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Conservative strategist Karl Rove on Sunday lashed out at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) after she used her speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to blast his super PAC for "vetting our candidates."

Following major losses in the 2012 elections, Rove launched the Conservative Victory Project to pick conservative candidates who could win -- instead of fringe tea party favorites like former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), who said that women could not get pregnant from "legitimate rape."

On Saturday, Palin took to the podium at CPAC and called Rove's effort the "last thing we need."

"The architects can head on back to the great Lone Star state and put their names on some ballot," she said.

In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, it was clear that Palin had gotten under Rove's skin because he took a shot at her for quitting halfway through her first term as Alaska governor.

"I have to set the record straight," Rove told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "I'm a volunteer. I don't take a dime for my work with [super PAC] American Crossroads. I even pay my own travel expenses out of my own pocket. I thought Sarah Palin was about encouraging grassroots volunteer activity, I'm a volunteer."

"Second of all, look, I appreciate her encouragement that I ought to go home to run for office," he continued. "I would be enthused if I ran for office to have her support."

"I would say this, though. I don't think I'm a particularly good candidate, sort of a balding, fat guy. And second of all, I'd say if I did run for office and win, I'd serve out my term, I wouldn't leave office midterm."

It should be noted that Rove did leave his unelected office before the end of President Bush's term.

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Author Bob Woodward on Sunday blasted Republican strategist Karl Rove for creating a super PAC that acts as a Soviet-style "Politburo" with the de facto power to decide Republican primaries.

During a panel segment on Fox News Sunday, Rove insisted that he had founded the Conservative Victory Project super PAC to "avoid having stupid candidates who can't win general elections... because this money is too difficult to raise to be spending it on behalf of candidates who have little chance of winning in general elections."

Also appearing on the panel, Woodward seemed shocked that Rove was still successful in courting Republican donors after his American Crossroads super PAC got only only a 1 percent return on $103 million in spending during 2012 election.

"My last book is going to be called 'Some People Never Go Away' and Karl's going to get his own chapter because he never goes away," Woodward snarked. "Maybe two chapters because you never know what the next bounce will be with you."

"But what's interesting is the focus on money," he conintued. "I think the problem in the Republican Party is really not money. I think they've got lots of it. I think it is theory of the case, 'Why are we here? What is our message? How to connect to the real world?' And this idea about $30 million [in campaign spending] here or we're going to do that, I think is the wrong track."

"A lot of this is just examining these candidates, looking at their record, doing the kind of research on ourselves that the other side is already going to be doing and trying to have discussions behind the scenes among conservative groups as to how strong are these respective candidates," Rove explained.

Woodward interrupted: "But you're going to set yourself up as a kind of Politburo vetting these candidates. I mean, the whole theory of Republicanism is to let the local, state or district decide."

"We believe in markets," Rove replied. "It's just the opposite of the Politburo. The more people that participate, the better off we are. The more we examine the quality of these candidates from top to bottom, the more likely we end up with fewer Christine O'Donnells and more Rand Pauls."

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As Digby noted, it seems the Republicans are now trying to kill the Frankenstein monster they created:

Karl Rove was instrumental in creating this monster. Now it's got a mind of its own.

It's hard to know how this will play out. The Tea Party is really just the re-branding of the far right of the Republican Party. But it may just be that the establishment made a mistake in doing that. They don't see themselves as Republicans anymore. They see themselves as a distinct movement that wants to explicitly run the Republican Party.

The wingnuts have always had real power within their Party but they didn't know it. Now they do. And they have spent the last 30 years having people like Karl Rove rev them up and expand their egos into believing they represent a majority of Americans and have a responsibility to hew to their principles no matter what. It was a good way to market conservatism. But it was never true.

Rove, Tea Party in GOP civil war:

As they try to pick up the pieces from last fall’s defeat, the establishment and Tea Party wings of the GOP are at each other’s throats.

Karl Rove, fresh off the multi-million dollar disaster that was 2012, has launched a new initiative, The New York Times reported Saturday. Known as the Conservative Victory Project, the group, a spin-off of Rove’s American Crossroads, will help recruit establishment Republicans, as well as defend Senate incumbents against challenges from more conservative candidates.

The aim, in a nutshell, is to push back against the Tea Party and bring the GOP’s nominating process back under the control of the party’s Washington power-brokers. In recent cycles, Tea Party-backed Senate candidates have won the Republican nomination over more moderate GOPers, only to be defeated in the general election. In several cases—think of Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remarks—they’ve been done in thanks in part to campaign trail slip-ups that more seasoned candidates might have avoided.

But the news has triggered a full-blown revolt among conservative activists, both inside and outside Washington. Read on...

And here's more from Steve Benen: Welcoming the Conservative Victory Project to the field:

Continue reading »