Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is taking pot shots at Republican strategist Karl Rove for the apparent net loss of two Republican Senate seats in Tuesday’s elections.
Schumer, speaking at a breakfast for reporters, went after American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, two groups affiliated with Rove that spent more than $300 million assisting Romney and GOP congressional candidates,
Politico reports.
Rove is one of the party’s top strategists and played a key role in President George Bush’s electoral victories in 2000 and 2004.
“Karl Rove’s reputation is going to take a significant hit,” Schumer said. “If Crossroads was the business and Karl Rove was the CEO, he’d be fired for getting a poor return for his investors.”
Rove’s defense has been that Crossroads prevented President Barack Obama from winning by a bigger margin in almost every swing state. Obama won the popular vote 50 to 48 percent nationally.
Schumer is unmoved by that number. “I’m sure Rove went to [major donors] Sheldon Adelson and Harold Simmons and said, ‘Put up these millions and Obama will win, but we’ll decrease his margin.’ I don’t think Crossroads is going to end up being as much of a player two years from now, as it was right now. I think his reputation has obviously taken a hit.”
Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio didn’t take the senator’s criticism lying down. “Schumer has the credibility of Dick Morris on campaign issues,” he told Politico. The strategist Morris predicted a landslide win for Mitt Romney.
Views about Rove are now mixed in the Republican Party. “Karl played a giant role in the 2012 election and did so for the right reasons,” Terry Nelson, a Republican media consultant and campaign manager for John McCain in 2008, told The Washington Post. “I hope he continues to be a leader in our party in the future.”
But a well-connected GOP strategist told The Post, “He [Rove] has lost his mojo. “He has become total spin, including spinning himself.”
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