Rove Rides Again

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/;kw=<3351,149864>


Bush's former strategist is secretly seizing control of the GOP – and amassing $135 million to destroy the Democrats


One afternoon in late April, Karl Rove welcomed an elite group of conservative political operatives and moneymen into his home in Washington, D.C. Along with his protégé Ed Gillespie, who succeeded him as George W. Bush's top political adviser, Rove had gathered together the heavyweights of the GOP's fundraising network. In attendance were the political director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as the leaders of two new megadollar campaign groups loyal to Rove: American Crossroads and the American Action Network. Rove's plan was straightforward: to seize control of the party from Michael Steele, whose leadership of the Republican National Committee was imploding in the wake of a fundraiser at a lesbian bondage club. By building a war chest of unregulated campaign cash – an unprecedented $135 million to be raised by these three groups alone – Rove would be able to wage the midterm elections on his own terms: electing candidates loyal to the GOP's wealthiest donors and corporate patrons. With the media's attention diverted by the noisy revolt being waged by the Tea Party, the man known as "Bush's brain" was staging a stealthier but no less significant coup of the Republican Party.

"What they've cooked up is brilliant," says a prominent Democrat. "Evil, but brilliant."

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The GOP's Dirty War: How Republicans have risen from the dead by distorting Obama's agenda and shutting down the government.

For the man known as Turd Blossom, it's been a treacherous, four-year climb back to the pinnacle of GOP politics. The Rove brand was tarnished in 2006, when Republicans lost control of both the House and Senate. His exit from the White House the following year was dogged by scandals, from the political firing of U.S. attorneys to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. And with his longtime enemy John McCain serving as the party's standard-bearer in 2008, Rove could only sit by and watch as the fearsome big-money machine he built over the course of a decade – his political Death Star – was blasted out of orbit by an insurgent Obama campaign powered by hundreds of millions in small-dollar donations.

This is a tale of how the empire strikes back.

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In the weeks since its secretive launch in March, the group has already secured commitments of more than $30 million. That's halfway to the $60 million it plans to spend by November – nearly equaling the $80 million that the RNC itself spent in 2006. That startling sum, according to one lobbyist, can be chalked up to the formidable one-two punch of Gillespie's salesmanship and Rove's Rolodex. Officially, the two men are described only as "advisers" to American Crossroads. But party insiders reveal that Rove is calling the tune, just as he controlled the RNC from the White House as an adviser to Bush. Even the cast of deputies is the same: The directors of American Crossroads are all former top officers whom Rove installed to run the RNC. "American Crossroads is not the return of the old RNC," confides one prominent committee member. "It is the return of Rove." (Through his chief of staff, Rove refused to comment.)

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As the summit at Rove's home revealed, however, American Crossroads is just the tip of his big-money spear. Through Steven Law, the group's spending will be tightly coordinated with his former employer, the Chamber of Commerce. "Steven will always be an ally," Tom Donohue, the Chamber's president, declared in announcing Law's departure to lead Rove's project. The Chamber itself expects to spend $50 million for campaign advertising – a 40 percent increase over 2008 – in what Donohue calls "the most aggressive voter-education and issue-advocacy effort in our nearly hundred-year history."
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did you really think Rove was going away

may he get cronic crotch itch that will drive him crazy

will his plans win him back their empire?

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1. kicking this before I go

we can't let them win