{"id":131946,"date":"2012-09-26T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T14:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=131946"},"modified":"2012-12-26T16:03:36","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T21:03:36","slug":"the-rise-of-rove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/26\/the-rise-of-rove\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise Of Rove"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> Boss Rove<\/a> by Carl Unger in Vanity Fair.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> n Wednesday, April 21, 2010, about two dozen Republican power brokers gathered at Karl Rove\u2019s Federal-style town house on Weaver Terrace in northwest Washington, D.C., to strategize about the fall midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Rove, then 59, had host\u00aded this kind of event many times before. Six years earli\u00ader, he\u2019d held weekly breakfasts for high-level G.O.P. operatives to plan for the 2004 fall elections. Back then, as senior adviser to President George W. Bush, Rove oversaw Bush\u2019s re-election campaign. More important, he was attempting to implement a master plan to build a permanent majority through which Republicans would maintain a stranglehold on all three branches of government for the foreseeable future. This was not simply about winning elections. It represented a far more grandiose vision\u2014the forging of a historic re-alignment of America\u2019s political landscape, the transformation of America into effectively a one-party state.<\/p>\n

But now Rove was no longer in the White House. He had been one of the most powerful unelected officials in the United States, but, to many Republicans, his greatest achievement\u2014engineering the presidency of George W. Bush\u2014had become an ugly stain on the party\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After the two biggest political scandals of the dec\u00adade, the Valerie Plame affair and the outcry following the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, Rove resigned in 2007 under a cloud of suspicion, barely escaping indictment. His longtime patron then left the White House with the lowest approval rating in the history of the presidency\u201422 percent. And in 2008 the Democrats had vaporized Rove\u2019s dreams by winning the ultimate political trifecta\u2014the House, the Senate, and the White House. Finally, on the right, there was the insurgent Tea Party, to which he personified the free-spending Bush era and the Republican Party\u2019s Establishment past, not its future.<\/p>\n

But Rove had an incredibly powerful ally. It could be fairly said that no other political strategist in history was so deeply indebted to the United States Supreme Court. In December 2000, in Bush v. Gore, one of the most notorious decisions in its history, by a five-to-four vote, the Court effectively resolved the 2000 United States presidential election in favor of Rove\u2019s most famous client, George W. Bush. Then, on January 21, 2010, three months before his luncheon, the Supreme Court once again provided the answer to Karl Rove\u2019s prayers, this time in the form of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.<\/p>\n

The Court ruled in a five-to-four decision that the First Amendment prohibits the government from limiting spending for political purposes by corporations and unions and effectively granted corporations and unions the same free-speech rights enjoyed by individual citizens. The first decision legitimized Rove\u2019s power during the two terms of George W. Bush. The second one allowed Rove to re-establish his power and gave a new life to his vision of creating a \u201cpermanent Republican majority.\u201d<\/p>\n

The implications of the Citizens United decision were staggering. In the 2008 election cycle, non-campaign organizations of all types\u2014whether they were for-profit corporations, nonprofit groups, or unions\u2014had been prohibited from running broadcast, cable, or satellite communications or advertisements that mentioned a candidate within 60 days of a general election or 30 days of a primary. To be sure, there were many ways for wealthy individuals or corporations to funnel money to political-action committees. But the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, better known as the McCain-Feingold Act, specifically prohibited corporations (including non-profits) and unions from engaging in \u201celectioneering communications\u201d intended to influence the outcome of an election. As a case in point, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit group, produced Hillary: The Movie, a film critical of then senator Hillary Clinton, but had been prevented by the courts from promoting it on television or airing it during the 2008 election season. Citizens United appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court\u2014and won.<\/p>\n

The gist of the decision could be boiled down to two words: Anything goes. Corporations were people, too. And just as John Q. Public could say anything he liked about politics, thanks to an extraordinarily broad interpretation of the meaning of \u201cfreedom of speech,\u201d come election-time, so too could Wall Street, Big Oil, pharmaceutical companies, the tobacco industry, and billionaire cranks flood the airwaves with thousands of political commercials.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, thousands of articles were written calling Citizens United a truly historic development in the American electoral process, but one voice was conspicuous by its absence. Karl Rove did not mention the subject in his Wall Street Journal columns. Karl Rove did not mention it during his appearances on Fox News. In fact, not a word from Karl Rove on the subject was to be found in any major media. This, despite the fact that he was indisputably a leading expert on the subject and that three out of the five conservative justices voting in the majority\u2014Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito\u2014had been given lifetime appointments by his patrons, George H. W. and George W. Bush, and, most important, despite the fact that he would become arguably the single greatest beneficiary of the ruling.<\/p>\n

And so, as a result of Citizens United, the super-pac was born. A new kind of political-action committee, called an \u201cindependent expenditure-only committee\u201d in federal election code and super-pac everywhere else, super-pacs suddenly provided a medium through which unlimited sums could be raised from corporations and unions as well as wealthy individuals, and be spent with the express purpose of electing or defeating a specific candidate. As long as the new super-pacs did not coordinate their efforts with the candidates themselves\u2014a somewhat muddy and dubious constraint\u2014they could now pour unlimited money into the election. (Under an earlier decision, the 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling, the Supreme Court had already struck down certain limitations on expenditures by individuals.)<\/p>\n

With his keen eye for strategy and his ties to disaffected millionaires in the G.O.P. establishment, Rove was the first to seize the initiative. He immediately met with Ed Gillespie, the former Republican National Committee chair who had also served in the Bush administration. The two men were a potent duo. \u201cEd\u2019s got the better rap and Karl\u2019s got the better Rolodex,\u201d a Republican lobbyist told the National Journal. Within three weeks of the Supreme Court decision, American Crossroads, a new 527 advocacy group, had registered its Web site. Rove\u2019s exact relationship to the group was informal and was described by Politico as providing \u201ca laying-on of hands\u201d to encourage wealthy Republican donors. He and Gillespie took off for Texas to meet with Rove\u2019s wealthy political donors, the money machine that had served him for more than 25 years, and came away with a major pledge from Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, a longtime donor to Rove\u2019s causes. Crossroads GPS, a sister group, was in the works under almost identical leadership. Thanks to its nonprofit status, it would not have to disclose the identity of its contributors.<\/p>\n

In short order, American Crossroads had obtained commitments of about $30 million\u2014nearly four times what the R.N.C. had in its coffers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rove and Gillespie put Crossroads in a network with four other groups\u2014the American Action Network, the American Action Forum, Resurgent Republic, and the Republican State Leadership Committee\u2014as part of an immense fund-raising and advertising machine, separate from the Republican National Committee, to win back both Congress and the White House. Altogether, according to the National Journal, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS planned to spend $300 million to help scores of G.O.P. congres\u00adsional candidates, especially in battleground states such as Florida, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. That was enough money to produce anti-Democratic attack ads that could run thousands of times, and to produce tens of millions of negative mail pieces and automated phone calls. Under the new laws, all of this could take place with virtually no oversight. It was implicit that the 2010 midterms were merely a dress rehearsal for the larger political goal of the 2012 presidential election, in which these same men would try to topple President Obama with a war chest that now approaches $1 billion. By contrast, John McCain spent $370 million on his entire presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Rove and Gillespie pitched American Crossroads as an analogue to opposing groups such as Democracy Alliance or labor unions, which had historically supported Democrats. \u201cWhere they have a chess piece on the board, we need a chess piece on the board,\u201d said Gillespie, who has been involved in all five groups in roles ranging from board member to informal adviser.<\/p>\n

But in fact, much more than that, American Crossroads was an alternative to the R.N.C., which had crumbled under the leadership of Michael Steele, who would leave the committee a few months after the 2010 midterms. \u201cKarl set up a parallel organization,\u201d says longtime G.O.P. political strategist Roger Stone. \u201cThe center of energy will always be where the money is. Karl is playing for control of the party. That\u2019s where the power and the money is.\u201d<\/p>\n

WABC Radio talk-show host John Batchelor, a Republican, put it in perspective. \u201cAmerica is a two-party state,\u201d he says. \u201cThere are the Democrats. Then, there\u2019s Karl Rove.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the November 2, 2010, elections approached, Karl Rove had nearly completed a remarkable transformation. His political apparatus was fully funded and operational. His relationships with Fox News and The Wall Street Journal gave him a bully pulpit that allowed him to offer his own Rovian narrative at the same time as he manipulated events behind the scenes. Even Rove\u2019s most astute observers, with few exceptions, had made one crucial miscalculation: given Rove\u2019s close relationship with George W. Bush, they had assumed Rove\u2019s mission to achieve a permanent Republican majority was a goal that had to be accomplished during the two George W. Bush terms. But he had always played the long game. Now America would find out if Karl Christian Rove could pull it off.<\/p>\n

The Buyout<\/p>\n

Tall and slender at 65, Mitt Romney has always looked presidential. With his chiseled jaw and helmet of charcoal hair flecked with gray, he is almost Reaganesque but has a stiffness in his bearing\u2014an inescapable sense of detachment, the absence of the common touch.<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Romney critique that stung most, especially in the context of high unemployment, was Mike Huckabee\u2019s 2008 quip that, far from being the common man, Romney looks like \u201cthe guy who laid you off.\u201d All of which raised questions about Romney\u2019s wealth, how he earned it, and how that would play with the American electorate.<\/p>\n

At Bain Capital, the Boston-based private-equity firm where he made his name, Romney had mastered the art of the leveraged buyout: making an offer for a company, putting down a fraction of the sale price, financing the rest, taking over the company, and then, after the company turned around, cashing out\u2014often at a huge profit. His success was undeniable. Romney had done it again and again\u2014with a medical-equipment company, with a credit-services company, with Domino\u2019s Pizza. There were firms that succeeded as well as those that failed, costing workers their jobs while Bain took the profits. He had even saved his former consulting firm, Bain & Company, from bankruptcy. Over the years, he earned a personal fortune of more than $200 million. Given the sputtering state of the economy, the question was whether Romney would be seen as someone whose fiscal prowess could cure America\u2019s economic ills. Or would he be seen as a remorseless corporate raider who took home millions while rapaciously cutting jobs?<\/p>\n

Then, in the spring of 2012, after Super Tuesday, as the focus of his campaign shifted from his G.O.P. challengers to beating President Obama in November, Mitt Romney unwittingly became involved in what was likely his last leveraged buyout. This time around, the money put down\u2014about $1 billion\u2014was huge and the stakes were astronomically high. This was a highly leveraged buyout in which the targeted acquisition would end up overseeing an annual budget of several trillion dollars. The parties involved were unusual as well. The buyer was the Republican establishment, led by Karl Rove. The deal was to be funded by the super-pacs Rove had created. The final twist: the acquisition was Mitt Romney himself.<\/p>\n

Unlike a normal buyout, there was no formal signing of documents. But on April 5, Ed Gillespie left American Crossroads and joined the Romney campaign as a senior adviser. Technically, Romney had not yet locked up the nomination, but, as Politico reported, Gillespie would serve as a strategist \u201cwithout portfolio to the likely GOP presidential nominee, offering counsel on planning for the Tampa convention, the candidate\u2019s message and a general election strategy for a campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romney\u2019s training and experience as a businessman lent itself to the idea of politics as being merely a question of solving managerial problems, of finding the right business plan and the right personnel. By doing so, he was acquiring funding for a presidential campaign, a strategic plan to win the White House, and an experienced management team to implement it. \u201cI am pleased that Ed is joining my team,\u201d Romney said in a statement. \u201cHe brings a wealth of experience that will prove invaluable in the political battle that lies ahead. Barack Obama is building a $1 billion campaign war machine, and Ed will play an important role in countering it.\u201d<\/p>\n

What was unsaid, however, was more important. Gillespie had been Rove\u2019s trusted ally for years\u2014at the R.N.C., on George W. Bush\u2019s campaigns, in the Bush White House, and, most recently, as Rove\u2019s partner in forming American Crossroads. Gillespie would not have made the move unless the nomination was in the bag. All of which meant that, through Gillespie, Rove now had strategic oversight of Romney\u2019s campaign.<\/p>\n

Rove was replicating what he had done in Texas in the 80s and 90s; there he\u2019d started out with political-action committees through which he could obviate the party structure. \u201cHe had a lot of influence over the money,\u201d recalled Wayne Slater, who covered Rove for The Dallas Morning News and co-wrote three books on him. \u201cOver who would contribute to whom. So he became the gatekeeper. When Karl put his imprimatur on you, it was clear that the money was going to go to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Rove was attempting to do the same thing at the highest level of all, in the battle for the presidency of the United States.<\/p>\n

\u2018The only way Romney can get back into the race quickly will be through the expenditure of substantial Super PAC dollars,\u201d political strategist Doug Schoen wrote in Forbes, explaining how Romney\u2019s weakness rendered him a tempting takeover target. \u201cSpecifically, the key actors in this process will be Karl Rove, whose Super PAC American Crossroads has raised $200 million, as well as the pro-Romney Super PAC, Restore Our Future But make no mistake about it\u2014the 2012 campaign now is not Obama vs. Romney. It is Obama vs. Karl Rove, American Crossroads, and Restore Our Future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officially, in joining Romney, Gillespie had cut ties with American Crossroads because of restrictions prohibiting \u201ccoordination\u201d between super-pacs and specific candidates. \u201cSuper-pacs have to be entirely separate from a campaign and a candidate,\u201d Romney said. \u201cI\u2019m not allowed to communicate with a super-pac in any way, shape, or form. If we coordinate in any way whatsoever, we go to the Big House.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in reality, such constraints are literally a joke\u2014fodder for satirists Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who set up their own super-pac to call attention to a \u201cloopchasm\u201d in the law, namely, that candidates could speak out as citizens publicly\u2014on television, on the Internet, in the press\u2014and make their needs and desires known. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you,\u201d Colbert explained to Stewart, \u201cbut I can tell everyone through television. And if you happen to be watching, well, I can\u2019t prevent that, Jon.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so the great consolidation began between Rove\u2019s super-pacs and Romney\u2019s operation. When the Republican primaries had been unresolved, talent and money had been divided among the many disparate G.O.P. contenders; now it would all serve the same end of electing Mitt Romney as president and helping other Republicans take over the Senate and retain the House.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, more of Rove\u2019s surrogates took over the command posts of the Romney operation to ensure professional management of the campaign. Some key pieces of the puzzle were already in place. Romney\u2019s chief of staff when he was governor of Massachusetts and his campaign manager for his 2008 presidential bid, Beth Myers, was so close to her boss that The Washington Post deemed her his \u201coffice wife.\u201d She had also been a loyal prot\u00e9g\u00e9e of Rove\u2019s when the two of them worked on the Reagan-Bush campaign in Texas in 1980.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe and Karl still remain friends,\u201d Doug Gross, who was Romney\u2019s campaign chairman in Iowa in 2000, told Reuters. \u201cKarl has been through these wars and can provide her with sound advice.\u201d On April 16, Romney announced that Myers would be in charge of the selection process to choose his running mate.<\/p>\n

Another powerful but low-profile figure was Carl Forti, a Rove acolyte who had been Romney\u2019s political director in 2008 and now occupied key positions in both American Crossroads and Restore Our Future. Having managed an $80 million budget for the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2006, at the time the G.O.P.\u2019s largest-ever independent-expenditure campaign, Forti had the ideal credentials for the post\u2014Citizens United era, in which super-pacs play an even bigger role than the party itself.<\/p>\n

Operating very much under the radar, Forti, known as \u201cKarl Rove\u2019s Karl Rove,\u201d was \u201ca strategic political warrior,\u201d as G.O.P. operative Bradley Blakeman told Politico, whose knowledge of issues, polling, and how to implement complicated strategies made him \u201cthe Alexander the Great of the Republican independent-expenditure world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stuart Stevens, a veteran media consultant who had worked with Rove on George W. Bush\u2019s campaigns, had taken over the job of chief strategist for Romney. And former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, Stevens\u2019s longtime friend and an immensely powerful former head of the R.N.C., joined with American Crossroads in September 2011. Representative Tom Cole, a former R.N.C. chief of staff, described Barbour as \u201cwithout peer when he is raising money.\u201d His presence ensured a substantial and positive impact on the bottom line. Meanwhile, in the spring of 2012, Barbour\u2019s nephew, Austin Barbour, moved from Mississippi to Boston to become Stevens\u2019s deputy.<\/p>\n

The Team of Rivals<\/p>\n

A protracted battle against Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich during the primaries had left Romney significantly behind Barack Obama both in fund-raising and in building ground operations in key battleground states. Now, with Rove\u2019s colleagues in place, they began to steward a disparate group of multi-millionaires, billionaires, and super-pacs, many of which had recently backed insurgent Republican candidates, into tight ranks behind Romney.<\/p>\n

On April 10, Foster Friess, the re\u00ad\u00adtired investor who had backed Rick Santorum, announced he was supporting Romney. When asked by Politico if he\u2019d be donating to American Crossroads, Friess seemed bewildered by the array of new super-pacs. \u201cI\u2019m not sure if I have already,\u201d he replied. \u201cI know that I have contributed to some other groups, but I can\u2019t remember which ones. There are so many of them. They\u2019re all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next came Sheldon Adelson, the seventh-richest man in America with a $24.9 billion fortune, who, along with his family, according to the Las Vegas Sun, had given $21.5 million to a super-pac backing Gingrich. As recently as March, Adelson had expressed reservations about Romney. \u201cHe\u2019s not the bold decision-maker like Newt Gingrich is. Every time I talk to him, he says, \u2018Well, let me think about it,\u2019?\u201d Adelson told JewishJournal.com.<\/p>\n

In April, the Sun reported, Adelson was openly expressing \u201cgushing admiration for Karl Rove.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m going to give one more small donation\u2014you might not think it\u2019s that small\u2014to a SuperPAC,\u201d he said. On June 13, that \u201csmall\u201d donation was announced: $10 million to Restore Our Future. \u201cHe is going to be the Republican Party\u2019s 800-pound gorilla in defeating Barack Obama,\u201d one of Adelson\u2019s friends told CNN.<\/p>\n

But the big questions still remained: What about David and Charles Koch, the multi-billionaire brothers responsible for funding much of the Tea Party movement? Would they align with Rove? The Kochs were so powerful that, far from being part of his machine, they had, at times, seemed to be rivals, battling him for the heart of the party. But by early spring, according to Politico, Koch operative Marc Short had begun attending the Weaver Terrace group\u2019s gatherings.<\/p>\n

Initially, the Koch brothers had reportedly planned to steer roughly $200 million to conservative groups and causes in 2012, but over the spring they had doubled their 2012 fund-raising target to nearly $400 million, and, according to a report by Peter Stone in the Huffington Post, they strategized about how to put it all together by inviting a few dozen wealthy conservatives to a conference they organized at the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach one weekend. Former George W. Bush consultant Mark Mc\u00adKinnon put the $400 million fig\u00adure in context with a tweet: \u201cThink the $$ political system is screwed up? Koch brothers alone are planning to spend more $$ than McCain\u2019s entire 2008 presidential budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new strategy the Kochs developed was one that mirrored what Rove had already begun to implement with Crossroads GPS. Rather than funnel everything through their Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs decided to distribute tens of millions of dollars to a diverse network of conservative organizations, including the National Rifle Association, Grover Norquist\u2019s Americans for Tax Reform, the National Right to Life committee, Ralph Reed\u2019s Faith & Freedom Coalition, and the American Future Fund. \u201cBy spreading their wealth throughout the conservative ecosystem,\u201d wrote Peter Stone, \u201cthe Kochs can exploit trusted brands with passionate followings that reach beyond the Tea Party base,\u201d while at the same time leaving no fingerprints.<\/p>\n

The N.R.A. launched a \u201cTrigger the Vote\u201d campaign to reach millions of gun owners who had not yet registered to vote. Thanks to $30 million in donations, much of it from out of state, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a Koch-brothers favorite (although they say they didn\u2019t contribute to Walker\u2019s campaign directly), outspent Democratic foe Tom Barrett eight to one, and, on June 5, became the first governor in history to win a recall battle. Millions were earmarked for 10 battleground states, especially Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, as well as key Senate races to help the Republicans regain the upper house.<\/p>\n

But the Koch brothers were not the only ones on the right to raise their sights, and by the end of May, Rove\u2019s super-pac network, along with the Koch brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had a new target, according to Politico: $1 billion.<\/p>\n

This $1 billion was in addition to funds brought in by the Romney campaign and the Republican National Committee, which intended to raise another $800 million, giving Romney a total of $1.8 billion.<\/p>\n

The Game Plan<\/p>\n

Rove\u2019s eyes were on more than simply capturing the White House. He wanted to keep the House of Representatives and win back the Senate as well. As early as November 2011, a full year before the election, Rove\u2019s Crossroads GPS group began airing attack ads targeting Democrats across the country: Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts; Tim Kaine in Virginia; Senator Claire McCaskill in Missouri; Senator Ben Nelson in Nebraska; Senator Jon Tester in Montana. \u201cInstead of focusing on jobs, Elizabeth Warren sides with extreme-left protests,\u201d one ad said. \u201cAt Occupy Wall Street, protesters attack police, do drugs, and trash public parks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad campaign against Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio asked if he was \u201chiding from his tax-raising, job-killing rec\u00adord\u201d and portrayed the 59-year-old Democrat as looking exceptionally haggard and disheveled thanks to a scraggly beard that was allegedly Photoshopped onto his likeness.<\/p>\n

More to the point, thanks to Rove\u2019s groups, Senator Brown and Tim Kaine, the former Virginia governor who was running for the Senate, were being outspent by more than three to one. On Kaine\u2019s behalf, as of late May, 380 ads had been run; in comparison, Bloomberg Businessweek reported, Crossroads GPS and the Chamber of Commerce had aired 1,980 attack ads against him.<\/p>\n

And thanks to his friends at Fox News, when it came to national ads attacking Obama, Rove could get enormous amounts of free extra mileage for his advertising dollar. On April 26, American Crossroads released an ad attacking Obama as a \u201ccelebrity president.\u201d The next day, according to Media Matters, the progressive watchdog site, Republican strategist Brad Blakeman went on Fox to proclaim the ad a huge success because \u201cKarl has gotten more earned media than the amount he invested in the ad.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that was largely because Fox News promoted it on no fewer than seven separate news shows in a 24-hour period.<\/p>\n

The Citizens United ruling gave Democrats the same latitude to raise money from billionaires, but, thanks to a souring of relations between the White House and big banks, Wall Street had effectively deserted Obama. Moreover, having criticized the Citizens United decision, the Democrats did not have the stomach to play by the new rules by calling on the wealthiest Democrats to meet Rove\u2019s challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inability of Democrats to play in the same league as Karl Rove financially is a humiliating debacle that might be unprecedented, measured by comparing wealthy donors of one party to wealthy donors of the other, in the history of presidential politics,\u201d wrote Brent Budowsky in The Hill. \u201cThe president and Democrats seem befuddled by how to react to the Citizens United decision, while Karl Rove understands with crystal clarity. Rove mobilizes his army, rallies his wealthy, organizes his venture and puts his money in the bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, in late spring, the Democratic Party sent an e-mail to its constituents signed by Barack Obama. In the subject line, it said, \u201cHey.\u201d The text read, \u201cI need your help today Please donate $3 or more before midnight Thank you, Barack.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the response to Obama\u2019s entreaty, initially at least, was weak. In 2008, more than 550,000 people gave more than $200 to Obama and in so doing created the long\u00adest list of individual donors in American politics. But according to BuzzFeed\u2019s Ben Smith and Rebecca Elliott, at the same point in 2012, nearly 90 percent of those people had not come back to donate that amount again.<\/p>\n

Likewise, according to Politico, compared with their G.O.P. counterparts, the Democratic super-pacs were feeble. By mid-April, four of the biggest Democratic super-pacs and two allied nonprofits had a mere $8.3 million on hand, thanks in part to $1 million each from the party\u2019s two largest contributors to date, comedian Bill Maher and hedge-fund billionaire James H. Simons, while the Republican ad barrage continued apace against congressional Democrats and Obama, especially in the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. By mid-April, Rove\u2019s groups alone had already spent more than $11 million on ads against Obama.<\/p>\n

Finally, after months on the sidelines, major liberal donors, led by financier George Soros, put together a strategy of sorts to combat Rove\u2019s onslaught, preparing to invest $100 million in Democratic super-pacs and nonprofits by focusing on grassroots organizing, voter registration, and turnout instead of negative advertising.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulturally, the left doesn\u2019t do Swift Boat,\u201d Soros adviser Michael Vachon told the Huffington Post. \u201cIt\u2019s not what we do well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Boss<\/p>\n

In late April, Rove\u2019s electoral map had forecast an Obama victory, but in his May 24 Wall Street Journal column, \u201cRomney\u2019s Roads to the White House,\u201d Rove took another look at what might happen on the first Tuesday in November.<\/p>\n

Mapping out a \u201c3-2-1\u201d strategy for Romney, Rove itemized what was necessary for Romney to win. All he had to do was take three states\u2014Indiana, North Carolina, and Virginia\u2014that John McCain had narrowly lost in 2008; recapture two big battleground states that Bush had won in 2004, Florida and Ohio; and, finally, win one, just one, additional state in the union, anywhere. It was more than just possible, Rove concluded. Now it was probable. \u201cMr. Obama long ago lost his chance to duplicate his 2008 performance,\u201d he wrote. \u201cHe\u2019s now forced to fight for states he easily won in 2008. The odds now narrowly favor a Romney win.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week later, Rove further hinted that an effective line of attack would be to paint Obama as a weak, ineffective leader, especially in terms of the economy, a hostage to events rather than a master of them. \u201cWhen asked \u2018Which candidate do you trust to do a better job handling the economy?\u2019 Mr. Romney polls as high or higher than Mr. Obama,\u201d Rove wrote. \u201cThe self-portrait the president has painted is of a weak liberal, buffeted by events. That will make this election more like 1980\u2014when Ronald Reagan defeated an ineffectual Jimmy Carter\u2014than 2004.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are still three months to go before the election. That\u2019s an eternity in politics, of course, and it remains to be seen whether global events will conspire to aid Rove\u2019s cause. On June 1, in the wake of weak numbers on the jobs front, and fears of an economic collapse in the Eurozone, the stock market tanked. In response, the Rasmussen tracking poll gave Romney a four-point lead. Five weeks later, on July 10, Rasmussen, which has a history of leaning toward the Republicans, still gave Romney a three-point lead, while Gallup and ABC News\/Washington Post called it dead even. The race for the White House was a toss-up.<\/p>\n

Whatever the outcome of the elections, Rove had come a long way. Just a few years earlier, as a brand in politics, his name had been toxic. He had been the brain behind one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, who had started two horribly costly wars and, having inherited a booming economy, left the nation near economic collapse.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether Romney will actually win, and, if so, whether he will be as pliant as Rove hopes. Likewise, it\u2019s too early to say whether Rove really will build his permanent Republican majority.<\/p>\n

Regardless of the answers, on some level, Rove has already won. Undeniably, he\u2019s back. He has re-invented himself. He is not merely Bush\u2019s Brain; he\u2019s the man who swallowed the Republican Party. As the maestro orchestrating the various super-pacs, he has inspired the wealthiest people on the right to pony up what could amount to $1 billion and has created an unelected position for himself of real enduring power with no term limits.<\/p>\n

Rival operatives in the party who loathe him nonetheless evince a grudging respect. \u201cHe\u2019s playing a very long game,\u201d says Roger Stone. \u201cEven if Romney loses, that\u2019s good for Karl, because he will still be in control. And there\u2019s always Jeb Bush in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Koch brothers and Adelson falling into rank, Rove had consolidated the warring factions within the party. He is in command, having built his shadow R.N.C. into an entity over which he has complete control.<\/p>\n

Proving the Yeatsian verities about the best lacking all conviction and the worst being full of passionate intensity, Rove has created a ruthlessly efficient political operation outside of the party structure beholden to no one but himself. Says Roger Stone, \u201cNo one else can construct a power center like he can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Karl Rove has become the ultimate party boss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: Boss Rove by Carl Unger in Vanity Fair. The Text: n Wednesday, April 21, 2010, about two dozen Republican power brokers gathered at Karl Rove\u2019s Federal-style town house on Weaver Terrace in northwest Washington, D.C., to strategize about the fall midterm elections. Rove, then 59, had host\u00aded this kind of event many times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rise Of Rove<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"2012 might just be the beginning of Karl Rove's role as de-facto GOP leader.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/09\/26\/the-rise-of-rove\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rise Of Rove\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"2012 might just be the beginning of Karl Rove's role as de-facto GOP leader.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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