Karl Rove Tries to Walk Back Comments Opposing Tea Party with His New PAC

Are conservatives going to fall for latest from Karl Rove?  Not on your life!

Karl Rove is now trying to walk back his comments about his Conservative Victory Project that it is not out to take out Tea Party candidates.  Bet me!  Noted that he used Hannity of Fox News to try to walk back his original comments but it is not working any better then Cong Eric Cantor trying to make the GOP House Republicans kindler and gentler with the same agenda and plagiarizing of President Obama in his speech.

Here is what Karl Rove is trying to walk back:

Top Donors to Republicans Seek More Say in Senate RacesBy JEFF ZELENY
Published: February 2, 2013 

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group 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 efforts to win control of the Senate. 

The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.

Is this about trying to defeat Cong Steve King in the primary for the Senator Harkin seat?  If it is, the Rove faction may have bought off more then they can handle.  King had everything thrown at him including the kitchen sink and still came out a winner after his seat was gerrymandered to make him lose.  Love him or hate him, Steve King has a huge following of grassroots who are willing to hit the ground running for him versus big money.  My money is on the grassroots for King not big donors.  Obviously Rove and his big donors don't understand Middle America and how they think.  Been inside the beltway for way too many years.

Rove Appears On Fox News To Defend New Anti-Tea Party Group From Conservative Critics
Blog ››› 3 hours and 8 minutes ago ››› CAITLIN GINLEY 

Karl Rove appeared on Fox News' Hannity to defend his new group, the Conservative Victory Project, against complaints from fellow conservatives that it would undermine the Tea Party movement. Rove, a Fox News contributor who regularly appears on the network advance his political agenda, insisted that the group is not an attempt to protect the GOP establishment over Tea Party candidates, but to promote "the most conservative candidate that can win."

The New York Times reported on February 2 that the Conservative Victory Project , which is backed by Rove and his allies who were also involved in his American Crossroads super PAC, is "the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party." 

During the February 5 edition of Hannity, host Sean Hannity noted that Rove's new effort has "drawn the ire of conservatives and the Tea Party," who are "accusing Karl Rove of putting the establishment ahead of conservative principles." Indeed, conservative media figures have been vocal about their opposition to Rove's new anti-Tea Party project. 

Hannity expressed his own concern about the group, saying to Rove: "My fear is, is that if Karl Rove is fighting the Tea Party and conservatives are battling establishment candidates ... I am concerned that we're going to lose." 

Rove denied that he was protecting establishment Republicans from Tea Party challengers, but referred to Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, who both lost their 2012 Senate races after making incendiary comments about rape, as examples of the need to recruit and champion "better" conservative candidates. 

 (snip) 

This is not the first time Rove has used Fox News as a platform to promote his political agenda. During the 2012 election cycle, Rove was a consistent presence on the network, often parroting the talking points from his own super PAC ads.    

Rove also regularly appears in the pages of The Wall Street Journal as a columnist, often to promote the agenda of American Crossroads, yet during election season his relationship to the political organization was rarely disclosed.

Click here to read full article on Media Matters

Mother Jones News has this to say in this excerpt about an upcoming internal battle in the GOP which is most likely going to end up splitting the GOP or at least severely weaken the Party:

The Conservative Victory Fund's creation threatens to stoke an already fiery internal battle over the future of the Republican Party. There are the Roves and Laws of the GOP, the pragmatic Beltway operators who backed Mitt Romney and who believe the party must tone down the demagoguery on immigration and social issues if they ever want to control of Congress and the White House again. On the other side are the ideologues, the GOP's conservative wing, the Koch-backed groups and tea partiers and Grover Norquist acolytes who believe the party's future lies in veering hard to the right and doubling down on pure conservative ideals. 

With Rove's new super-PAC in the mix, the GOP's slate of 2014 primaries will be even nastier than expected in states such as Iowa, Georgia, and Kentucky, among others. The GOP needs to win six seats in 2014 to take back control of the Senate, and if that requires some intraparty combat, the Conservative Victory Fund looks ready to go to war. By the end of 2014's primary season, don't be surprised, to borrow a phrase from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to see quite a lot of blood and teeth left on the floor.

Mother Jones has a good handle on what is about to go down between Rove and the Establishment versus Koch Brothers and their groups (Tea Party Party, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, ALEC) then Hannity IMHO.  Once again Fox News has given Rove a platform to deliver his spin just like they did in the 2012 Presidential election.  Lack of journalistic integrity by Fox News is stunning.

Mark Levin minced no words what he thought of Karl Rove's idea calling his effort 'diabolical' which almost beats Robert Reich's comment on Twitter today comparing Rove helping more moderate candidates to Hershey trying to make asparagus.  That was classic. From Levin's comments, I don't think he is a big fan of Karl Rove's.

Conservative radio host Mark Levin went after former George W. Bush advisor, Karl Rove, during his radio show on Monday after Rove announced the formation of a new PAC that would aid moderate Republican politicians against tea party challengers in primary races. Levin called Rove’s effort ‘diabolical’ and listed the many GOP officeholders who would not be in power but for the tea party insurgency.

 “We’re being stabbed in the back,” Levin declared. 

“Here’s a project funded by crony capitalists, funded by corporatists — who are not conservative — funding a group called the Conservative Victory Project,” Levin began. “This is the sort of thing Barack Obama does; this is a thing Marxists do; they give a name to themselves which has nothing to do with what they’re really up to in order to try and control the propaganda.” 

“I’m just showing you how diabolical this effort is,” Levin continued.

He read a portion of the mission statement of the new PAC, taking issue most with the organization’s stated agenda of “imposing discipline” on the Republican Party. Levin listed a number of sitting Republican officeholders who emerged from the primary process backed by tea party support. Levin suggested that it was the tea party which imposed discipline on the GOP. 

“The diversity that comes to the Republican Party is through the conservative and tea party movement, not through the Republican establishment,” Levin said. “They backed [Charlie] Crist in Florida. They backed the moderate lieutenant governor in Texas. They put up a moderate attorney general in Kentucky to try and beat Rand Paul. They backed the moderate-to-liberal Republican longtime serving Senator Bob Bennett serving in Utah.”

Hot Air also wasn't the least bit impressed with Rove's new organization.  Allahpundit had this to say:

We knew this was coming, no? A month ago, Politico reported that Senate Republicans were planning to intervene more aggressively in GOP primaries in hopes of clearing the field for their preferred candidates. A few days later, Steve LaTourette announced that the Republican Main Street Partnership was dropping “Republican” from its name and would intervene on behalf of centrist candidates from both parties in congressional elections. Now here comes Rove’s group, American Crossroads, pledging untold millions towards electing the most allegedly “electable” candidate in Republican primaries. No more Akins — and maybe no more Marco Rubios, Rand Pauls, and Ted Cruzes too?

The group, the Conservative Victory Project, is intended to counter other organizations that have helped defeat establishment Republican candidates over the last two election cycles. It is the most robust attempt yet by Republicans to impose a new sense of discipline on the party, particularly in primary races.  

“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” said Steven J. Law, the president of American Crossroads, the “super PAC” creating the new project. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”… 

The group’s plans, which were outlined for the first time last week in an interview with Mr. Law, call for hard-edge campaign tactics, including television advertising, against candidates whom party leaders see as unelectable and a drag on the efforts to win the Senate. Mr. Law cited Iowa as an example and said Republicans could no longer be squeamish about intervening in primary fights.
“We’re concerned about Steve King’s Todd Akin problem,” Mr. Law said. “This is an example of candidate discipline and how it would play in a general election. All of the things he’s said are going to be hung around his neck.”

(snip) 

Read Erick Erickson, Ben Shapiro, and the boss emeritus, all wondering why we should trust a guy like Rove who has TARP, Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, huge federal deficits, and an abysmal record of 2012 election spending to his record. I said most of what I have to say about the big establishment pushback effort in the posts linked up top, but let me add three things:  See Hot Air for additional comments

Don't see any of the conservative media buying off on Karl Rove trying to walk back his comments.  In fact, most don't believe anything Rove has to say.  Too many conservatives gave Rove way too much credit when Bush almost lost Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004, the Senate/House in 2006, etc.  So why is Rove called this big guru.  Is it because the media doesn't really investigate and just run with a narrative?

The biggest question is what are Republicans across the Country who are not hard right and have common sense going to do in all of this.  Will a new party rise like the Phoenix?

Stay tuned and while you are at it, pop some popcorn, kick back, and watch the fight because this is most likely going to be a long drawn out, nasty affair.  Democrats have the advantage now for '14.  When you  add  Republicans who will not only vote but help Democrats in the '14 elections to throw out the knuckleheads like the following members of the House as ranked by Alternet:

• Impeach the president because he wants to reduce gun violence: Freshman Reps. Trey Radel (R-FL) and Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) along with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) all  suggested that the president be impeached because of his efforts to reduce gun violence
• “Welfare Moms” wanting to commit fraud are to blame for gun violence: Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), a member of the House Republican leadership, identified an unlikely culprit for the nation’s gun violence epidemic: “welfare moms.” Specifically, Lankford says welfare moms who are intentionally drugging their children in order to commit Social Security fraud are to blame. Lankford also vowed this week to use the “power of humiliation” to undermine an LGBT program.
• Obama only upholds the “Soviet Constitution”: Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) attacked the president this week by alleging that “the only Constitution that Barack Obama upholds is the Soviet constitution.” With the retirement of Rep. Ron Paul, Broun is now also the House’s foremost opponent of the Federal Reserve. 
• Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11: Former Vice President Dick Cheney spent years telling America that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the 9/11 terror attacks, an assertion that turned out to be categorically false. Two weeks ago, Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR), himself an Iraq War veteran, resurrected this conspiracy theory as part of an effort to discredit Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, former Sen. Chuck Hagel.
• Voted to leave Hurricane Sandy victims out in the cold: House Republicans broke a longstanding, bipartisan tradition of assisting their fellow Americans who are in need following a disaster. Speaker Boehner had already delayed aid for weeks due to political considerations in his caucus and 179 Republicans added insult to injury when they voted against helping Sandy victims. At least 36 of these Republicans voted against the aid despite having previously sought aid for disasters in their own states. Fortunately, the aid package still passed because House Democrats overwhelmingly backed it.  

What can you say except there are quite a few Republican office holders across America who are putting Party and being a hard right conservative over what is best for the Country. Time for them all to go!

Republicans Heading for a Train Wreck

New Karl Rove group, Conservative Victory Project, versus the Koch Bros Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, Club for Growth, Senate Conservative Fund 

Please pass the popcorn as this is going to get very interesting in the days ahead as the hard right with all the boots on the ground plus money butt heads with the Rove/Bush big money donors.  Will this effort stop Republicans from leaving the Party especially women and minorities?  Will it stop long time GOP from helping Democrats in 2014 to take the House, keep the Senate, and oust some of the hard right at the State level who have been responsible for voter suppression and changing the rules on how electoral votes are counted?  No to both questions as we have learned over the years that we cannot trust what the GOP is saying.  When you go to a retreat to have to learn how to talk to voters, you probably shouldn't be in politics.

Let me say up front I agree with Joe Scarborough who said on Morning Joe this morning that Haley Barbour would have been a better choice to run an organization like this one to oppose hard right candidates.  IMO Barbour is a very organized person and has a track record of winning as RNC Chair and as two-time Governor of Mississippi.  He understands the Buckley rule and is actually much more likable then Rove will ever think of being.  The one negative to Barbour is that he is old school and has a hard time appealing to younger people.

Politics is undergoing change right -- the old backroom deals with hard knuckle politics isn't going to work today as there is always going to be someone who puts on the Internet what is happening.  If the parties don't change, they will be left behind.  Seeing the change already as the Democrats as they are more center left with Progressives having a ton of common sense while the Republicans went hard right and threw common sense out the window.  This Country needs at least two viable parties or the other one will get too arrogant and make stupid decisions that are not good for the whole Country.  We have seen Republicans fulfill that agenda for six years under President GW Bush as they went farther right with each election.

An example is the Buckley rule:

The group favors William F. Buckley’s dictum to nominate “the most conservative candidate in the primary who can win the general election,” over Ronald Reagan’s commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” 

That Buckley Rule was all well and good back in the 70's/80's but whoever is behind this establishment effort today doesn't have a lot of moderates to work with today or women who have gotten more and more fed up with the Republican Party since 2000.  Each year it seems to have gotten worse with more hard right conservatives elected.  We are not talking about Joe Scarborough type of conservatism but the hard right John Birch/Libertarian/Ayn Rand types.

Most of us long time Republicans don't recognize today's party but we also know that Karl Rove is not the answer to take it back centrist.  He has always lived in bubble on elections which almost cost President Bush in 2000 and again in 2004 when he refused to put any credence in anyone's numbers but his own.  Very arrogant and only believes he knows it all and the rest of us peons are there to carry out his wishes.

Today many of us are not loyal followers of the GOP or Rove as we have taken our blinders off and see a party that has gone hard right into the world of no common sense or reality.  Changing the message doesn't change the core values of the hard right where with a little bit of research you can pick up on the net where they have stood in the past.  We know that Paul Ryan is as hard right as Todd Aiken but just packages the message better.  That means that those on the hard right need exposed at every turn so they cannot pass themselves off as mainstream Republicans like Paul Ryan has tried or now Senator Ted Cruz as they and others are anything but mainstream.  They are hard right supported by the Koch Brothers.

When I first heard about this group, my first thought was train wreck along with GOP will be destroyed faster then I think.  After reading the comments of people opposed to the Rove group, I stand by my initial analysis.  How can Republicans aka Bush people be so dumb as to put Rove in charge of trying to bring back the GOP to the center when the numbers are on the side of the hard right and they just elected a hard right RNC Chair controlled by the Koch Brothers.  Do I think this additional effort by Crossroads will work?  NO because they may have money but few boots on the ground as many us who have stayed involved in politics are not going to buy into this latest Rove scam after what we saw out of Rove, Romney, and the GOP in 2012.  Very poor choice.

The organizers of American Crossroads hope to bring electoral victory to the Republican Party by defeating unelectable tea party candidates in GOP primary races. The new super PAC, called the Conservative Victory Project, will be run by American Crossroads president Steven Law and is supported by former Bush political adviser Karl Rove. 

“There is a broad concern about having blown a significant number of races because the wrong candidates were selected,” Law told the New York Times on Saturday. “We don’t view ourselves as being in the incumbent protection business, but we want to pick the most conservative candidate who can win.”

The Victory Project plans to oppose candidates like Christine O’Donnell, Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. Though running in places where Republicans were favored, the tea party-backed candidates lost the general election after defeating moderate Republicans in the primary. Many tea party candidates who were victorious in 2010, such as Allen West and Joe Walsh, also ended up being defeated by Democratic challengers in 2012. 

Victory Project spokesman Jonathan Collegio told CNN that Republicans lost six Senate races in the last two election cycles because they nominated “undisciplined candidates” rather than Republican veterans. 

Read More: Raw Story (http://s.tt/1zjDQ)

Anyone who thinks this will drive the hard right to give up power, is smoking something because the chances of that are zero, zip, nada as witnessed by some of the comments from the hard right this morning:

Both the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund – two of the most prominent groups that have boosted candidates on the right – mocked the new initiative as yet another hapless establishment-side attempt to muzzle the GOP base. 

Matt Hoskins, executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, branded it the “Conservative Defeat Project.”

“The Conservative Defeat Project is yet another example of the Republican establishment’s hostility toward its conservative base. Rather than listening to the grassroots and working to advance their principles, the establishment has chosen to declare war on the party’s most loyal supporters,” Hoskins said. “If they keep this up, the party will remain in the wilderness for decades to come.” 

Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller essentially responded by pointing to the scoreboard in recent primaries in which conservative insurgents have prevailed and emerged as influential GOP leaders. 

“They are welcome to support the likes of Arlen Specter, Charlie Crist and David Dewhurst,” Keller said of the new Crossroads group. “We will continue to proudly support the likes of Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.”

Read more at Politico

From Atlantic Wire:

But conservatives noted that establishment Republicans who didn't talk about rape lost, too. The Senate Conservatives Fund's Matt Hoskins told Politico the Crossroads group was the "Conservative Defeat Project." Free Republic posters mocked "Tokyo Rove." On Breitbart.com, Ben Shapiro called Rove and his cohorts, "The Bush insider team that helped lead to the rise of Barack Obama." RedState editor Erick Erickson said the Conservative Victory Project was sure to pick losers. "I dare say any candidate who gets this group’s support should be targeted for destruction by the conservative movement." Erickson wrote. "They’ve made it really easy not to figure out who the terrible candidates will be in 2014." In another post at RedState, Daniel Horowitz warned of an enemy within under the headline "The Snakes in the GOP Grass":

One by one, people like Karl Rove seek to crush another sacred belief of the conservative base.  All social issues? Gone. Enforcement before amnesty? No way.  Stay strong on taxes? Forget about it. Fight Obamacare? That’s a done deal...

In this battle, we must distinguish friend from foe.  It is a battle we did not initiate, but it is one we must win. 

The conservatives are right that many establishment picks lost in 2012, too: North Dakota's Rick Berg, Montana's Denny Rehberg. In Connecticut, a doorhanger ad for Linda McMahon said, "President Obama and Linda McMahon will fight for us." She lost. But all of the conservative positions listed by Horowitz -- opposition to Obamacare, gay marriage, lax immigration laws, higher taxes -- were held by the most important establishment pick of all: Mitt Romney. It's possible the GOP's problem is not just about style.

From Washington Times Blog:

Gentlemen, commence with the sword rattling, and let the infighting begin. 

The Senate Conservatives Fund has attacked the Conservative Victory Project, a brand new super PAC organized by American Crossroads, the sleek 2012 fundraising machine that boasted Karl Rove as its point man. A New York Times account of it all paints a dire picture of discord: 

"The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group 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 efforts to win control of the Senate," the paper said Sunday.

From Media Matters:

The response from conservative media figures has been almost uniformly negative, with many citing American Crossroads' poor performance in the 2012 election and President Obama's election after years of Rove's work in the Bush White House as evidence against him. 

Newly signed Fox analyst Eric Erickson sarcastically noted: "The people who brought us No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, TARP, the GM bailout, Harriet Miers, etc., etc., etc. are really hacked off that people have been rejecting them." Erickson added, "I dare say any candidate who gets this group's support should be targeted for destruction by the conservative movement." 

Daniel Horowitz, a front page contributor to Erickson's RedState.com described Rove's group as "snakes in the GOP grass," and described the group's name as "Orwellian" since "they will never tell you how they plan to achieve conservative victory without running conservative candidates." 

In response to Rove's announcement, Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin asked, "Who needs Obama and his Team Chicago to destroy the Tea Party when you've got Rove and his big government band of elites?" Addressing Rove, she wrote, "You and your Incumbency Protection Racket are the problem, not the Tea Party." 

Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com accused Rove of "quietly undermining conservatism" and described Rove and his allies as "the Bush insider team that helped lead to the rise of Barack Obama," and whose advice "led to the epic Romney defeat." 

W. James Antle III pointed out in The Daily Caller that many candidates favored by the Republican establishment in 2012 -- likeTommy Thompson, George Allen, Rick Berg, Denny Rehberg, Linda Lingle, and Heather Wilson -- "all lost the general election" and that "if the Tea Party is to blame for anything, it is not distancing the party from Bush enough." 

WorldNetDaily, linking to the New York Times story, described the effort in a headline as "Rove Doubles Down In War On Conservatives." 

Rick Moran, writing at American Thinker, said "this kind of bloodletting is self-defeating."
With such a negative reaction from the right, will Rove use Fox to promote fundraising for this effort, as he has done so often in the past?

Can sit in my chair and chuckle at the comments from the hard right against Rove and his new scheme to make more money because I am no longer emotionally invested in the Republican Party as I have one foot out the door.  Will be supporting/helping Democrats for Congress in '14 because I am sick and tired of the obstructionist Republicans in Congress who are sitting on bills to put Americans back to work.  They will do anything to stop the Obama agenda no matter how much it hurts the American people.  Not only Democrats and Independents are fed up with the Republicans in Congress especially after last week's Senate hearings, but so are many Republicans who are figuring out what to do next.

If I had to bet how this is going to turn out, unfortunately my bet is on Koch's and the hard right as they have many more people then Rove.  Even more moderates don't like Karl Rove and definitely don't trust him even a little.

Pop some popcorn and stay tuned as the fight for control of the GOP has started with tons of money waiting to be spent on both sides.  Only thing I know for sure is that big donors are stupid to fall for any of this and give Rove any more money to waste.  By the time the Republicans get through the primaries, they will be weakened by their own Party and Dems will be picking up seats IMHO!