Fight Rove's big money bid for a 2012 Senate takeover

Don't let him win in November. Karl Rove's math might have been shaky on the polls in 2006, but it works just fine when he's tallying up the numbers for the millions raised by his various Super PACs. This story from a Business Week reporter who attended Rove's "exclusive breakfast briefing to about 70 of the Republican party's highest-earning and most powerful donors" on the final day of the convention bares all the details.

Rove motivated the attendees to cough up millions more by telling them of the millions he's raised to use against "the bad guys" not to elect Mitt Romney, but to get Barack Obama out of the White House. It's not just the White House, though, he's got his sights on the trifecta: White House, House, and critically, the Senate.

Rove's analysis of the Senate races was technical and masterly. The Republicans need four seats to gain a majority, and Rove said he feels 'really good' about Nebraska and is optimistic about North Dakota, even though Democrats have a strong candidate in former state Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp. 'We're deeply engaged' there, Rove said. In Wisconsin, former Governor Tommy Thompson 'has an excellent shot to win'he has a quirky, cross-party appeal.' Virginia is going to be tight and will likely mirror the way the state votes in the presidential race. Of those, Rove declared, 'we can win three.'

In Connecticut, Rove noted that Linda McMahon, the former head of World Wrestling Entertainment, whom he had once written off, was running a 'really smart campaign.' And the state, he noted, had moved more to the right. 'Those affluent, socially liberal, economically conservative people in Fairfield County and the New York suburbs have finally figured out that their pocketbooks matter more than abortion.'

To "juice" the crowd, he told the billionaires about an offer he got from another billionaire, "offering to donate $10 million to be deployed in Florida'$5 million for Republican Congressman Connie Mack's Senate race against incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson," with the other $5 million going to the presidential race.

Rove wants the Senate, and he's invested heavily in getting it'$70 million from American Crossroads alone. But when he's got damaged goods like Akin and McMahon to run with, he's got a big deficit.

We can beat all of Rove's money with better candidates, and so far we are winning. It's worth reading that whole post from Markos again, but focus on this:

But what about conservative billionaires? How can we fight off the millions of Super PAC dollars as conservative billionaires try to buy the election? We already are. See those Obama poll numbers above? He has already faced nearly $100 million in conservative Super Pac attack ads and his numbers have gone up.

And it's not just Obama. Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown was supposed to be the most endangered senator this cycle'a freshman that was too crazy liberal for his closely divided state. As of early July, he had already faced $10.5 million in Super PAC attack ads, far more than any other. Yet through this year, his numbers have improved.

What Markos sez: "Their billions and their candidates aren't getting it done." We can get it done, not with millions and millions like Rove, but with smart money to smart candidates.

We can not only hold the Senate, we can make the Senate better. We can make Karl Rove's math fail as badly in 2012 as it did in 2006.

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