts last spring, they first helped set up a group called American Crossroads under a tax-code provision that requires the disclosure of donors. It took in several seven-figure contributions from high-profile donors, including Trevor Rees-Jones, president and chief executive of Chief Oil and Gas, and Robert Rowling, chief executive of TRT Holdings.

Then in June, Mr. Rove and Mr. Gillespie helped organize Crossroads GPS under the provision that allows donors to give anonymously. A Republican operative who speaks frequently with Mr. Rove said the public donations, revealed over the summer, were used as “a way to energize others to give large amounts anonymously.”

The operative added, “It has worked like a charm.” 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how our democracy works now.  Like a charm, if you're one of the ruling class elites who can give hundreds of thousands or more to make sure you get Republicans to write laws that directly benefit you.  You don't have to say who you are, and you can give as much as you want.

And it's all perfectly legal.

Some are more equal than others.

Karl Rove's Hurt Fee-Fees

Fresh off mounting allegations that Karl Rove and his Crossroads Super-PAC are, you know, pouring millions of dollars into elections without any oversight whatsoever, ol' Karl takes a dive on the turf and hopes the Village refs call Obama for the foul over this DNC ad.



CNN is more than happy to oblige.

"Have these people no shame?" Rove said of the attacks leveled at him and the Chamber. "Does the president of the United States have such little regard for the office he holds that he goes out there and makes these kind of baseless charges against his political enemies? This is just beyond the pale. How dare the president do this?"

“This is a desperate and I think disturbing trend by the president of the United States to tar his political adversaries with some kind of enemies list, with being unrestrained by any facts or evidence whatsoever."

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Gillespie also responded to the charges leveled against him and Rove in the new DNC ad.

“Karl Rove and I don't run American Crossroads. We're fully supportive of it. I've helped to raise money for it. I encouraged it to come together because I think we need something like that on the conservative side because there's so much money on the liberal side. You know, $400 million was spent in 2008 to help elect Barack Obama.” 

Obama has an enemies list!  Creeping Sharia law!  Booga booga booga!  In the words of Sarah Palin, "How much do we really know about Barack Hussein Obama?"

More than we do about Crossroads and its donors.  Those poor Republicans, complaining about the money gap...you know, despite Republicans outspending the Democrats 7-1 here thanks to groups like Crossroads.  Karl Rove clutches his pearls, goes straight for the fainting couch, and the Village buys it wholesale anyway. 

Rove still knows how to play the game.  Now the issue isn't anonymous donors or foreign money going to the Chamber of Commerce, but how the mean black man hurt Karl Rove's feelings.

Outstanding.

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.

Steele Running Away

Unlike Josh Marshall I personally think Michael Steele will make it all the way to Friday before he has to apologize to the GOP again for his latest bout of stupidity.

In an interview with Spanish-language network Univision, RNC Chairman Michael Steele distanced his party from Arizona's controversial new immigration law, saying, "The actions of one state's governor is not a reflection of an entire country, nor is it a reflection of an entire political party."

"We hope, now that this debate is in full bloom, level heads will prevail and that we'll reach a common sense solution with regards to immigration," Steele said.

He's toast.  Wouldn't this be funny if this really was the last straw that gets Steele fired?  Won't happen, I mean if they haven't fired him by now, they're not going to.

Now, come January 2011 this may be a different story, especially considering the RNC's major money problems, but considering that Michael Steele and the RNC are irrelevant now compared to Karl Rove's fundraising operations, at this point it doesn't matter what happens to Steele, does it?

Last Call

Pretty good article over at Raw Story tonight detailing why Michael Steele no longer matters to the Republicans:  he's no longer in charge:  Karl Rove is.

Appearing on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday, Republican strategist Ed Rollins was asked to comment on the so-called "shadow RNC" that has sprung up to bypass Steele as the Republican party's core management. Rollins has in recent months emerged as a strong Republican critic of chairman Steele, after calling for his resignation in April.

"[He’s] so immersed in controversy that he’s kind of in a bunker these days," host Bob Schieffer said, noting Steele's reluctance to appear on television. "Are Republicans going to have to do something about Michael Steele?"

"Well, there’s no time," Rollins replied, noting the upcoming election season. "Obviously he’s been a disaster. You have three men on this show -- not me, but the other three -- who have all been party chairmen and very distinguished party chairmen. Michael Steele has failed miserably in the things you’re supposed to do: raise money and basically go out and articulate the message. It’s not going to matter though -- in the 11 weeks from now, what he says and does in the next 11 weeks is not going to matter."

The reason Rollins says it will not matter is because of the so-called "shadow RNC" formed by former Bush political adviser Karl Rove and former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, which has effectively undermined Steele's position, rendering him nothing more than a figurehead.

Rove disclosed during a July broadcast by Fox News, his part-time employer, that his American Crossroads groups would effectively benefit via financing loopholes opened by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

Ol' Turd Blossom is calling the shots.  Republicans are going right back to the Karl Rove playbook to try to bring down Obama and Dems heading into the election.  Thanks to SCOTUS they will be able to spend unlimited funding especially in the last 30 days.  The RNC fundraising machine has been bypassed by Rove's Crossroads outfit.

In effect, he's leading the charge to buy Congress back.  And he'll have tens if not hundreds of millions to help him do so.

Gotta love the American election system, eh?

Karl Rove's Repeal Appeal

Turd Blossom is completely behind this one.

Polls may show a temporary increase in the president's popularity, but underlying public opinion about this law is not likely to change just because the president hits the trail to sell it. After all, he made 58 speeches before the measure passed, including two in prime time.

Before that string of speeches the public was in favor of the concept of health-care reform by a ratio of 2 to 1. Afterward, about 60% of the public was opposed to the president's plan. Those who strongly opposed outnumbered those strongly in favor by 2 to 1 or better in most polls.

Tens of millions of ordinary people watched the deliberations, studied the proposals, and made up their minds. Their concerns about spending, deficits and growing government power are not going away.

Nor is their opposition to ObamaCare. According to a new CNN poll, majorities of Americans believe that they will pay more for medical care, the federal deficit will increase, and that government will be too involved in health care under the president's plan.

Democrats claim they've rallied their left-wing base. But that base isn't big enough to carry the fall elections, particularly after the party alienated independents and seniors. The only way Democrats win a base election this year will be if opponents of this law stay home.

So, he declares, run on repeal!  Rove's had a stellar record so far, yes?  Just like in 2008 when he said "Go even more negative on Obama?"  By all means, as the President said today on repeal:

"Go for it."

Bush Administration Rehabilitation Through Misinformation

Zandardad flagged me up this week's Frank Rich column I missed yesterday, and it's worth discussing Rich's take on the Karl Rove/Liz Cheney puppet show designed to make America forget about the Bush Administration and blame everything, quite literally, on the Dems.

THE opening salvo, fired on Fox News during Thanksgiving week, aroused little notice: Dana Perino, the former White House press secretary, declared that “we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” Rudy Giuliani upped the ante on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in January. “We had no domestic attacks under Bush,” he said. “We’ve had one under Obama.” (He apparently meant the Fort Hood shootings.)

Now the revisionist floodgates have opened with the simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove’s memoir and Keep America Safe, a new right-wing noise machine invented by Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz and the inevitable William Kristol. This gang’s rewriting of history knows few bounds. To hear them tell it, 9/11 was so completely Bill Clinton’s fault that it retroactively happened while he was still in office. The Bush White House is equally blameless for the post-9/11 resurgence of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and Iran. Instead it’s President Obama who is endangering America by coddling terrorists and stopping torture.

Could any of this non-reality-based shtick stick? So far the answer is No. Rove’s book and Keep America Safe could be the best political news for the White House in some time. This new eruption of misinformation and rancor vividly reminds Americans why they couldn’t wait for Bush and Cheney to leave Washington.

But the old regime’s attack squads are relentless and shameless. The Obama administration, which put the brakes on any new investigations into Bush-Cheney national security malfeasance upon taking office, will sooner or later have to strike back. Once the Bush-Cheney failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran again come home to roost, as they undoubtedly and explosively will, someone will have to remind our amnesia-prone nation who really enabled America’s enemies in the run-up to 9/11 and in its aftermath.

Everything that went wrong in Bush's first six years was retroactively Clinton's fault, and everything that went wrong in the last two was the fault of Senator Obama and the Dems because they controlled Congress.  Bush was the best President since Reagan, you see.  This has been going on since Obama took office, frankly.  The Clinton blaming after all did get Bush a second term, albeit barely.  But it also assured that the Dems would win and have to take responsibility for cleaning up the mess left behind.

The Republicans really do hope you're stupid enough to put them back in power in 2010 so they can get back to doing the things that created two wars and a financial disaster that drained trillions of dollars from our coffers, trillions of dollars we didn't have.  Obama hasn't fixed all the problems the Republicans left him, so the GOP argument is that after giving the Dems two years, it's time for another sixteen of Republican rule.

Do you really want these jackasses back in charge?  They're not sorry for their mistakes.  They're pinning them on Obama.  They will repeat them as soon as they are given a chance.

Sunday Funnies: Everything Old Is New Again

With Johhny Volcano and Fluffy off this week (I guess it's time to fire up the grill) it's Old Skool time on the Sunday Funnies, with President Scott Brown's chief of staff Karl Rove and Tom Brokaw and of course, Axeman and Huckleberry Hound.

Tapper: Lindsey you say reconciliation is fascist
but you voted for reconciliation when it suited you

Graham: yes but health care affects one sixth
of the economy

Tapper: and Bush tax cuts don’t?

Graham: this is completely different after all we
have a black Democratic President now

Tapper: The Democrats say the people want this bill

Graham: the American people are just sick of
this crap

Tapper: meaning what?

Graham: they’re going to cut Medicare!

Tapper: you’re the President’s best friend - is Obama committed to immigration?

Graham: no he doesn’t meet with Republicans every day - it’s so sad

Tapper: what should be do

Graham: let Senator Obama propose a bill and I
will decide whether or not to veto it

Tapper: where is the leadership from John McCain

Graham: give the old man a break - he’s being primaried by a lunatic

Tapper: to be fair last time the GOP killed the immigration bill!

Graham: no that’s not fair - Obama is a sleazy black man cheating and is going to use a trick which we used to use all the time

Because of course the best way to get a bead on Obama is to ask Karl Rove.

[UPDATE 4:25 PM]  It's worth noting however that Digby is right about Huckleberry, who went on to blame the Dems for Bush's immigration reform failing when it was killed by the Wingers.  Graham is hoping you'll forget Malkinvania's screams of SHAMNESTY at the top of her lungs.

 I hope everyone realizes that this is a set-up on immigration reform. Graham is a snake. He is trying to position the Republicans as friends of the Hispanic community, but he will torpedo anything meaningful and then blame it on the Democrats. The GOP has no intention of going up against their tea party bigots, but they'd sure like to demobilize the Hispanic community by undermining their loyalty to the Democrats.

I consider Graham to be one of the most dangerous Republicans in the government. He's a very bad faith player whom the villagers love as a sort of cornpone Jimmy Stewart. I hope the Democrats don't underestimate him.

It would be a bad idea indeed to do so.  Graham isn't nearly as stupid as he appears.

Tugging On Superman's Cape

Karl Rove has finally played fast and loose with the wrong guy's facts:  Nate Silver's.

It's not as though one should expect honesty and integrity from Karl Rove, but it's disappointing when his duplicity involves you personally. In a memo at his website, Rove.com, he carelessly misrepresents my arguments about the Democrats' 2010 electoral picture, while going on to demonstrate a superficial understanding about the underlying dynamics of the race.

Here's what Rove said that I said:

On the blog fivethirtyeight.com, Democratic booster Nate Silver recently suggested the 2010 midterms won’t produce an anti-Democratic swing of the same magnitude of 1994 because “unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite unpopular.”

And here's what I actually said:

It's not that I'm at all optimistic about the Democrats' electoral fortunes in 2010. The general consensus that they'll lose between 25 and 35 House seats strikes me as generous, for instance. I'd put the modal number at somewhere in the low 40s instead, although with a very wide range from as few as 20 Republican pickups to as many as 60. [...]

Clearly, 2010 will be to some greater or lesser extent an anti-Democratic year. The question is to what extent it might also be an anti-incumbent year [...] Unlike in 1994, the GOP remains quite strongly unpopular. Also as compared with 1994, the Republicans are less cohesive, and that could result in their nominating a sub-optimal candidate in Kentucky, New Hampshire, Florida or Arizona.

It's pretty rich to be characterized as a "Democratic booster" for having written an article in which I argued that (i) the general consensus on the number of seats that the Democrats will lose in the House is too optimistic (ii) my best guess would be for a loss in the low 40s instead, and possibly as high as 60, which would eclipse the Democrats' 54-seat loss in 1994.

What I do think, however, is that while the results might wind up being pretty similar to 1994, the parameters driving those results are rather different, in much the same way that losing a football game by two touchdowns can be very different between a 14-0 shutout and a 45-31 shootout.

Nate may be splitting hairs...but that's what Nate does.  He's the master of political stat crunching and once again Karl Rove finds himself getting his ass kicked by good ol' logic.  Nate completely admits that 2010 could be worse than 1994...in fact Nate's mode number has the GOP eking out control of the House by a handful of seats right now.

That's not good if you're the Dems.  On the other hand, there are a lot of opportunities that could damage supposedly safe Republican seats merely because they are incumbents.  The Republicans clearly understand this, which is why they are more than happy to throw their own incumbents under the bus in red district/state primaries if it means putting in a Tea Party candidate on the ticket and saying "Behold!  We no longer have the millstone of incumbency!"  (Ask Charlie Crist or Trey Greyson.)

And, as Nate points out, Republicans are far less popular than they were in 1994.  An incumbent seat vacated by a Republican in a Red district is not a 100% guarantee that the people will put a Republican back in the seat.

In other words, there's still time to go.  I personally think the GOP has peaked, and if the Dems are smart enough to get a public option bill through reconciliation, they will suddenly find that the GOP is the team in trouble.

Karl Rove Is Confused

Karl Rove declares Obama the worst President ever, then proceeds to blame him for all the problems Bush created, as well as the ones that he inherited and hasn't fixed in 11 months.

No, that's pretty much it.  And the WSJ will continue to let him attack the President.