Obama’s Attack on Rove Raises Money for Rove

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


For days, President Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee have been slamming Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie for pouring millions of dollars from secret sources into House and Senate campaigns via two groups they co-founded, all to benefit Republican candidates. In response, Rove (falsely) accused the president of creating an enemies list. But he really should say, thank you. On Wednesday morning, Jonathan Collegio, communications director of the two Rove/Gillespie groups, sent out an email to reporters, noting that the Obama blasts have been very, very good for the Rove operation:

American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have raised more than $13.3 million since Barack Obama and the Democrats launched their broadside against us last Tuesday. We have blown through our initial $50 million fundraising goal, with $56 million raised across both groups as of today. We have increased our overall fundraising goal to $65 million.

This additional funding has enabled us to initiate the new $10 million House Surge strategy, as detailed in today’s Wall Street Journal, and dedicate an additional $5 million to our Senate efforts.

In other words, please, Mr. President, hit us again. Please.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate