Karl Rove building "shadow Republican Party" to beat the Dems -- and the Tea Party?

[KingOrfeo]

Karl Rove building "shadow Republican Party" to beat the Dems -- and the Tea Party?

The New York Times reports:

Already a prominent presence as an analyst on Fox News Channel and a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Rove is also playing a leading role in building what amounts to a shadow Republican Party, a network of donors and operatives that is among the most aggressive in the Republican effort to capture control of the House and the Senate.

He has had a major hand in helping to summon the old coalition of millionaires and billionaires who supported Mr. Bush and have huge financial stakes in regulatory and tax policy, like Harold C. Simmons, a Texas billionaire whose holdings include a major waste management company that handles some radioactive materials; Carl H. Lindner Jr., a Cincinnati businessman whose American Financial Group includes several property and casualty insurance concerns; and Robert B. Rowling, whose TRT Holdings owns Omni Hotels and Gold’s Gym.

Their personal and corporate money — as well as that of other donors who have not been identified — has gone to a collection of outside groups Mr. Rove helped form with Mr. Gillespie, including American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, which in turn are loosely affiliated with similar groups staffed or backed by other operatives and donors with ties to Mr. Rove. With $32 million and counting, they are now filling the void created by the diminished condition of the Republican National Committee, which has faced fund-raising difficulties under its embattled chairman, Michael Steele.

“A lot of what we’re doing would normally be done with the R.N.C.,” said Ms. Cheney, who is part of a group, the Alliance for America’s Future, that is working with the organizations Mr. Rove helped start on encouraging early voting in House races this fall. “There’s no money there.”

Vanity Fair adds:

While the Shadow Party has supported Tea Party–favored candidates such as Kentucky senatorial hopeful Rand Paul and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s challenger Sharron Angle, Rove’s support of incumbent Mike Castle in the Delaware Republican senate positioned him as a threat, and possibly a corrective, to the Tea Party’s influence. This animosity may have reached its apex with the win of Castle-stormer Christine O’Donnell, a Tea Party–backed national oddity who, in a recent interview, accused Rove of “political cannibalism”—that is, eating of one’s own kind—and also predicted that “he’s eating some humble pie and he’s just trying to restore his reputation”—the humble pie presumably having Republican filling.

Democrats too are anxious about the influence of Rove and Co.’s interference. “They’re running a very proficient party operation funded by millions of dollars of undisclosed special-interest dollars,” said Obama aide David Axelrod. “These guys are great political operatives, and they will have an impact in this election.” An operative at Rove’s organizations American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS also told the Times that the group already has its sights on 2012. It may be Karl Rove—not Jon Stewart, not Stephen Colbert, and certainly not the Democratic party leadership—who will be the one to restore sanity to America. And if he succeeds, Democrats, barely unable to combat insanity, may find themselves nostalgic for nonsense.

Interesting times.

 

[off2bed]

*pats Orf on head*

That's nice.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I'm sure even most Republicans were hoping, in November 2008, that at least we had finally heard the last of Karl Rove.

But I fear we won't have heard the last of him until he has an unexpected encounter with garlic or sunlight.

 

[Wrong Element]

Rove also tried to sell the punditocracy on the idea that he and Bush had forged a permanent Republican majority in 2000-02. Yeah, that worked out brilliantly.

Why Rove would be battling the Tea Party when they don't actually disagree on anything is puzzling. Is it just about who gets the credit?

 

[koalabear]

Rove also tried to sell the punditocracy on the idea that he and Bush had forged a permanent Republican majority in 2000-02. Yeah, that worked out brilliantly.

Why Rove would be battling the Tea Party when they don't actually disagree on anything is puzzling. Is it just about who gets the credit?

The old guard is afraid they will be next to leave.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Rove cant control the Tea Party cuz there is no management of the Tea Party. What Rove wants to do is create a Moderate Republican Party for the elites, like existed before Barry Goldwater and Reagan came along. Its a simple reaction to the pitchfork mob that hates Washington.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Rove cant control the Tea Party cuz there is no management of the Tea Party. What Rove wants to do is create a Moderate Republican Party for the elites, like existed before Barry Goldwater and Reagan came along. Its a simple reaction to the pitchfork mob that hates Washington.

Well, that would be an improvement, at any rate.

The difference between elitist conservatives and populist conservatives is that elitist conservatives are sometimes right.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Rove also tried to sell the punditocracy on the idea that he and Bush had forged a permanent Republican majority in 2000-02. Yeah, that worked out brilliantly.

Why Rove would be battling the Tea Party when they don't actually disagree on anything is puzzling. Is it just about who gets the credit?

When you've got a loose cannon you don't hope for the best, you call all hands on deck and lash it down ASAP.

The last thing the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP wants is a genuine populist uprising.

 

[Liar]

Say what you will about them right wingers, boring they ain't.

 

[off2bed]

Rove has been the Democrats' favorite real-life Dr. Evil for so long they've forgotten that nobody in the real world cares about Rove and never did.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Rove has been the Democrats' favorite real-life Dr. Evil for so long they've forgotten that nobody in the real world cares about Rove and never did.

Apparently not true. After all, all those fatcat donors he's now lining up are as much a part of the "real world" as anything else.

 

[Wrong Element]

When you've got a loose cannon you don't hope for the best, you call all hands on deck and lash it down ASAP.

The last thing the Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP wants is a genuine populist uprising.

I agree with you on that last part, except I still don't believe the Tea Party is truly populist, or is motivated by anything more profound than hatred and fear of Obama (even beyond the lunacy we see anytime there's a Democratic president).

I've been saying Tea Partiers are just relabeled Republicans ever since the "movement" began. Since they've all but dropped the nonpartisan label, are blindly backing the GOP line even on issues where the opposite stance would seem to be the populist one (e.g. regarding Net neutrality), and are going along with religious right types like O'Donnell using the Tea Party term for themselves, I think that's become more clear than ever.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Well, that would be an improvement, at any rate.

The difference between elitist conservatives and populist conservatives is that elitist conservatives are sometimes right.

I suspect the horse is outta the barn for this election. Rove is upset that moderates are walking the plank and replaced with rabid trailer trash. After the Jacobins and elites are all swinging from trees we'll get the Napoleon we deserve.

 

[Drixxx]

Rove also tried to sell the punditocracy on the idea that he and Bush had forged a permanent Republican majority in 2000-02. Yeah, that worked out brilliantly.

Why Rove would be battling the Tea Party when they don't actually disagree on anything is puzzling. Is it just about who gets the credit?

Rove and the Tea Party disagree all right. The Tea Party actually believes it's own bullshit. Rove and his cabal are only in it for money. Big money. Palin and pals are White trash, trailer park, morons. Palin as President would take in some backwoods, home schooled, snake handling preacher as her closest advisor over a bunch of fancy pants, New York, Wall St. heavy weights. The kind that can topple worrisome countries and make their hand picked dictators disappear. These Tea Partiers don't even know who they are fucking with.

 

[off2bed]

Apparently not true. After all, all those fatcat donors he's now lining up are as much a part of the "real world" as anything else.

They're just as much "real world" as George Soros is. And he really did set up a shadow government.

 

[KingOrfeo]

They're just as much "real world" as George Soros is. And he really did set up a shadow government.

Soros set up a shadow government? Not even you believe that.

 

[KingOrfeo]

I suspect the horse is outta the barn for this election. Rove is upset that moderates are walking the plank and replaced with rabid trailer trash. After the Jacobins and elites are all swinging from trees we'll get the Napoleon we deserve.

I nominate Ahnold. Oh, we have plenty of real-life badass soldiers to choose from, but how many of them have the charisma?

 

[hogjack]

Mr. Rove also sent a shadow in his place when it came time to fight for America's freedom.

Mr. Rove was too busy but at least his title of King of the Chickenhawks is well earned.

 

[revelator]

I'm sure even most Republicans were hoping, in November 2008, that at least we had finally heard the last of Karl Rove.

But I fear we won't have heard the last of him until he has an unexpected encounter with garlic or sunlight.

It's not really a reaction to the Tea Party. The group Rove is putting together started about a year ago, before the Tea Party surge, as a reaction to Michael Steele being head of the RNC. There were a lot of Republican donors who simply didn't want to give Steele control of their donations. Think of it as an "RNC in exile" - it will fade away if Steele is replaced with a Chair that is supported by Republican big money donors.

And as I understand it, Rove's group hasn't raised nearly as much as they wanted to. I'm not sure if that's because the money went to the RNC after all, or because some donors are sitting out 2010, or because the money is going to other 527s.

 

[KingOrfeo]

It's not really a reaction to the Tea Party. The group Rove is putting together started about a year ago, before the Tea Party surge, as a reaction to Michael Steele being head of the RNC. There were a lot of Republican donors who simply didn't want to give Steele control of their donations. Think of it as an "RNC in exile" - it will fade away if Steele is replaced with a Chair that is supported by Republican big money donors.

Interesting. Other than being embarrassingly ineffectual, just how is Steele objectionable to those big-money donors?

 

[Frisco_Slug_Esq]

You might as well accuse Sarah Palin of starting a shadow-party seeing as how the RNC just retired her debt of Democratic frivolity and harassment in order to use her power to raise money...





Buncha fawkin' loons.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I nominate Ahnold. Oh, we have plenty of real-life badass soldiers to choose from, but how many of them have the charisma?

CharLIE Crist is poised to join AHNOLD.

 

[KingOrfeo]

CharLIE Crist is poised to join AHNOLD.

And we do mean "join."

 

[Sonny Limatina]

Rove's best moves were cutting the balls off of opponents by insinuating--through whisper campaigns or otherwise--that they were either sissies or outright gay. (Rove's father was gay, so read the Freudian implications however you wish.) But I have to wonder how that will work now, even a couple of years removed from the Bush years. Public sentiment has shifted on the gay thing.

In the end, I think he's another Newt Gingrich, who confuses the public's nostalgia for a time of political past for a desire to re-encounter the actual players of that time.

 

[revelator]

Interesting. Other than being embarrassingly ineffectual, just how is Steele objectionable to those big-money donors?

I think 'embarrassingly ineffectual' is sufficient objection.