Free Republic

Trumpeting the ever-increasing weight of outside political organizations, Karl Rove's campaign groups out-fundraised the Democratic National Committee during the 2012 election cycle, according to a draft tax return obtained Friday by the Wall Street Journal. American Crossroads and its nonprofit arm, Crossroads GPS, together raked in more than $325 million during the 2012 campaign. The DNC, by contrast, raised $316 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. -snip- Expenditures for Crossroads GPS included donations to other conservative groups like Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, and a $538,000 salary for its president, Steven Law.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on a conference call organized by Karl Rove’s Crossroads organization for large donors and their advisers on Oct. 30 that the Tea Party movement, in his view, is a “nothing but a bunch of bullies” that he plans to “punch … in the nose.” On the call, according to a donor who was on it, McConnell personally named Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) as Tea Party conservatives he views as problematic for him. “The bulk of it was an attack on the Tea Party in general, Cruz in particular,” the source,...

Former George W. Bush strategist and presidential adviser Karl Rove visited Fayetteville on Wednesday to raise money for Thom Tillis, the state House speaker and Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. The soiree was held at the home of Terry and Rosalind Hutchens and open to people donating $1,000 to $2,600. The event was closed to the press; neither Rove nor Tillis granted interviews before the fundraiser.

The Obama administration is offering a "thinly described illegal bribe" to entice insurance companies to reinstate plans they have canceled, GOP operative Karl Rove says. Appearing Thursday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren," Rove held up a three-page letter sent out Thursday by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services explaining that the "risk corridor program" would be expanded to help companies "ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue." The problem, Rove said, is that the risk corridor program applies only to "qualified plans" under the Affordable Care Act – not to grandfathered plans. "What they're saying...

In a Quinnipiac poll, just 30% of independents approve of ObamaCare. This problem will get worse and poses a dilemma for Mr. Obama and Democrats. A March analysis by Healthpocket.com estimated that less than 2% of individual plans comply with ObamaCare's mandates. A Nov. 7 study by McClatchy Newspapers suggests as many as 52 million people, including many covered by their employers, could lose their plan. Until now, many people who disagreed with Mr. Obama's agenda still liked him. But a late October Fox poll found his personal favorability at 45% and his unfavorability at 50%. Duplicity will do that....

Am I the only one who caught it? Some of you clever techies post that for us please.

Senate Republicans are spoiling for a fight this primary season as they try to take back control of the party from conservative activists. -snip- “If super PACs are going to get involved in primaries, there has to be some other people involved in primaries who are interested in actually winning the election in November — and not just purifying the party in the primary,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who ran the National Republican Senatorial Committee in the past two cycles and faces reelection next year. With the blessing of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the hardball plan is already...

Leaders of the Republican establishment, alarmed by the emergence of far-right and often unpredictable Tea Party candidates, are pushing their party to rethink how it chooses nominees and advocating changes they say would result in the selection of less extreme contenders. The push comes as the national Republican Party is grappling with vexing divisions over its identity and image, and mainstream leaders complain that more ideologically-driven conservatives are damaging the party with tactics like the government shutdown. The debate intensified on Wednesday after Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the deeply conservative Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, lost a close race...

Shortly after the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the AP and other media outlets easily called the New Jersey governor's race for Republican incumbent Chris Christie, based on exit polls. He defeated Sen. Barbara Buono, a Democrat, by taking a third of the Democratic votes in the state, and two-thirds of independents. The win for the GOP in New Jersey will likely be in contrast to the expected results of a handful of other big races this Tuesday, including the New York City Mayor's race, and the Virginia governor's race. That could be, in part, why the national...

Everything you ever thought about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is wrong. He really is a fighter after all. At a recent fundraiser with 300 K street donors, as reported by Politico, Mitch McConnell was in a combative mood. According to one attendee, he was “in fighting mode.” No, he was not in a fighting mode against Obama and the Democrats. As he spoke at a K street retreat, the relaxation of his comfort zone kicked in and he rallied the establishment faithful against conservatives: Mitch McConnell isn’t going to have another government shutdown on his watch. The Kentucky Republican...

Republican congressional candidate Erika Harold, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis in the 13th Congressional District, has been denied access to the Illinois Republican Party’s “voter vault” database. And in order to get the information, Harold will have to ask each of the 14 Republican county chairmen in the district for their individual county voter data, she said. “But I can’t say that I’m terribly optimistic because there have been a few county chairmen who have told me that I’m not welcome to attend Republican events within their counties,” said the Urbana attorney, who is running against the one-term...

Despite presiding over a chamber that nearly drove the country to a debt default, John A. Boehner still has the enduring support of a group that would’ve been most harmed by that event: the business community. Rather than revisit their strategy of supporting Republicans after this week’s near-disaster, influential organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are standing behind Boehner. More importantly, Boehner’s friends in the business community are getting ready to take sides in a few Republican primary races against tea party candidates in Michigan, Idaho and Alabama who could cause the House speaker more trouble.

Republican strategist Karl Rove says the GOP should quit while it's not as far behind as it could be. Appearing Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record," Rove said Republicans fighting for concessions on Obamacare and entitlements are weakening their position the longer they hold out. "At some point you have to focus on, as Ronald Reagan said, getting as much of the pie as you possibly can get," Rove said. Republicans aren't even going to be able to get 80 percent of what they want now, he said, because they have been weakened over the last two months...

Karl Rove, normally a critic of Ted Cruz, complimented the freshman senator’s marathon speech and said he had positioned himself well for 2016. “I obviously don’t agree with the strategy . . . of trying to defund [Obamacare] as opposed to trying to delay . . . but that was an extraordinary performance,” Rove said -snip- Rove took a noticeably softer line on Cruz than he has in recent days. He previously called the defunding strategy “ad hoc” and said Cruz had created it without consulting with his Senate colleagues.

Karl Rove is always worth reading for a glimpse of how GOP elites are thinking, and his latest Op ed suggest real panic setting in over the chaos and division spreading among Congressional Republicans over how to handle this fall’s fiscal fights. Rove confirms an argument that will be familiar to readers of this blog: Public disapproval of Obamacare does not translate into public support for GOP efforts to sabotage the law. -snip- The poll is obviously one commissioned to advance an argument against defunding, but the very fact that Crossroads GPS — whose mission is to win elections —...

Video at link.

Faced with a politically risky push by some Republicans to defund ObamaCare, other party members are turning to an alternative strategy: delay it instead. Republicans are divided on how to confront the Affordable Care Act. Some, such as Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, are pushing to permanently defund it. But attaching such a measure to a resolution that funds the government after Oct. 1 runs the risk of a government shutdown if it doesn’t pass. If that happens, Republicans fear they would be blamed. Former White House chief of staff Karl Rove told Fox News...

The American Crossroads PAC and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS, co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove, jointly raised a little over $3.3 million in the first half of 2013, according to federal reports, a little off their 2012 election pace. -snip- Another political action committee founded by Mr. Rove, the Conservative Victory Project, raised little independent money so far this year. The Victory Project was established to help fund “electable” future Republican candidates in the wake of a number of losses last year of candidates who were popular with the right wing of the Republican Party but did not prevail in...

Former Bush strategist Karl Rove says he’s staying out of Wyoming’s Republican U.S. Senate primary between incumbent Mike Enzi and newly-announced challenger Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney. “Liz is a friend of mine,” Rove told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday. “I also respect Sen. Enzi. This is going to be up to the people of Wyoming. They don’t need a Texan coming in there, and I grew up in the mountain west and you and I both know — particularly in the Rocky Mountain states and small states like Wyoming — they know everybody...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Video has surfaced of GOP strategist Karl Rove calling U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Cascade Township, the "most liberal Republican." Speaking during the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June, Rove criticized Amash's reputed staunch libertarian stances on legislation as antithetical to tackling issues in Washington. The swipe came during a June 27 panel discussion about whether to include some libertarian tenets in Republican policy, which Rove cautiously advocated. "The most liberal Republican is Justin Amash of Michigan. Far more liberal than any other Republican," said Rove, who was senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to former...