PrairiePundit

 Karl Rove: If Republicans take the House by a healthy margin and win the Senate, we may say last week was when things took a final turn toward the GOP. Because of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s fundraising prowess, the Congressional Leadership Fund, the Republican House super PAC, announced it raised $73 million last quarter and began spending that money in competitive districts President Joe Biden won in 2020. The Democratic House super PAC couldn’t match CLF’s efforts putting more Democratic-held congressional seats into play. If CLF continues its aggressive spending, it could result in a larger GOP House victory. Then there were debates. In Arizona, Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly didn’t put his Republican opponent, Blake Masters, away in their debate and belatedly tried creating distance between himself and President Joe Biden by criticizing the administration’s border policy. This came off as opportunistic as Masters hammered the incumbent for voting in lockstep with the presid...

  Breitbart: Exclusive — Karl Rove Under Fire for Redistricting Failures: He’s ‘Costing Republicans All Over the Country’ ...   Rove, who is   scheduled to keynote   the Missouri Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner in St. Louis on Saturday night, is a senior adviser nationally to a group called the National Republican Redistricting Trust (NRRT). The GOP redistricting group NRRT, Rove   wrote   in a 2021 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal announcing his appointment to it, “was formed in response to Democratic efforts organized in 2016 by former President Barack Obama and his attorney general Eric Holder.” While it sounds valiant, Rove has been largely missing in action throughout the course of redistricting battles nationwide. Several top national Republicans across the party from a variety of viewpoints—both establishment and conservative Republicans—have told Breitbart News that none of them have actually heard from Rove throughout this whole redistricti...

Watch the latest video at foxnews.com If these guys were such important witnesses why didn't Schiff et al go to court and get an order for them to testify?  Rove says they already have the pertinent information on the record and it does not support the Democrats' arguments.

Washington Examiner: Karl Rove catches two illegals while hunting near the border It is an interesting story especially the portion about the reaction of the illegals to being discovered.

Karl Rove: The Issues Are Breaking Bad for Democrats ... while the economy remains a top concern, voters are now worried about national security The GOp has a 23 point advantage on national security.  People remember the snarky 2012 campaign run by Obama and the Democrats and most of those bost have been shown to be disastrously wrong. Hugh Hewitt has more on the poling and how it is helping GOP candidates with experience in the war on terror.

Fox News: BRITAIN BLUNDER Clinton confuses UK political parties on book tour These kind of mistakes may make people think Karl Rove had a point about her head injury.

Karl Rove: ... It's not just ObamaCare's incompetent implementation. Many of Mr. Obama's other policies—the lack of "shovel ready jobs" in the huge stimulus bill, drawing and then erasing red lines in Syria, the near-criminal negligence surrounding the terrorist attack in Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives, the president spinning his wheels on gun control and failing to achieve immigration reform—all of this and more smack of impulsive action, indifference and lack of attention. ... He is obviously not very good at governing and he has failed to put together a staff that can make him more disciplined.

The Atlantic: A lot has been said about why Mitt Romney lost the presidential election, from his failure to turn out more white working-class voters to his failure to win more of the Latino voters who did turn out. Republican strategist Karl Rove offered the latest take Thursday in remarks detailing how he tried, from his perch at an outside group forbidden by law from coordinating with the campaign, to signal to Romney's team that they should make changes in course and defend their candidate more fiercely. "No election can be blamed on one single thing ... that's not the way politics works," Rove said during an Aspen Ideas Festival conversation with AtlanticEditor in Chief James Bennet. At core, however, "This was a tactical failure." The Obama campaign had decided in March and April, Rove said, that it couldn't win on the basis of the economy, Obamacare, or the president's prospective vision -- so it made "a grand bet: We have to take a fif...

Karl Rove: ... Mr. Wallace asked Mr. Durbin why he singled out Crossroads GPS for an IRS investigation and pointed out that his letter "did not mention one single liberal group." Mr. Durbin offered this ludicrous defense: If the IRS investigated GPS, "every other group would be put on notice." Correction: An IRS investigation of a conservative 501(c)(4) would leave liberal 501(c)(4) groups gleeful—especially since liberal groups have operated for decades in the same way GPS does without Democrats complaining. Democrats were content to have 501(c)(4) groups active as long as they were operating on behalf of liberals and their causes. For example, no Democratic leader demanded the IRS investigate the 501(c)(4) arms of the League of Conservation Voters, National Abortion Rights Act League, VoteVets, NAACP, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club and other liberal organizations that have spent millions excoriating Republicans, pushing liberal issues and registering voters....

NY Times: New Rove Group Could Backfire on G.O.P. By NATE SILVER An analysis of Republican Senate primaries in 2010 and 2012 suggests that money is usually the least pressing problem for the establishment candidates whom Karl Rove's new "super PAC" might be inclined to support. Backfire maybe too strong a word, but I think it probably will not be successful unless it is extremely focused and aimed at offsetting the dirty tricks of Democrats who spent handsomely to get Akin on the ballot in Missouri because they thought, correctly, that he would be the weakest candidate.   They also need to school the candidates in the best way to answer questions about abortion and rape.  The answers should not be that difficult if it is explained how different the responses are heard by those outside their comfort zone.  The candidates also need to learn how to put the Democrats on the defensive on issues like the debt and deficits.

Rove says he supported many Tea Party candidates and thinks some of them like Rubio were great.  He is on the defensive right now because the roll out of his new plan was flawed causing a negative reaction among conservatives.  He is now doing the kind of explaining he should have done up front.  There appears to have been an assumption that everyone agreed with them.  I think there also needs to be a better emphasis on preparing candidates to deal with the abortion-rape issue in a compassionate way.  I think having Ted Cruz on the Senate campaign effort should help in that regard.

NY Times: New Rove Effort Has G.O.P. Aflame The strategist Karl Rove and his allies have drawn ire for creating the Conservative Victory Project, their effort to help rebuild the Republican Party and win control of the Senate. Aflame sounds a little hot.  There are some critics of the program as originally described because it painted with two broad a brush and overlooked the establishment candidates that also lost.  I suspect that is because inside the GOP establishment, the flame outs of Todd Akins and Richard Mourdoch affected other races and made them harder to win. I see two things that Rove's group can do to help voters and candidates.  First they should identify the candidates getting support from Democrat dirty tricks efforts.  That would have exposed Akins in the primary process and given stronger candidates a better chance.  The second thing that must be done is to school the winners of the primaries in how to answe...

Karl Rove: ... The ideological composition of the American electorate hasn't changed dramatically. Self-identified liberals were 25% of voters in 2012 and 23% in 2008. Conservatives were 35% of voters in 2012 and 34% in 2008.  By some measures, voters are less liberal today than they were four years ago. In the 2008 exit poll, 51% said "government should do more to solve problems" while 43% felt "government is doing too many things better left to businesses and individuals." In 2012, 43% said "government should do more" and 51% believed "government is doing too many things." While 44% wanted ObamaCare "expanded or left as is," 49% wanted to "repeal some or all of it."  Another sign that Mr. Obama hasn't fundamentally changed America's political structure: Compared with 2008, there were 371,800 fewer white votes cast in Ohio in 2012, when Mr. Obama carried the state by 166,214 votes. Many whites who voted for...

Karl Rove says his donors are ready to rumble in the next contest.

Karl Rove: The GOP is undergoing the type of re-examination that occurs whenever a party loses. That useful exercise should be guided by facts. Here is some of what we know. The media's postelection narrative is that Democrats won because of a demographic shift. There is some truth to that, but a more accurate description is that Democrats won in a smaller turnout by getting out more of their vote. Turnout dropped by 7.9 million voters, falling to 123.6 million this year from 131.5 million in 2008. This is the first decline in a presidential election in 16 years. Only 51.3% of the voting-age population went to the polls. While the Democratic "ground game" was effective, President Barack Obama received 90.1% of his 2008 total while Gov. Mitt Romney received 98.6% of Sen. John McCain's vote. Neither party generated a higher turnout nationally. Tactically, Republicans must rigorously re-examine their "72-hour" ground game and reverse-engineer the Dem...

Washington Post: Karl Rove: Obama succeeded by suppressing the vote I think I am in good company with this theory   I do think that one of the mistakes Rove's group made is they tried too hard to appeal to the undecided women voters and did not produce ads that would motivate white voters to turn out.  They could have been much tougher on Obama on a number of issues, from Obamacare to Benghazi. I think they also should have been much tougher on Democrat candidates in the Senate races. Rove is a smart guy and he will figure out why teh soft approach failed.

He was more right than those  who thought Kerry was a winner.

The Hill: ... “If the president continues to make this charge — this outrageous charge — that his campaign had that Romney is guilty of felonious activity [and] committed a felony, that’s a big mistake,” said Rove on Fox News Sunday.   “Remember who’s up for grabs in this election: independent voters. They were drawn to Obama in 2008 because he was going to change politics and raise and elevate the political discourse. This is gutter politics of the worst Chicago sort.” ... Obama has spent a $100 million in a few key states and has not moved the needle very much.  It is looking like he has shot his wad for nothing.

Caucus Blog, NY Times: The lawyer for  President Obama  demanded on Tuesday that  Crossroads GPS disclose its donors, saying in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission that the group is plainly a “political committee” subject to federal reporting requirements. In  the complaint , obtained by The New York Times, Robert F. Bauer, the campaign’s chief counsel, writes that the group — founded by Karl Rove, among others — can no longer shield the identity of its donors by defining itself as a “social welfare” organization. ...  With the Obama campaign and Democrats stalking of donors when their names are provided it raises serious questions about the purpose of this suit.  Do they want to look at more divorce files?  Do they want to threaten the businesses of the donors?  Until Congress passes anti stalking legislation, I think these groups will continue to resist attempts to get the names of their donors.

Buzzfeed: $25 million in ads and what does President Barack Obama campaign have to show for it? Stagnant or sagging poll numbers, an opponent who’s finally showing fight, and dissension in the ranks. In May, the Obama campaign devoted $25 million to campaign ads, most of it to a slew of positive spots highlighting his record on issues from health care to the auto-bailout. One featured an Ohio autoworker hailing Obama for “sticking his neck out” for the industry. In another, Obama explains why he decided to bail out the car companies. A third is simply an animated chart showing job growth under Obama’s tenure in office, ending with a text overlay “Do we really want to reverse course now?” The investment has not paid off, by the standard measure of ads’ effectiveness, polling. While Mitt Romney’s numbers jumped in May — largely the result of him solidifying support among Republicans after the primary — Obama’s numbers barely moved in some surveys; in others, they went down. Obama ...