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U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is returning to Longview for a fundraiser that aims low at the wallet but high on attendance. “What we’re trying to do with this event is something I don’t think, typically, has been done before,” said John Coppedge, a Longview doctor. “We wanted to have an event that was fun and afforded the opportunity for a lot more people to participate in the process.” Political fundraisers, particularly for national office candidates, tend to be those $1,000-a-plate soirées that most people just hear about. Coppedge said the one planned for Feb. 16 is designed to draw as...

There was an unexpected visitor to a conference on immigration in Tyler Tuesday: President Bush's right-hand-man for years, Karl Rove. One of the most polarizing figures in politics says most Americans have the facts of illegal immigration all wrong. The former Deputy Chief of Staff joined Senator John Cornyn and Congressman Ralph Hall to debate the broader and the finer points of immigration with more than 100 East Texas business leaders. Rove directly took on the issue of the deportation of illegal immigrants. "We can't just root them out and not have some economic damage done to our country. Let's...

One incumbent U.S. senator has decided to campaign a little differently before the Republican Party primary this year. He’s still shaking hands, making speeches and raising funds, of course, but he’ll also be grooving to the beat of hometown country crooner Neal McCoy at a rally and concert from 4 to 6 p.m. Sunday at Maude Cobb Convention Center. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, “wanted a fun, affordable opportunity for a lot more people to participate in the election process,” said Longview physician John R. Coppedge, treasurer of the Texas Bipartisan Justice Committee, one group supporting Cornyn’s re-election campaign. Cornyn,...

He said this during a segment on Fox News in which he also insisted that Chris Christie’s presidential hopes are still very much alive. Because of course he did.I did not realize that a few jabs at the Clenis aimed at parrying the left’s endless “war on women” attacks 32 months out from the next election might matter in deciding the presidency. Now I know better. Way to go, Rand. Karl Rove took a shot at Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday for attacking Bill Clinton over his “predatory” behavior toward Monica Lewinsky, saying that it’s not good strategy for...

Karl Rove took a shot at Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday for attacking Bill Clinton over his “predatory” behavior toward Monica Lewinsky, saying that it’s not good strategy for running for president. “Frankly, Rand Paul spending a lot of time talking about the mistakes of Bill Clinton does not look like a big agenda for the future of the country,” Rove said on Fox’s “America’s Newsroom.” Rove said that candidates for the presidency need to do two things in 2014: make their campaigns about something larger their personal ambitions and strengthen their skills. “I’m not certain, again, that beating...

Second-term U.S. Senator John Cornyn’s influence as Minority Whip is key for Texas and for the Republican Party, says a longtime friend and fundraiser. Longview’s Dr. John Coppedge has known the former Texas Attorney General for more than two decades and is once again sounding the fundraising call as Cornyn seeks a third term in office in November – partnering with other East Texas politicos, he’s putting together a Feb. 16 rally featuring the Texas senator alongside renowned GOP strategist and political pundit Karl Rove and country music star Neal McCoy.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is returning to Longview for a fundraiser that aims low at the wallet but high on attendance. “What we’re trying to do with this event is something I don’t think, typically, has been done before,” said John Coppedge, a Longview doctor. “We wanted to have an event that was fun and afforded the opportunity for a lot more people to participate in the process.” Political fundraisers, particularly for national office candidates, tend to be those $1,000-a-plate soirées that most people just hear about. Coppedge said the one planned for Feb. 16 is designed to draw as...

Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX) today filed a libel lawsuit challenging numerous false statements made by a John Cornyn super PAC operating under the name “Texans for a Conservative Majority.” The Cornyn PAC claims Stockman had been “jailed more than once,” was “charged with a felony” and “violated federal ethics laws,” all of which are false statements. The website even falsifies Stockman’s voting record, falsely telling voters Stockman voted against a food stamp reform bill (2013 House Roll Call Vote 476) when Stockman, in fact, voted for it. The group continues to promote that statement online, even though they have been...

On Friday, every political campaign had to file its 2013 year end report with the FEC. The reports delivered two big surprises. The Democrats are dominating the Republicans in fundraising. More surprising, perhaps, though, is that Tea Party and conservative SuperPACs raised around three times as much as GOP establishment SuperPACs. The DC GOP may have started the war against the Tea Party, but it won't finish it. Not long after their stunning losses in 2012, Karl Rove and other establishment Republicans announced a new effort to engage in primaries to ensure the "right" candidates got the party's nomination. Rove...

If GOP consultant Karl Rove is trying to figure out why he’s struggling to rally support for his causes, maybe he should remember an old truth: that the Republican Party’s true strength is its conservative base. Donations to Rove’s three political groups have dropped an astounding 98 percent since he waged his war on the tea party. Much of that decrease may be because 2013 was not an election year. But the plunge can also be attributed to donors’ realization that Republican candidates generally win elections only when they act Republican and not “Republican light.” In 2012, Rove-founded groups took...

After wasting nearly $325 million during the 2012 election cycle with nothing to show for it and then declaring war on the Tea Party, donations to Karl Rove's three Crossroads groups decreased by 98% last year. The groups reportedly raised a paltry $6.1 million combined in 2013. .... Since then, as Breitbart News reported, "Rove’s organization has been so tarnished among the conservative base that candidates fear donors will not contribute to any group associated with him." Aware of this, Rove's Crossroads network has reloaded with groups that share donors but are technically not affiliated on paper with them.

Having watched several promising campaigns collapse in 2012 after candidates made catastrophic mistakes, national Republican leaders are leaving nothing to chance as they prepare for this year’s midterm elections. They’re summoning contenders—especially those who seem inexperienced, unpredictable or inclined to provocative opinions—to first-of-a-kind training at the GOP’s Senate campaign headquarters to learn, in part, what not to say and how not to say it. […] Since the GOP’s disappointing 2012 showing, party attention has focused on the mistakes made. In addition to the Indiana and Missouri meltdowns and presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s defeat, campaign problems contributed to unforeseen Senate losses...

On Election Night 2012, Democrats had more than the reelection of President Obama to celebrate. Karl Rove, the mastermind Republican strategist hated and feared by Democrats, had a meltdown live on Fox News. A new documentary, "Mitt," Greg Whiteley's film of Mitt Romney and his family during his 2008 and 2012 presidential bids, released on Netflix on Friday, sheds more light on that bizarre incident. Rove's famous hissy-fit took place when the network called the state of Ohio for Obama, putting the president over the 270 electoral votes needed to win reelection. Rove argued that Fox's analysts had acted prematurely.

On a conference call with Gov. Chris Christie’s most loyal donors a few nights ago, his brother, Todd, pressed for last-minute cash to pay for the governor’s inauguration, a daylong fete ending on Ellis Island. Then the governor himself came on the line, trying to convince his listeners that he was moving beyond the George Washington Bridge scandal and getting back to work, according to two participants. The next day, state investigators sent 20 subpoenas to his inner circle and the inquiry widened. This was supposed to be a season of triumph and celebration for the governor of New Jersey...

Even though Karl Rove's American Crossroads brand has been damaged after the group declared war against conservative candidates, the group will reportedly try to influence the 2014 midterm elections by bullying campaigns and creating groups that, on the surface, do not seem to be affiliated with them.

<p>It's time to see how well I did with my predictions for 2013 and to offer a set of 2014 forecasts.</p> <p>I got 10 predictions for this year right. President Obama's job approval rating did drop—from 53% at year's start to 40% this week. There was a new administration scandal, the most significant being the IRS targeting of conservative groups. And ObamaCare's implementation was indeed "ragged and ugly" and "a continuing political advantage to Republicans" as forecast.</p>

Political strategist Karl Rove congratulated himself on Wednesday for getting 10 predictions right for this year—and he forecast that Republicans will keep control of the House of Representatives and end up with as many as 51 seats in the Senate in next year’s congressional elections. For 2014, President Barack Obama’s “disapproval rating will end higher than this week’s 53 percent” in the Gallup poll, Rove said in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal. “Republicans will keep the House with a modest pickup of four to six seats. The GOP will most likely end up with 50 or 51...

A decade ago, Karl Rove was President George W. Bush's right-hand man and one of the most powerful political figures in America. And even after his fortunes briefly dipped at the end of the Bush era, Rove roared to life again, tapping into and fueling the Tea Party movement through his massive super PAC, American Crossroads. But today, with a GOP civil war raging between establishment types and upstart conservatives in the mold of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), Rove's once-strong influence has begun to wane. An embodiment of the Bush-era Republicans who have fallen out of favor of late,...

Well, John ("Cornhole") Cornyn has wasted no time going after Steve Stockman. We knew Steve was vulnerable and this was going to come, but, who would have thought the attacks would come this early in the campaign. This article re: The FEC looking into Stockman's Campaign Contributions was, of all places, on the FRONT PAGE of the Beaumont (TX) Enterprise newspaper today. This will be a very nasty Primary; tighten your seat belts folks. http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/default/article/FEC-questions-excessive-donations-to-Stockman-5092723.php

A quiet but intense struggle over money and influence is roiling the Republican Party just as the 2014 election season is getting underway. At least a dozen “super PACs” are setting up to back individual Republican candidates for the United States Senate, challenging the strategic and financial dominance that Karl Rove and the group he co-founded, American Crossroads, have enjoyed ever since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 cleared the way for unlimited independent spending. In wooing donors, the new groups — in states like Texas, Iowa, West Virginia and Louisiana — are exploiting Crossroads’ poor showing in...