Ingenious!
Here we all thought Karl Rove was bashing Delaware conservative Christine O’Donnell and all along he was just raising money for her senatorial campaign.
Karl Rove walked back his attacks on Christine O’Donnell this morning on FOX News.
O’Donnell is 11 down coming out of the primary.
Talking Points Memo posted part of the transcript:
“My job as a Fox analyst is to call it as I see them,” Rove explained this morning. “My job is not to be a cheerleader for every Republican.”
Rove listed all the reasons he’s said in the past why O’Donnell has destroyed the GOP’s (already outside) chances at a Senate majority — the problems with “honesty” he first mentioned on Hannity, her strange finances, etc — but then made it clear that he’s 100% behind the party’s rising star.
“Look, I endorsed her the other night,” he said this morning. “I was one of the first to do it.”
Not only that, Rove says, he’s actually responsible for the NRSC begrudgingly getting behind O’Donnell after trying to destroy her for weeks in opposition research emails blasted across DC. Rove said that after he called the NRSC and asked them “why the heck” they told Fox they weren’t going to give O’Donnell any money, they cut her a check right away (he also said Fox was incorrect in its initial reporting that the NRSC wasn’t going to back O’Donnell anyway.)
What’s more, Rove said, his criticisms of O’Donnell have led to thousands of dollars in contributions for the candidate. What could be more helpful than that?
“So many people have written me an email saying, ‘I’m irritated with you, saying what you said the other night, I’ve given her a campaign contribution, I’m sending her an internet contribution,'” Rove said.
