Fitzgerald reports: "Karl Rove and his investors were the biggest losers on Election Day."
Karl Rove did not get a good return on the $176 million dollars spent by his PAC on the 2012 election. (photo: CNN)
Karl Rove's $176 Million Strikeout
09 November 12
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Karl Rove and his investors were the biggest losers on Election Day.
he Republican strategist created the model for outside money groups that raised and spent more than $1 billion on the Nov. 6 elections - many of which saw almost no return for their money.
Rove, through his two political outfits, American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, backed unsuccessful Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney with $127 million on more than 82,000 television spots, according to Kantar Media's CMAG, an ad tracker based in New York.
Down the ballot, 10 of the 12 Senate candidates and four of the nine House candidates the Rove groups supported also lost their races.
The results have angered some Republicans who blame Rove for "sidelining conservatives" and diverting money from them.
"Right now there is stunned disbelief that Republicans fared so poorly after all the money they invested," said Brent Bozell, president of For America, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit that advocates for Christian values in politics. "If I had 1/100th of Karl Rove's money, I would have been more productive than he was."
Donald Trump posted a message on Twitter saying: "Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million this cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money."
Jonathan Collegio, a Crossroads spokesman, declined to comment. Attempts to reach Rove were unsuccessful.
Rove argued Thursday that Romney lost in part because President Barack Obama outspent him on TV when outside groups are taken out of the equation.
"This shows that money does matter in politics," Rove said on Fox News, where he is a paid commentator. In hindsight, Romney should have used his resources to defend himself because that isn't the strong suit of groups like Crossroads, Rove said.
Obama aired more than twice as many ads on local broadcast and nation cable as Romney during the general election, according to CMAG. However, when outside groups such as the ones Rove steers are added in, each side had about the same number of ads on TV.
The Election Day results showed Rove's strategy of bringing in huge donations from a few wealthy benefactors and spending that money almost completely on television advertising failed. The Center for Responsive Politics estimates the two Crossroads groups spent about $176 million, making them the top non- candidate and non-party spender of the election. Rove has bragged of raising more than $300 million for his groups.
American Crossroads, a super-political action committee, discloses its contributors and spending to the Federal Election Commission. Its affiliate, Crossroads GPS, is organized as a nonprofit social-welfare group that conceals its donors and reports only a fraction of its political activities.
"If the rule in politics is you win or lose by the election results, Karl Rove is a big-time loser in the 2012 presidential and congressional races," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, which advocates for limits to campaign spending.
Still, "Karl Rove certainly knows how to make a lot of money for political consultants and TV stations," he said.
Democrats also piled on. "If Crossroads were a business, and Rove was the CEO, he'd be fired for getting a poor return on his investment," New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the chamber's third-ranking Democrat, told reporters Thursday at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.
The return on investment for American Crossroads donors was 1 percent, according to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based group that advocates for open government. The group calculated the number based on how much of the money was spent supporting winners.
For donors to sister-organization Crossroads GPS, the success rate was 13 percent, the group said. That's a lower return than for donations to the National Republican Congressional Committee and to the two major Democratic congressional super-PACs, according to Sunlight.
Houston homebuilder Bob Perry gave $7.5 million to Rove's American Crossroads and another $8 million to Restore Our Future, a super-PAC that supported Romney. He also gave $1 million to Independence Virginia, a super-PAC that backed former Republican governor George Allen in a U.S. Senate race. Allen, with 47 percent support, lost to another former governor, Democrat Tim Kaine, who won 52 percent of the vote. Even after the losses, Perry spokesman Anthony Holm said the super-donor has no regrets.
"Bob Perry will always support efficient government and pro-liberty and opportunity agendas, always," Holm said in a telephone interview. "He was proud to do it this election cycle and is likely to continue into the next cycle."
The Crossroads groups spent $10.2 million in an effort to oust Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown from the Senate, and overall outside groups spent much more. Brown beat his opponent, State Treasurer Josh Mandel, 50.3 percent to 45.1 percent, with an independent candidate winning 4.6 percent of votes cast.
"His brand of politics is pretty discredited," Brown said of Rove on a conference call. "He thought spending $40 million against me and against the president would bring us down."
Rove was particularly upset about Romney's Ohio loss. A former adviser to George W. Bush, he was acting as a commentator on Fox News when the network called the state for Obama. Rove, on air, said he didn't believe it. He continued to argue with the newscasters while shuffling through papers and calling Ohio's secretary of state and Romney's campaign manager for more information.
"This is premature. We've got a quarter of the vote" outstanding, he said. Fox didn't withdraw its Ohio call for Obama and neither did other networks, predictions that ultimately proved true when the final votes were counted.
Rove's groups spent $11.4 million in their bid to defeat Kaine in Virginia. They spent $7.76 million trying to unseat Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, according to CMAG. Nelson, a Democrat, held his seat as well. The CMAG estimates are for ads on broadcast TV and national cable from April 10, 2012 through the day before the election.
The Crossroads groups bet successfully - although less than $200,000 - on Republican Deb Fischer to win an open seat in Nebraska.
On the House side, Rove scored wins in five of nine races. Among those winners was David Valadao of California's 21st District, where Crossroads GPS spent $437,390, and Republican Tom Latham who beat Democrat Leonard Boswell in Iowa with the help of $432,640 from Crossroads, according to CMAG.
Still, in Nevada's 4th District, where Crossroads was most active, Democrat Steven Horsford beat Republican Danny Tarkanian by almost eight percentage points.
Serving as a Democratic counterweight to Rove was Bill Burton, a former Obama aide who left the White House to form Priorities USA Action. That super-PAC raised and spent about $67 million, a fraction of the budgets for the pro-Romney groups that carried a 100 percent return with Obama's re-election victory.
"There will be a lot of questions raised about just how much bang for their buck Republicans got out of super-PACs," Burton said. "Billionaires on the Republican side are probably wondering what difference their contributions made in this election."
He said he spoke with many of his own large donors Thursday and described them as "ebullient."
Majority PAC, which aided Democratic Senate candidates, spent about $37 million, and 70 percent of that money was used in successful elections. House Majority PAC backed Democratic congressional candidates with $31 million; 44 percent went into winning races, the Sunlight study found.
Other groups emulated the Rove approach, bringing at least $306 million of untraceable donations into the 2012 races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Americans for Prosperity, founded 10 years ago by industrial billionaires David and Charles Koch, didn't have much of a better night than the Rove groups.
The nonprofit group raised and spent $140 million this year, President Tim Phillips said in an interview.
It bought about $34 million in TV ads attacking Obama and urging people to vote him out. Its $14 million purchase of TV ads in Senate races also turned up few victories.
"We leveled the playing field, but we weren't quite able to get it done," he said.
The largest chunk of the money, $1.2 million, went into the Wisconsin Senate race, according to CMAG.
"Have you seen Tammy Baldwin's voting record?" a woman asks with disgust in a spot than ran about 800 times last month. Baldwin, the Democrat, won last night
The group also spent $622,400 on ads attacking Nelson in Florida, $513,000 on McCaskill in Missouri, $486,000 on Kaine in Virginia, $466,000 on Joe Donnelly in Indiana and Jon Tester in Montana. Those Democrats all won.
AFP made $754,000 in ad buys in Nebraska and Nevada and saw its preferred Republican candidates win in those races.
Phillips said the group is in politics for the long haul, and compared Republicans with Democrats in 2004, when they lost the White House, yet went on to win Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008.
Phillips has said he is modeling the group after voter- turnout efforts billionaire investor George Soros made in 2004. Soros put up $24 million - at the time a record - in a failed effort to defeat Bush.
"George was certainly disappointed at Bush's victory in 2004, but he did not feel that he had made a mistake," said Michael Vachon, his spokesman. "He felt he acted out of his conviction that Bush was leading the country in a dangerous direction."
Soros, however, pulled back on his political activities after the loss. It remains to be see whether rich Republicans will come back for another round after these results.
Sheldon Adelson, whose family's $53.4 million investment in federal candidates and outside groups made him 2012's top donor, didn't give money to American Crossroads. Yet he, too, saw his preferred elected officials swept away. Adelson, the 25th richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is head of Las Vegas Sands Corp., the world's largest casino company.
While leaving Romney's post-election party in Boston last night, Adelson was asked by a Norwegian television reporter how his political donations were spent.
"By paying bills," he said.
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By the way, MainStreet, I always thought it was "Lush Rambo," but it doesn't matter. Shakespeare had it right, a Rush by any other name would still stink up the airwaves.
If Rush had a brain,..... instead of the drug mush, in his scull....He would know that if Lewis and the other marchers had guns, they would have been shot.
Rush would have liked that I think. He is always inciting to violence....Scu m.
Every time we respond to one of his insane dialogs we inadvertently fuel the fire.
I was warned about the danger of arguing with a lunatic, I was told that a third party might mistake me for a madman as well.
Let the fool stew in his own juices and pray for a heart attack.
John Lewis need not stoop to that level it is undignified.
Another must-read is "The Children" by David Halberstam. They knew that non-violence was the only viable approach. To have had guns would only have given the police an excuse for mass murder in "self defense."
Dr. King and those who followed him knew better. They knew they must not give anyone "an excuse". So they didn't. Who is more brave: the armed man who cracks an unarmed man's skull or the unarmed man who walks up to that armed man knowing his skull may well end up cracked?
Rush Limbaugh, please go away. You said you would go to Costa Rica. We'll take care of your airfare. Just go. Or at least put down that microphone.
It would appear that Lintball's purpose is to spread hate and divisiveness. He attacks this nation's heros. Where does he come from?
Costa Rica is too good for him (and has universal health care). More like Honduras, Colombia or better still Paraguay, next to e the Bush compound.
And he is wealthy enough to take care of his own airfare; agree with you but like a truly virulent virus, he is hard to budge and there are plenty others of his ilk in the US.
Rush, Get thee to the Jersey Shore for a swim.
Actually the Panthers were crushed and jailed, their lives destroyed.
Only because the Black Panthers were black.
There should be no argument whatsoever that that man doesn't contribute to the health of this country and that he should be held accountable. If there was a rebuttal after every show, or he would actually have someone with an opposing view on, where he lets them talk, it might be a different matter. But propaganda can't work with opposition.
From what I've listened of Limbaugh, he never even lets a caller that opposes him on the air for long, and when one slips through, he is vicious & crude. I don't think we can reason with someone like that. Someday Rush will be remembered as trash. (Rich, greedy trash, but trash.)
John Lewis should be treated like the national treasure that he is, and how he will be remembered, as a hero., not only that, but we should let him know how much we appreciate what he did for his people and the country.
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. is an American mass media company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Founded in 1972 by Lowry Mays and B. J. "Red" McCombs, the company was taken private by Bain Capital, LLC and Thomas H. Lee Partners in a leveraged buyout in 2008; as a result, the company now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of CC Media Holdings, Inc.
Contrast this with a highly paid coward who hides behind a microphone in a nice, warm, safe studio and won't even DEBATE anybody with half a brain, never mind stand up and be counted in public against injustice but in fact helps to perpetrate it. And he gets heard on most of Clear Channels hundreds of robotic stations nationwide.
I've been jailed and beaten on protests and rallies quite a few times in my youth and not-so-youth but had a hot temper, no bloody sense and fought like Hell until either beaten unconscious or subdued by cops and cuffs. I just don't know how Rep Lewis, King and the others did it, and they had it a lot harder than I will ever know.
That's real strength, as is Leonard Peltier in Max security prison for F.B.I. revenge only, and still sane after 37 years.
These folks are the saints of our time.
Sorry, I hit the wrong thumbs button -meant it to be a green one. Aging is a bitch!
Any armed opposition by Blacks to change the society would have been seen as an uprising / riot and the perfect excuse for those in power and content on maintaining the status quo to gun them down.
was what started as a Racial March on downtown Tulsa. Some of the Blacks were armed some not and what started
as a peaceful march became a race riot and the National Guard was called out. Unarmed Blacks were shot and killed as well as armed and major parts of the city were burned.
It took close to 50 years for Race Relations to be somewhat mended.
What a class response from Rep. Lewis!
Any attempt to challenge them leads them to dig their heels in, and get angry. Fear does that to people.
LETTER to the EDITOR-- MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Let's look at what we have learned from this election:
Twenty-one of 22 incumbent senators were re-elected, and 353 of 373 incumbent members of the House were re-elected. The American people have re-elected 94 percent of the incumbents who were running for re-election to an institution that has an approval rating of about 9 percent. This indicates, as an electorate, we are a nation of idiots. We're now stuck with the useless, dysfunctional government that we deserve.
You can't fix stupid......... ..........
Your assessment of the state of electoral politics is right on the mark, with this additional bit of crazy fact: only 50% of the eligible voters take the opportunity to vote. Can you imagine what would happen if 100% of eligible voters actually voted? I'm going for a 100% because I believe that if I'm going to imagine I'm going to imagine BIG!
We have been living the script of "1984" since January 1981 when the former host of "Death Vally Days" took on his finest role as B picture actor, in his longest running, best scripted, sublimely directed epic titled "POTUS."
I firmly believe that the free popcorn we were given to watch this saga was laced with something that was detrimental to our health and well-being, and enabled our national soul to be sold to the highest bidder.
The NRA, Limbaugh and much of the political/relig ious right wing of America are deluded if they really think guns would have been anything but incendiary. Not only are they dim witted in their literalist interpretation of Bible and Constitution but also they lack the creative imagination to foresee disaster - as in Vietnam, as in Iraq, even as in imagining the disaster of MLK with a gun.
The Black Panthers did exercise their Second-Amendmen t Rights, They sent carloads of riflemen to follow police cars on patrol to discourage racist brutality. They claimed the police were a foreign army of occupation and demanded to patrol their own streets as a volunteer militia.
But they did not gain much traction in the Black Community or the general public and their armed resistance position did not prevail over the use of nonviolent means of protest.
Haven't seen or heard him in years!
So I am fascinated by how a slave should have managed to buy a gun? Who would have sold it to him in the community he was enslaved in? Would his owner be so "liberal" as as to say to his slaves, "Go ahead and buy guns if you wish."
I am often told to stop insisting that right wingers were raised by their parents to ignorant fools. If that is true how did they get that way? How is it they are oblivious to the obvious disconnect between being a slave and being a gun owner? Would slavery have been possible? Should each slave have been issued a musket as soon as he set foot on noth American soil? Bah Humbug!
This is an incredibly crass, stupid and racist statement to make. Showing no understanding of history or humanity.
This walking talking malignant tumor of adipose tissue that masquerades as a quote human unquote being possesses neither the courage to appear at said bridge unarmed nor the intelligence to see its necessity.
Kick back and pop another oxy fatboy, it could only serve to widen your untelligence.
Rush is possibly all of the above, but he clearly provides entertainment/" truth" to any number of good folks in small towns and rural communities. Decent people, even, who believe in the dangers he spouts and his ideas. They don't know better - or just don't want to find out more. But some of us do end up "fact checking" and no longer listening.
This perhaps is the last true area that needs serious work, the rights of the POOR as to escape thebonds of poverty (and thus not be poor any longer)!
Our lack of gun control is definitely allowing guns to get into the wrong hands
Of parents preferring to be friends rather than disciplinarians and allowing the schools to treat their children as criminals & using the criminal justice system instead of parenting to discipline children who are only doing what children are suppose to do in the process of becoming adults, test the limits.
The economy is also at fault forcing parents to work instead of caring for their children.
We need to re think our nation determine what is important. Is it more important to fund drones attacks, assassinations, multiple war, militant terrorist mercenaries, colonizing of sovereign nation to enhance corporate profits, punish nation for refusing to follow USA policy or for overthrowing USA puppet government or should we be funding schools, health care, infrastructure, creating jobs in USA rebuilding our crumbling nation so that our children can have a home where at least 1 parent is available for advice & discipline when required.
It's time the 99% were given the choice in the direction of this nation not the 1% wealthy rulers.
It's time to end corporate USA & the militaries quest to conquer the world using our taxes to fund it.
How many more children must die or become murderers before we as a nation take action to return us to civility?
He will say what makes him look good, or, at least, doesn't make him look bad. As has been said, most people love the lie (or half-truth) that saves their pride, but never the unflattering truth.
His audience must be in need of having their egos stroked. Flattery would gain no traction with those listening were it not for the vanity and ignorance of the listener.
He is BEYOND mentaly ill, his brain (if one could conceivably call that grain of wheat size brown matter between his ears a 'brain', I suppose one is entitled to their opinion!) is decrepit, ailing, full of dementia, and simply out of order, a sad malfunctioning unit!
Really, he has no business ever to have been on the air in his pathetic but sad mental state.
Rush, PLEASE! You may leave the studio now -- uh... for good! Allow me to show you the soundproofed door! Thank you Rush for all the vile mental poisoning you have spewed out contributing to the air pollution out there over the years!
The mere thought gives me the strange, dual, simultaneous feeling of both disgust and glee. I could live with that...no problem!
Guns are not weapons of peace. Putting guns into the hands of more people will not stop gun violence.
Even the sanest person can snap. Family problems, job loss, financial problems, classroom of rowdy children, resentment, harassment,envy , illness or death can suddenly be to much to bear. Even the most devote religious person can snap. There is no way to predict who or when some one will lose it & choose a gun to solve the problem.
We need a national reset where violence & killing are not acceptable. We must return to a time of respect, where children are taught to respect their elders. Where parents are in charge & violence is punished not glorified.
We must change our governments approach to dissent. End drone attack, assassination, torture, funding of militant terrorist & wars for profit. We must end the dehumanizes peoples of different religions or national origins by our military.
The USA is not under threat if it has enemies it is due to the unjustified military actions to impose USA & USA corporate will on other nations. To replace the leadership & economic policy in order to expand USA corporate control over natural resources of the world.
It is time our taxes were spent at home rather than funding corporate expansion.
It's time to end the influence of Limbaugh & other like him replacing them with truth