Has Karl Rove’s SuperPAC Given Up on Romney?
Back last spring, when I was reporting a piece about the hedge fund industry’s shift of its support away from Barack Obama and toward the Republicans, I had an interesting exchange with a former Democratic fundraiser about American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, the organization co-founded by Karl Rove. As I reported at the time:
…that people [the former fundraiser] used to raise money from on Wall Street were reporting that Rove’s pitch to them for Crossroads contributions was specifically that, whether or not [Mitt] Romney could mount a serious challenge to Obama, Crossroads would be focusing on winning back the Senate for Republicans and holding the House, thereby guaranteeing that legislation these funders feared from a second-term Obama—say, the closing of the carried-interest loophole benefiting private equity and hedge fund partners—would never make it into law. “Rove is telling these donors, ‘I’m going to crack the Senate for Republicans,’” said the former fundraiser. “These donors are worried about their taxes going up and that’s why he can go and pitch them. He’s focused on the Senate. It’s ‘If Obama’s going to punch at the rich guys, well, we’re going to stop [him] from passing carried interest.’”
I hadn’t thought about that for a while, because we kept hearing about all the massive investments that Crossroads and other conservative outside groups were making over the summer on Romney’s behalf, for ads attacking Obama over, among other things, his “you didn’t build that” comment. But I got thinking about it again this week when I saw the latest tally of spending by all GOP-favoring outside groups on ads backing Romney…