Huffington Magazine Issue 1 | Page 36

Voices in plain sight – the plainer the better. Federal election laws are laughably weak, but they are supposed to bar a candidate’s campaign from “coordinating” with “independent” Pacs, among them Rove’s own American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Rove’s prominence is the easiest and most deliberately obvious way around the law. Deeply respected (as well as feared and despised) within the party for his 40-year track record – not to mention his access to Texas and Texas-size donors — he acts publicly as a Bat Signal in the media sky and privately as a clearinghouse of tactics, information, advice and fundraising intel. This year, Svengali wanted Mitt Romney to be the Republican nominee. The former governor of Massachusetts was well liked by the Bush Family, Rove’s ultimate patrons and longtime employers. Ostensibly but not actually neutral, Rove used his perch on Fox News (run by his old Bush Family friend Roger Ailes) to trash Mitt’s GOP primary foes (Newt Gingrich was a “whiner) and offer on-air counsel to Romney. “My responsibility as an analyst was to call them as I see them,” Rove told HOWARD FINEMAN HUFFINGTON 06.17.12 me coolly, “and that naturally invites disagreement.” Now, in the general election, Rove can exert even more influence. Top Romney aide Beth Myers, who is in charge of vetting veep contenders, got her training under Rove in the 1980s. Campaign manager Matt Rhoades served as Rove’s key “opposition research” person in the 2004 election, helping Once frame John Kerry as a known flip-flopping, French as ‘Turd fry loving, fop. Blossom,’ To ensure that later as ‘the things go smoothly at Architect,’ Romney headquarRove, at 61, ters, the campaign is more recruited as a senior powerful advisor Ed Gillespie, than ever.” a likable and effective GOP operative and long time Rove friend who helped found Crossroads. Rove’s career is a testament to Nietzsche’s dictum that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. He learned as a teenager that he was adopted. His stepfather was gay. His mother committed suicide when he was 20. He was banished from President George H.W. Bush’s 1992 campaign for leaking an attack on a rival aide.