Karl Rove is not only the primary bundler of SuperPAC money enabled by the Citizens United ruling, but he's also the central figure frequently cited in the most reputable allegations of election fraud in the 2000 and 2004 elections. This is and should be a disturbing development. So he bears watching before the election to see what the world will have to contend with on election night. His recent column in the Wall Street Journal was chilling, not because political partisans often try to express confidence and convince their fickle potential supporters that they could be on a winning ship, but because it appeared to set forth the talking points for others to explain why a rigged Ohio ballot would have legitimately turned for Romney.

Yesterday brought an optimistic development in which Rove started to use Hurricane Sandy as an excuse for a possible Romney loss, leading to trash talking by folks like Obama advisor David Plouffe that "I think Karl Rove might have said that because a few days ago he predicted a big Romney win, and my sense is Karl is going to be at crossroads himself on Tuesday when he tries to explain to the people who wrote him hundreds of millions of dollars why they fell up short." My reaction to those statements is that if Plouffe and his cohorts are going to gloat about Rove's demise, they have to make absolutely sure that Rove can't convince a Republican governor in Ohio to use its rigged voting machines, some owned by Romney, to deliver a Romney victory there. One of the factors at play here is how badly Rove wants this, and how hard the White House is willing to work to prevent a fraudulent outcome.

Another disturbing development is that as the mainstream media is, as usual, silent about the recent history of electoral fraud, the right-wing press is already mounting its accusations against the Democrats, with FoxNews reporting flipped votes for Obama and the main organization soliciting notifications of fraud being Sheldon Adelson's SuperPAC Winning Our Future, previously aligned with Newt Gingrich, asking Americans to send their cellphone documentations of fraud to them so that they can decide which ones should be aired. Also, the network news has for the past few weeks (I know this only from watching the debates, I don't watch the broadcasts) been promoting the idea of a "statistical dead heat" by citing selected popular vote polls that tilt to Romney, getting the public used to the idea that Romney could win without emphasizing the electoral map and the state polls.

The Citizens United SuperPACs give political operatives a sustained relationship with deep pockets - determined to see a certain outcome of the election - that they wouldn't otherwise have, making the situation different from one in which donors reach their maximum contribution limit and have their index card filed away for the next election cycle. Why is it Sheldon Adelson's SuperPAC that wants to filter news on election fraud, the person who a reporter asked "How much money are you going to spend on this election?" before being pushed by his daughter, while being accompanied to his suite by Rove? This means that the sources of money that can be used to corrupt the system can be directed more easily to the people in a position to sell out the system.

Obviously, the longterm focus should not be on simply demonizing a crooked fixer who tries to exert control over a previously democratic system, assuming another won't take his place if he retires to a Tibetan monastery, but holding accountable the people in positions of power who allowed it to happen and changing the system so that it can't happen again. The Democratic Party has not tried hard enough to repeal Citizens United and create a paper trail for balloting, and it's their constituents, not the revolving door of politician/lobbyists who lead the party, who pay the heaviest price.


Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman on Rove in 2004. Their current columns appear frequently on The Free Press.

Was the 2004 Election Stolen? Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Vanity Fair's Craig Unger, 10/12 "Is Rove Again The Man to Make the Difference?"

J.W. Ennis in 2010: "Karl Rove isn't in it for power anymore.. Karl Rove needs GOP control of the Justice Department so that he can wrap up loose ends and not have to keep looking over his shoulder."

I generally prefer to read transcripts of debates but I watched it last night for some reason, which afforded me the chance to ponder Obama's tendency to look down like he was a boy being scolded, but mostly the benefit from watching it came from seeing that it wasn't as bad for Obama as everyone said. Even Obama adviser Axelrod said Romney would gain 1 to 3 points. The pundits seem most outraged that elected officials had a debate over policy, when they only know how to talk about style points and 'who's up who's down.' The result is that the public saw a debate where the two candidates explained their policies and let the viewers choose between them, something that Obama counted on.

Certain tactics to reinforce the perception that Romney was an unpresidential snake oil salesman were not used, which certainly allowed Romney to possibly raise his positives. Playing it safe comes naturally for Obama and he's winning the polls in swing states by a lot. When the pundits repeat the narrative "why didn't he talk about the '47% line'?", they're talking themselves about the '47% line.' Obama is taking the risk that independent voters may have heard that already and that his surrogates will make those points. Romney put forth the comical notion that he opposed Dodd-Frank because it protected the too big to fail banks. I sympathize a little with Obama the Debater because where do you start with that BS without losing your cool. Dodd-Frank is window dressing that Romney opposed because he opposes all Wall Street regulation.

Obama could have corrected Romney on a lot of the inaccuracies that come continually out of his and Ryan's mouth, and his failure to do so may suggest too much time spent on his Executive Branch hobby. The Republicans have managed to create confusion over the scare tactic that Obamacare would eliminate Medicare Advantage and senior citizens in that program are worried. Political articles I've read take dictation from both parties without factchecking. The business page will tell you that since the Supreme Court approval of Obamacare, the insurance industry has been investing large amounts of money on Medicare Advantage, with the expectation that the only changes in the program will be tied to inflation as in previous years. Obama should have definitely rebutted that because Romney's lie is trying to counter the critique of Ryan's plan, but Obama at least talked about the Ryan plan a bit. Romney exaggerated the failure of Green Energy loans (only 3 companies out of 26 went bankrupt, not "about half") but it forced him to emphasize his opposition to those loans which may come back to bite him.

An economic debate between Obama and Romney begins with the poll numbers that say Romney knows more about the economy and Obama is more concerned about people like them. Romney worked hard to change the second impression and Obama made a half-hearted attempt to rebut that. What the pundits miss is that that gives something for Obama to prove as well as Romney. Obama looked knowledgeable about economic policy and didn't want to take the risk of pointing to Romney and telling the truth about him, hoping they get that somewhere else.

Quite a while back, I decided that Ohio Sen. Rob Portman was the Romney running mate that would cause the most problems for the Democrats, so much so that I superstitiously didn't blog it and hoped no one would catch on - then I saw Charlie Cook say the same thing, and eventually Portman became the perceived frontrunner for the selection.  Romney has to win Ohio, and Portman would have a chance to help him there. Portman has experience in domestic economic policy, though some of it is in the Bush administration, so he'd be able to present himself as a moderate, pragmatic figure that could give voters the impression that they are better capable of handling the economy than Obama and Biden.

Who else would have been good?  Gingrich's campaign exposed how weak Romney's support is in the South and a liaison with the accent could have helped shore up North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and even help in places like Iowa and Ohio. Former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison - who McCain would have been better off with - would have brought a new, moderate personality to that race. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker opposed the Libya War and seems to be appropriating some of Ron Paul's policies but he has some legal baggage.  I don't think Marco Rubio or Bobby Jindal would have played well for different reasons.

A critique I had of the Obama camp is that instead of letting Romney say he's done nothing to create jobs, he should be traveling to close Congressional districts to campaign against House Republican incumbents who obstructed his jobs bill.  Well, now, instead of having a race where the Democratic advantage in presidential politics may, as history suggests, make swing voters vote for the opposing party for Congress, you now have an election year in which House politics is center stage, due to the selection of Paul Ryan.  Where you had a disillusioned Democratic base that was apathetic about the election, they will now be out in droves not just to fight Paul Ryan, but to keep his policies from gaining legislative traction.  This is, of course, because Romney has no polices of his own that he's consistently advocated, so Ryan is a 'turn key deal' in the policy arena.  Much is going to be said about Ryan's Medicare policies, and this is going to affect Senior Citizens' voting patterns and activism not just in presidential politics, but in congressional politics as well.

Overall, Romney should have held out the hope that people would elect him, a rich guy who doesn't tell the truth, flip-flops, runs Bain Capital, the Olympics and Massachusetts because they want his economic experience and decide that his expedient flexibility on the issues may be appropriate to the national situation.  Instead he made the election year a referendum on Paul Ryan. I'm pretty sure it's a strategic disaster for him, not as bad as the Palin choice (which I immediately said would lose the election for McCain), and I welcome the focus of executive and legislative races on substantive disagreements on policy.