Photograph by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Karl Rove

Once again the Federal Election Commission has asked the Republican non-profit group Crossroads GPS to disclose its donors.

And once again the big-spending organization linked to Karl Rove has rebuffed the request.

The latest back-and-forth began yesterday, when the FEC sent Crossroads GPS a formal Request For Additional Information (RFAI) asking about its fourth-quarter 2012 report showing more than $50 million in independent expenditures aiding Republican candidates — but no donations.

Donors giving more than $200 “to further the independent expenditures” must be itemized on the documents, FEC campaign finance analyst Christopher Whyrick wrote to Crossroads GPS. “Please amend your report to provide the missing information.”

Echoing its responses to similar FEC requests in 2011 and 2012, Crossroads GPS says it doesn’t have to disclose donations because they weren’t solicited or received specifically to “further” the independent expenditures.

The Republican group’s latest response was swift and direct.

“Your continued RFAIs on this subject are unnecessary,” Crossroads GPS treasurer Caleb Crosby wrote to the FEC today. “However, if you are required by Commission guidelines or procedures to continue to send them, we will continue to respond with the exact same explanation.”

Original post is Crossroads GPS to FEC: No Means No by Political Capital.

Photograph by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Sen. Tim Scott speaks at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md, on March 14, 2013.

Steven Law, who leads several outside groups that help finance Republican candidates, argued today at the Conservative Political Action Conference that political parties are no longer the force they once were.

Speaking at a panel about who should pick candidates, Law said party leaders were once powerful enough to usher a chosen person to office. No longer, he said. Because of campaign-finance laws that limit contributions, he said, “there are no kingmakers in the parties in the way that there used to be.”

Enter, outside groups.

Super political action committees have more funding freedom than the parties — they can accept unlimited sums from individuals, unions and corporations and spend that money on ads attacking and helping candidates of their choice.

Law just so happens to have several such groups.

His latest, the Conservative Victory Project, will spend money in Republican primaries. Law and fellow strategist Karl Rove said they will back the most conservative candidates who can win general elections.

These outside groups “can’t pick a candidate, but it’s OK to support a candidate,” Law said.

But some leaders of the anti-tax Tea Party movement and of socially conservative groups such as Brent Bozell’s For America don’t want Law and Rove involved in primaries at all.

Bozell today said that he is sending a letter to major contributors to another Rove entity, American Crossroads, warning them not to give him more money.

“Groups like Crossroads squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in what were arguably the most inept campaign advertising efforts ever,” Bozell says in the letter.

Law said during the CPAC panel that various Republican groups should work together to find and promote quality candidates.

“We have got to pull together to stop the most serious threat to liberty that probably anyone has seen in our lifetime,” he said, referring to President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda.

One questioner at the panel epitomized the mixed feelings Republicans have about the Conservative Victory Project, saying he’d withhold judgment until he sees what kinds of candidates it supports.

“I’m either 100 percent for you or 100 percent against you,” the questioner said. “I can’t decide.”

Original post is Law at CPAC: Party Kingmaking Gone by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images

White smoke rises from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel meaning that cardinals elected a new pope on the second day of their secret conclave on March 13, 2013 at the Vatican.

Updated repeatedly from 3:18 to 6:40 pm EDT

White smoke in Rome: Better than any exit poll.

This is how the word was spread, online:

HABEMUS PAPAM \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/ \o/

— VaticanCommunication (@PCCS_VA) March 13, 2013

A cardinal, by tradition, would announce this — Latin for “We have a Pope” — from the balcony of the Vatican.

But Vatican Communications beat the balcony to the Internet.

As Bloomberg’s Julianna Goldman notes, President Barack Obama got the news from his deputy chief of staff, as the president met at the U.S. Capitol with Republican members of the House:

Deputy COS Rob Nabors gave POTUS note about #newpope and POTUS read it out to applause in the mtg w House GOP, per source in the room

— juliannagoldman (@juliannagoldman) March 13, 2013

Not every day the President breaks the news to you that there’s a new pope. Blessings on Pope Francis I. This is a historic day.

— Michele Bachmann (@MicheleBachmann) March 13, 2013

The president’s people later joined the tweeting — though tweets from this account are only the real Obama when signed “bo:”

Obama on Pope Francis: “I look forward to working with His Holiness to advance peace, security, and dignity for our fellow human beings.”

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 13, 2013

The president will dispatch Vice President Joe Biden, the highest-ranking Catholic politician in the U.S., to Rome for the celebration.

“I am happy to have the chance to personally relay my well wishes, and those of the American people, when I travel to Rome for his Inaugural Mass,” Biden said in a statement e-mailed by the White House. “The Catholic Church plays an essential role in my life and the lives of more than a billion people in America and around the world, not just in matters of our faith, but in pursuit of peace and human dignity for all faiths. I look forward to our work together in the coming years on many important issues.”

Democratic operative Paul Begala had his own take on the event:

Rumor has it Karl Rove is challenging the vote count in the Conclave.

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) March 13, 2013

When the announcement finally came at the balcony, it was Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio — the first pontiff from the New World. His chosen name: Francesco I.

Once again, Vatican communications:

Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum HABEMUS PAPAM Francesco I

— VaticanCommunication (@PCCS_VA) March 13, 2013.

And for the 1.8 million followers of the Vatican’s Twitter account:

HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM

— Pontifex (@Pontifex) March 13, 2013

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic who had been with Obama at the Capitol, had this to say to reporters: “Reaching out beyond the traditional continent of our church is another big step in the right direction for the church.”

From his personal account, Boehner later joined the tweeting:

RT @xavieruniv: Prayers and blessings for Pope Francis I, the first Jesuit Pope! #amdg

— John Boehner (@johnboehner) March 13, 2013

The speaker also weighed in from his speaker-account:

Thanks be to God for our new pope, Francis I j.mp/ZLYqSr U.S. Catholics offer prayers & blessings to His Holiness

— Speaker John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) March 13, 2013

The White House released an e-mailed statement from Obama about Pope Francis:

“ As a champion of the poor and the most vulnerable among us, he carries forth the message of love and compassion that has inspired the world for more than 2,000 years—that in each other we see the face of God.  As the first pope from the Americas, his selection also speaks to the strength and vitality of a region that is increasingly shaping our world, and alongside millions of Hispanic Americans, those of us in the United States share the joy of this historic day. ”

Then, there was this:

Bad news for Argentina: No country has won the World Cup during the papacy of a native-born pope.

— Paul Carr (@PCarrESPN) March 13, 2013

Original post is Vatican Tweets: ‘Habemus Papam’ — Francesco I, First From New World by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, speaks at a press conference on the Official English Act in 2012.

Republican Rep. Tom Latham told supporters in Iowa today that he doesn’t intend to run for a Senate seat there in 2014, clearing a path for a potential bid by fellow Republican Rep. Steve King.

Latham and King had been publicly contemplating bids for the seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Harkin. Latham, who is close to House Speaker John Boehner, comes from the establishment branch of the party, while King is a darling of the Tea Party movement.

“The opportunity to serve Iowa in the U.S. Senate is appealing to this farm kid who grew up here, raised a family here, and helped grow a family business in Iowa,” Latham said in an e-mail to supporters. “However, only 56 days ago I took an oath to ‘faithfully discharge the duties’ of an office with which the people of Iowa’s Third Congressional District entrusted to me. I cannot in good conscience launch a two-year statewide campaign that will detract from the commitment I made to the people who elected me.”

If King enters the race, it could draw the attention of Karl Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, which has indicated that it would oppose King should he run for the Harkin’s seat. The new group has established the goal of nominating more Republicans who have a better chance of winning general elections.

“This is just another potential candidate in a long line of Republicans who have decided not to face down the extremist elements within their own party,” Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said in a statement.

Latham’s decision was reported earlier by the Des Moines Register.
On the Democratic side, Rep. Bruce Braley has said he plans to run and so far faces no other serious challengers.

Original post is Latham’s Decision to Avoid Senate Bid May Clear Path for King by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Goldman/AP Photo

Karl Rove, former Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush, left, talks to Sen. Orrin Hatch, on the floor of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Aug. 27, 2012.

For more than a decade, Republicans have looked to Karl Rove for the solution.

Now, a growing number see him as the problem.

Rove, 62, has put his imprimatur and donor money behind the Conservative Victory Project, formed to choose more electable Republican candidates and avoid such defeats as those of Todd Akin in Missouri and Richard Mourdock in Indiana, two races the party was banking on winning as part of expanding its U.S. Senate caucus.

“I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states,” Gingrich wrote in a Human Events article published yesterday. “No one person is smart enough nor do they have the moral right to buy nominations across the country,” added Gingrich, whose 2012 bid for the Republican presidential nomination was aided by $21.5 million in donations from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his family to a friendly super-political action committee.

The fight between Rove and other Republican officials and activists is a proxy for the larger issues the party faces as its traditional apparatus wanes in campaigns dominated by independent groups and big-dollar donors.

See the full report on Rove at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Rove as Kingmaker Rejected by Republicans Seeking Better Returns by Political Capital.

One question former Sen. Chuck Hagel hasn’t been asked during his confirmation hearings for defense secretary: Does he like chocolate?

Chris Edwards would like to know. His family’s Edward Marc Chocolatier shop in the Pentagon is the Department of Defense’s unofficial purveyor of sweets, and is filled by soldiers and military officials during lunch hour. This week, the most popular item at the Pentagon store is a heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day.

Politicos are natural chocoholics, he says.

“It’s all about the euphoria,” said Edwards, who joined the business after working in government. “Chocolate enhances chemicals in the brain.”

The former special assistant to President George W. Bush and deputy chief of staff to Sarah Palin during her 2008 campaign has clients on both sides of the aisle.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave out Edward Marc chocolate medallions at the Inaugural Luncheon last month. Under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, chocolates imprinted with her signature and the department seal were a favor at official dinners.

Palin’s affection for the peanut butter meltaway is memorialized in her book “Going Rogue.” Republican strategist Karl Rove says the salted caramels are his favorite. They retail for $12 for a box of eight.

The company is based in Pittsburgh, where Edwards’s great-grandparents opened a soda fountain in 1914. Today it is known as the Milk Shake Factory. Edwards plans to open one in the nation’s capital next year.

Stephanie Green (@stephlgreen) writes for Bloomberg Muse (@BloombergMuse), the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News.

Original post is Political Chocoholics Visit Pentagon Shop for Valentine’s Day by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A Tea Party protester in San Francisco, California.

Karl Rove says he isn’t at war with the Tea Party.

Then he blasts the Tea Party groups complaining about his new venture into Republican primary races.

Rove was speaking with fellow Fox News employee Sean Hannity last night to explain the Conservative Victory Project, a super-political action committee that will spend money in Republican primary races, territory that other well-funded groups including the party itself have declined to traverse.

Yet, “this is not Tea Party versus the establishment,” Rove said.

His two other groups, the super-PAC American Crossroads and nonprofit Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, are “second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates,” Rove said.

He unsheathed his weapon, a white board, and continued explaining that the Crossroads entities had spent at about $50 million on Tea Party candidates in the 2010 and 2012 elections. The names on his white board included Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio, Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul, Pennsylvania’s Sen. Pat Toomey, and 2010 Senate hopefuls Sharron Angle of Nevada and Ken Buck of Colorado.

There were no 2012 names on the white board.Rove said later in the program that his Crossroads groups had raised $320 million last year.

So why are the anti-tax Tea Party groups dissing his new venture? Rove said, in effect, it’s because their work is inferior to his own Crossroads operation.

He called those complaining about him “fundraising entities” where “most of the money gets sucked up into overhead and goes to the pockets of the person who owns the website or owns the political action committee.” By contrast, Rove said, he is a “volunteer” for Crossroads and even pays for his own expenses.

The list of organizations unhappy about the Conservative Victory Project includes: FreedomWorks, For America, the Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, Teapparty.org and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Developer Donald Trump and conservative talk radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin also have said Rove shouldn’t meddle in primaries. Near the end of the Hannity interview, Rove said, “I don’t want a fight.”

Original post is Rove: ‘I Don’t Want a (Tea Party) Fight’ — with Fighting Words by Political Capital.

Photograph by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

Ray Lewis #52 of the Baltimore Ravens celebrates with the Vince Lombardi trophy after the Ravens won 34-31 against the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl XLVII at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Feb. 3, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Steven Law, one of the strategists with Karl Rove in the Conservative Victory Project, said this morning on Laura Ingraham’s radio show that the group is compatible with the Tea Party, adding that it would back a wide range of candidates in Republican primaries.

Ingraham shot back: “Why should you be the arbiter of all things conservative in the primary process?”

Law said reiterated that his group’s goal is to help the most electable conservative candidates win office.

Brent Bozell, leader of the group For America, a social media group that identifies its goals as promoting limited government, a strong national defense and Judeo-Christian values, complains that “these fake conservatives need to go away before they do more damage.”

Bozell, appearing later on Ingraham’s show today, said Law and Rove should “retire from politics” because their results in 2012 and earlier elections have been “disastrous.”

He called their labeling of the new group “conservative” offensive.

“It’s like Brent Bozell calling himself Ray Lewis,” he said, alluding to the retiring linebacker for the Super Bowl champion football team, the Baltimore Ravens.

Original post is Law vs. Bozell: How Ray Lewis Fits In Picture by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Ken Koeppe wears tea bags on his hat during an Americans For Prosperity rally.

A new Karl Rove plan to spend money in Republican primary races has stoked anger among Republicans who think the party needs to track right rather than to the center, Bloomberg News reports.

“Their idea of the most electable presidential candidate was Mitt Romney, and before him John McCain and before him Bob Dole,” said Brent Bozell, the leader of For America, a social media group that identifies its goals as promoting limited government, a strong national defense and Judeo-Christian values.

“These fake conservatives need to go away before they do more damage,” he said in an e-mailed statement this morning. A blog on For America’s website makes the same argument.

Bozell’s tone matches that of Erick Erickson, editor of conservative website Redstate.com. In a post this morning, Erickson wrote that Rove and his associates at the super-PAC American Crossroads and its nonprofit companion Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies “spent hundreds of millions of rich donors’ money and had jack to show for it.”

Erickson writes that Rove’s new political group, the Conservative Victory Project, will make it easy ”to figure out who the terrible candidates will be in 2014″ — the ones supported by the project.

The Conservative Victory Project is meant as a counterweight to other outside groups that have played in recent Republican primaries, The New York Times reported yesterday. Rove and fellow Crossroads associate Steven Law are behind the project, the Times reported.

Teaparty.org, a social media group that aggregates information about the anti-tax movement, interpreted this new Rove venture as a hostile move. It responded accordingly, featuring a Breitbart headline on its blog: “Rove Declares War on Tea Party.”

Original post is Rove and ‘Fake Conservatives:’ ‘Go Away,’ Bozell Says by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Representative Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio, greets delegates at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 4, 2012.

To the losers go the TV deals:

This just in from The Plain Dealer and wires: Cleveland’s own Dennis Kucinich, the retired congressman and liberal firebrand, has a new assignment.

FOX News contributor.

Kucinich, 66, a former Cleveland mayor as well as congressman, will debut in his new role on ““The O’Reilly Factor” at 8 p.m. He’ll soon appear on a variety of other Fox programs as well, the Plain Dealer reports, sometimes once a week, sometimes more often.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Kucinich told his hometown paper in a telephone interview. “I’ve had a good relationship with Fox over the years. They’ve always been open to letting me express my point of view.”

He has signed a multi-year contract, but would not discuss the terms. As for the possibility of getting rich off TV, he said, “I never look at the world in those terms.”

The deal came together quickly, he says after Fox invited him to New York. “This was not negotiated by an agent.”

Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes says he’s always been impressed with Kucinich’s fearlessness and thoughtfulness on the issues, according to the Associated Press, which was first with the story. “His willingness to take a stand from his point of view makes him a valuable voice in our country’s debate,” Ailes said in a statement emailed to The Plain Dealer.

Kucinich’s erstwhile desire to impeach former Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t stand in the way of his TV career.

Redistricting stood in the way of his congressional future, however — he lost his Democratic primary to another member last year after the two were drawn into the same Cleveland-area boundaries. Democrat Marcy Kaptur of Toledo took over.

Then again, losing has never stood in the way of Fox contributors: Sarah Palin ran for vice president and lost. Mike Huckabee ran for president and lost.

Pat Buchanan reigned for a time on CNN and MSNBC after losing a couple of presidential campaigns — the butterfly ballot-vote in Palm Beach was not enough to carry him over the line.

And just as MSNBC needed some right-leaners, even FOX needs a House liberal.

And FOX, too, did sign Karl Rove up today for “four more years.”

(He was a winner in 2000 and 2004, though a loser in ’12.)

Original post is Kucinich to Fox: ‘Open’ to His Views by Political Capital.