After declaring war on the Tea Party and often showing nothing but contempt for grassroots conservatives that powered Republicans to record gains in the 2010 midterm elections, Karl Rove whined that the GOP may not take back the Senate this year because of the lack of enthusiasm for his establishment-approved candidates. 

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Rove notes that even though Obama’s “job approval numbers are lousy, no Democrat in a competitive Senate race polls regularly above 50%, GOP enthusiasm is high, and independents are trending Republican… each passing day provides evidence as to why a GOP Senate majority is still in doubt.”

After declaring war on conservatives and the Tea Party last year, Rove now realizes that the very voters the establishment trashed are not donating to more moderate and establishment Senate candidates in states like North Carolina and Colorado. Rove says that “Republican candidates and groups must step up” to reduce the fundraising gap with Democrats. He said “Republicans must reach a certain sufficiency of advertising in the next six weeks” to “tip the needle in the GOP’s direction.”

Rove said “that will only happen if Republicans open their wallets to candidates whom they may have never met, and, if they live in a battleground state, they clear their calendars to volunteer to identify and get out the vote.” 

Last year, Rove formed the “Conservative Victory Project,” a group whose purported goal, according to the New York Times, is to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s effort to win control of the Senate.”

Breitbart News noted that after Rove formed a PAC to attack conservatives, donations dried up–“Rove’s organization has been so tarnished among the conservative base that candidates fear donors will not contribute to any group associated with him.” As a result, his network has “reloaded with groups that share donors but are technically not affiliated on paper with them” to try to deceive donors and voters even more.

Rove essentially runs “Crossroads GPS, American Crossroads, and the Conservative Victory Project Super PAC,” the PAC formed to combat conservative candidates. Crossroads GPS and American Crossroads reportedly “raised $325 million in 2012” with nothing to show for it. 

For instance, though the GOP establishment blames conservatives for not controlling the Senate, the establishment-backed Senate candidates in the 2012 election cycle lost in battleground states like Virginia, Wisconsin and even Montana, a race that should have been in the GOP column.

On his talk radio show this year, Mark Levin pointed this out: “noting that while candidates backed by Tea Party members like Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio won in 2010, candidates heavily supported by Karl Rove and Mitch McConnell in Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, New Mexico, and Wisconsin all got clobbered in 2012.” 

“All backed by Rove. All backed by McConnell. And all losers,” Levin said. “We must not allow the Republican establishment and their friendly media to work with the liberal media to spin.”

As Breitbart News reported, Levin said that even though “the Republican establishment holds the blame for the GOP’s minority status in the Senate,” its “leadership wants to twist history to absolve themselves of that blame.”

“But for the Tea Party, you’d be nothing, as you were before,” Levin told the GOP establishment. “But for the Tea Party, Pelosi would be Speaker.”