American Crossroads defends campaign spending to donors
Washington (CNN) - Officials from the Republican super PAC American Crossroads, including its co-founder Karl Rove, defended their campaign spending and talked about the group's future during a conference call Thursday with 50 of its top donors.
Participants agreed they would not discuss the contents of the call with the media.
American Crossroads and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS, aired tens of millions of dollars worth of television ads aimed at defeating President Barack Obama as well as wresting control of the Senate from Democrats by going after incumbents and challengers in key races.
The two groups exceeded their fund-raising goal of $300 million for this election cycle.
Among those on the call was broadcast executive Stanley Hubbard, who refused to discuss what was said during it except to say "it was very friendly. I didn't hear any negative feedback or comments."
The Sunlight Foundation, a non-profit organization which tracks the influence of money on politics and works to make government more transparent, released an analysis Thursday questioning the effectiveness of American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS this campaign.
Using available data, the Sunlight Foundation said of the $103.5 million American Crossroads spent in the general election, 1.29% of it ended in the desired result. None of the candidates American Crossroads supported won, and most of the candidates it opposed were victorious.
Crossroads GPS, which does not have to disclose its donors, spent $70 million during the general election with 14.4% of it having the result it wanted, according to Sunlight Foundation's analysis. In the key Senate races in which it ran ads, Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley's defeat was the one success it had.
Obama's defeat and the Republicans gaining control of the Senate were major aims for these groups and their contributors - and neither one was accomplished.
Following Election Day, officials from Crossroads have worked to soothe the concerns of large and small donors through phone calls and other communications.
"Donors have questions globally about what worked and didn't, and while all are disappointed with Tuesday's results, most have expressed a strong interest in our continuity and support for new efforts in 2014," American Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio told CNN.
Democrats, who at the start of the campaign were worried they would be far out-spent by Republican super PACs and other independent groups, have been eager to raise questions about their record following the election. For its part, Crossroads officials said they still had a major impact and kept Republicans competitive.
"Democrats leveraged their incumbency to dramatically out-raise and outspend their Republican opponents this cycle, and Republican outside groups balanced that spending out to keep this a two point race all the way to the end," Collegio said.
Rove also defended the super PACs' effectiveness. He pointed out in an interview with Fox News, where he is a political analyst, that American Crossroads was quicker to come to Mitt Romney's defense when the attacks on his business career first began.
"The first group to respond to the attacks on Bain, on Bain Capital, were not the Romney campaign. It was American Crossroads with an ad in July," Rove said.
One major Republican fund-raiser, who was not involved with the major super PACs and related groups involved in the presidential campaign this year, and who requested anonymity to speak freely, told CNN "you have to look at how effectively" the groups operated.
The fundraiser said if he were a donor to a Republican super PAC, "I'd question the return on their investment."
As to whether he thinks his donations were a waste, Stanley Hubbard told CNN "I think when you are helping in the democratic process it is never a waste."
With the election now over, American Crossroads is preparing to engage in the next battle to hit Washington: what to do about the fiscal cliff of major spending cuts and expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts that will hit at the end of the year unless there is action by Congress and the president.
Republican outside groups spent twice what Mitt Romney did on advertising in battleground states this campaign - $411 million to $180 million.
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It's time for weasels like Karl Rove to crawl back under their rock. Republicans need to run their campaigns with honesty, integrity, and compassion. They need to step away from the extremists who pollute the process lies, distortions, and low-class personal attacks. They need to move back and become a party of honor.
Roee and his billionaire friends got blasted away by Obama and they can't stand it, Thwy're trying to come up with a rationalization about why they got beat. Rove, the big predictor, was a big loser and way off on his predictions this time as he was a few other times. Big donors such as Adelson lost nearly every race they backed.
He and they can't face the simple truth: Americans hate super packs and they don't like the ultra-right extremism that has taken control of the GOP and the Republican House. Republican veteran David Gergen said on CNN that the GOP went too far right and need to change their ideology if they want to stay valid as a party.
He has always been mean spirited and nasty. Guess he is not 'the fair haired boy' of the GOP anymore.
Goes to show... money can't buy class (or a diet from the looks of it).
I would really like to know how much Rove pocketed of the money sent to his groups. I would bet he has taken millions for himself for his hard work. What a scam.
AH HAH HAH HAAAAA!!!!
... Ahem... rich donors dropping huge chunks of money got outspent by fundraising that the majority of it came from tons of people like me who chipped in $20.
Serves them all right. Personally I can't wait for the day (perhaps soon to come in the digital age) when money does not get you ANYTHING in an election. The last minute ads where Romney mislead (to put it lightly, check politifact for details) people about Chrysler backfired on him according to analysts.
Super PACs come into the world just in time for the internet and mass media to start making them irrelevant... I am delirious with hope that very soon no one will be able to buy elections any more, whether you are homeless or a billionaire. It will be a better world, I can guarantee that.
Karl Rove is delusional ... and I hope all those donors realize that the policies he is proposing are not only failures, the American electorate knows it, too!
And yet they balk at paying just a little bit more in taxes to help pay down the debt. Here's a thought...maybe have a fund raiser to pay off the Iraqi war portion of the debt.
Good luck-I'm sure you are hoping for a hurricane to develop....
Obfuscation, thy name is Karl Rove, and apparently either the $$ men are still buying it, or they just can't stand to say they wasted that much money on a king maker who had nothing to work with.
Rove thought the Republican Super PAC's financed by right wing multi-millionaires, billionaries and multi-billionaires could "buy" the Whitehouse and the U S Senate. Rove's idea was to bury the Democrats with the money from super-wealty Republican donors. BUT, Rove's plan failed to work the way he had envisioned. Thank the American electorate for recognizing Rove's money-based attack on our democracy and defeating Rove and his money men at the polls!
And Karl Rove says.... "Hey, trust me with all your millions of dollars. I won't privately stash any of it. Come on, I was one of the watergate guys!"
The "Job Creators" have no interest in the unemployment rate when they're wasting billions on SuperPacs. If you took the net worth the top 400 wealthiest Americans you could employ 27,488,667 people making $60,000 per year.
Repeal Citizens United! It's not good for citizens of this nation at all, no matter its name! It's all about "corperations are people" so they can sink ungodly amounts of $$$ into our campaigns! That makes it hard for actual citizens to have their concerns heard & acknowledged! It also makes it hard for independent parties to compete, since they can't raise that kind of cash! Elections are an extention of "we, the people" who are the government & politicians are supposed to be our spokespeople in Washington! How can the populace compete w/big biz!? We can't continue to allow this crazy law to put us in the position of being an afterthought & eventually completely forgotten!!
These donors should know that Karl Rove is anything but an honest person. In spite of all the foreign money he is suspected of soliciting (quite possibly Saudi Arabian), he was not even close in his projections of the races. I'm surprised these greedy billionaires aren't demanding their money back.
This is another example of the inability to buy an election. There is only so far spending money can go. Romney demonstrated that in the 08 Iowa caucus when Huckabee beat him. This is another reason why I think that we need less money in politics. We can do more with that.
American Crossroads motivated me to donate to and work for President Obama! Thank you, Karl Rove and all your supporters, for your endlessly misleading ads.
Rove is a lying, morally bereft charlatan. He should be in jail, and not handling finances and funds from gullible donors, who have more money than brains.
they tried to buy a presidency, and all they got was the hot air from inside Karl Rove's shiny dome.
Officials from the Republican super PAC American Crossroads, including its co-founder Karl Rove, defended their campaign spending and talked about the group's future during a conference call Thursday with 50 of its top donors.
Participants agreed they would not discuss the contents of the call with the media.
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I'm sure it wasn't a very peasant conference call !
Poor old Karl Rove talking about the the future of the GOP is like Big Bird speaking at a KFC convention .
Didn't Karl's buddy once say , " Fool me once same on you , Fool me twice , We don't get fooled again ?
Crossroads GPS, which does not have to disclose its donors, spent $70 million during the general election with 14.4% of it having the result it wanted, according to Sunlight Foundation's analysis. None of the candidates GPS supported won.
"This was a Great Investment boys!"
– Rove
They won't let the media know what was said because Rove didn't want his foot-in-mouth moment to be caught again. Rove has had alot explaining to do on his ROI. He also does not have the power over americans like he thought he had.
Super PAC should be ban. This will make the candidates indebted to their donors which they will have to please once they get elected.
trying to buy elections is never patriotic.
All of that money and they are complaining about expiring tax cuts potentially being "crippling." Yeah right