Karl Rove, Top GOP Strategist Under Bush, Playing Big Role in Midterm Election Push
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Subscribe :Democrats had high hopes in seeing the last of GOP political strategist Karl Rove when he left the Bush White House in 2007, but Rove is back in the thick of things in this midterm election year "playing a leading role in building what amounts to a shadow Republican Party," according to the New York Times.
When his boss, George W. Bush, swept into office in 2000, Rove had high hopes that it was the start of a long-lasting political realignment that he compared to the election of 1896, when Republican President William McKinley's victory over William Jennings Bryan led to 35 years of GOP dominance. That vision disintegrated in the 2006 and 2008 elections, when Democrats recaptured control of Congress and the White House.
Now, Rove has been busy rebuilding the coalition of wealthy contributors he created for Bush and their money has gone to a variety of groups whose aim is to fill the void being left by the Republican National Committee which has had trouble with fundraising under its much-criticized and often controversial chairman, Michael Steele.
One of the groups, which the Times said Rove helped form along with former Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie, is American Crossroads which describes its mission as making "Main Street values - individual liberty, limited government, free enterprise and strong national security - once again the top priorities and guiding ethic of American governance."
Its website says, "President Obama and his rubber-stamp majorities in Congress, Washington today is again on a perilous path-jeopardizing America's future viability through reckless deficit spending, weakened national security and shackled private enterprise."
The Times said American Crossroads plans a barrage of anti-Democratic attack ads to be run tens of thousands of time,a similar avalanche of negative mail and automated calls, and a get-out-the-vote bush before Election Day.