Karl Rove’s role as a godfather to a massive spending effort on behalf of congressional Republicans has made him an increasingly prominent target for Democrats, clean election advocates and some conservatives — even as he and his allies have waged an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to distance him from those efforts.

“Karl Rove is back — like an even worse sequel to a movie panned by the critics,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wrote Wednesday in a fundraising solicitation for Democratic Senate candidates being targeted by ads from American Crossroads, an independent group conceived by Rove and fellow Bush operative Ed Gillespie last fall.

Launched early this year as part of a suite of new or revamped conservative groups designed to balance the well-funded extra-party political infrastructure built by liberals during the Bush years, American Crossroads and a sister group called Crossroads GPS have become major players in the midterm elections, airing millions of dollars' worth of ads boosting Republicans and ripping Democrats. And they figure to become even more active as Election Day approaches, thanks to the whopping $32 million raised in large part by Rove.

But for months, staff members of the two groups have contended in phone calls, e-mails — even a legal memo — to journalists and watchdog groups that Rove and Gillespie’s involvement in American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS has been overstated, even quibbling with the use of the two men’s names and photos in stories about the groups.

Occasionally, Rove and Gillespie have picked up the phone to make the case themselves.

Their efforts have elicited a slew of changes, clarifications and corrections from media outlets ranging from small online publications to the Los Angeles Times that had reported or suggested that Rove and Gillespie controlled or otherwise had formal roles in the groups.

But their protestations have done little to dampen Democratic efforts to spotlight Rove’s involvement, in particular, to try to rile up their base and raise money, and also to convince voters that a vote for Republicans is a vote for returning to the Bush years. 

In a fundraising solicitation this month, Democratic strategist James Carville urged party loyalists to contribute to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to counteract Rove’s efforts.

“Not only is he hitting the campaign trail for his favorite Bush-loving Republicans, but one of his own shadow groups just announced that they’re dumping special interest money into attack ads and phone calls aimed at ginning up the Republican base to vote,” Carville wrote.

Democratic polls have found Rove to be extremely unpopular, one senior party strategist told POLITICO. The strategist, who did not want to be indentified discussing private polling, said independents “aren’t happy when they learn that Karl Rove is back trying to influence policy and elections. They figure Karl was too much part of the problem in the first place.”

A TV spot aired this month by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who has been targeted by more than $1 million in negative ads from American Crossroads in his campaign against Republican Ken Buck, tried to evoke that memory.

“Seen this ad for Ken Buck?” a narrator asks in Bennet’s ad, as a still shot of an anti-Bennet Crossroads ad appears on screen. “It’s courtesy of George Bush’s political strategist Karl Rove,” the narrator continues as the ad flashes photos of Bush and Rove behind an August USA Today headline reading “Karl Rove groups spend nearly $1 million on Senate ads.”

That headline — like so many others on the subject – overstated Rove’s involvement , according to Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for American Crossroads, who called Democratic efforts to target Rove “desperate.”

“If Republicans are talking about jobs, the economy, the failed stimulus, the largest tax hike in history, multi-trillion-dollar deficits and wasteful new entitlements — and the Democrats’ retort involves the former president’s deputy chief of staff and a group he supports, the Democrats will lose far more seats than anyone imagines,” said Collegio.

Still, Collegio said he has had to make a concerted effort to correct mischaracterizations of the role he says Rove and Gillespie actually played.

“I’ve probably asked for 20-30 corrections in the past three months (from small blogs to the NYT editorial page), and I believe many are changed without a statement of correction,” he wrote Wednesday in an e-mail to POLITICO, which — at Collegio’s request — has also changed or corrected references to Rove and Gillespie’s roles.

“While both Rove and Gillespie encouraged the formation of the groups, neither is on the board, is compensated, consults for or is on any of the incorporating documents,” Collegio explained, adding that emphasizing Rove and Gillepsie’s roles implicitly “diminish the roles of other [American Crossroads] executives, most notably [Crossroads chairman] Mike Duncan and [president] Steven Law.”

Yet, GOP donors and consultants say Rove and Gillespie’s impact on the Crossroads groups — as well as a related group located in the same office suite called American Action Network and other independent groups boosting Republicans — cannot be overestimated.

Not only did they flag the need for such groups and help sketch out the blueprint, but they were involved in recruiting their staff — including Duncan and Law — and have worked to ensure that the groups coordinate their efforts without overlapping.

Soon after American Crossroads debuted, one person involved in organizing the groups told POLITICO that Rove provided “a laying-on of hands” for the groups partly by persuading major Republican donors who had become stingier with their giving to support the groups.

Rove’s efforts on behalf of the groups have sparked grumbling from some establishment Republicans who contend he is undercutting the Republican National Committee.

And mostly Democratic advocates for stricter campaign finance rules have made Rove the poster child in their effort to pass White House-backed legislation to blunt the effect of a January Supreme Court ruling that accorded new flexibility to American Crossroads, Crossroads GPS and other 501(c)(4) and 527 groups that can accept corporate funding and that, in the case of 501(c)(4)'s, don't have to report donors.

It’s “such a scary thought” that such groups are now able to function with less oversight, asserted Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a floor speech last week supporting the legislation. He noted “one such group, American Crossroads, the leader in campaign spending in the Senate, was created by Karl Rove, who pledged to spend $50 million on just the 2010 election cycle.” 

Citing a recent news story focusing on Crossroads GPS and American Action Network, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) on Wednesday called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate political activity by non-profits registered under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code.

Rove’s assistant said he was at a speaking engagement and unavailable to comment for this story. But last month, while filling in as a guest host on Rush Limbaugh’s popular syndicated radio show, Rove asserted that the media is purposefully misrepresenting his role to undercut the Crossroads groups.

“I’m helping ‘em,” Rove said after detailing a poll Crossroads was set to release and praising the group’s mission and staff. “Now, that has not stopped the press from attacking ‘em. In fact, it’s encouraged them because anything that I’m associated with gets attacked, so they’ve attacked American Crossroads by saying first of all that I’m runnin’ it. I’m merely helping raise money and encouraging it.”

Yet last week, in a segment on Bill O’Reilly’s show on Fox News, for which Rove serves as a political analyst, Rove did not correct O’Reilly when he referred to the group as “your American Crossroads group” and said “You co-founded an organization called America’s Crossroads.”

Rove and Crossroads are trying to have it both ways, said Shelia Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks political money and has covered American Crossroads’s efforts to meet its $52 million fundraising goal.

Krumholz said the group appears to be trying to minimize Rove's and Gillespie’s fingerprints while simultaneously enjoying the benefit of their insider connections because of “the PR consideration that Rove, in particular, and Gillespie to a point are lightning rods for criticism.”

Last month Krumholz received a sternly worded letter from a lawyer for Crossroads requesting the center “immediately” correct a blog post stating that Rove and Gillespie “formed” American Crossroads.

“As an organization dedicated to providing accurate information to the public, I request that ... [the] article be immediately corrected, and I trust that this error will not be made in the future,” wrote Tom Josefiak, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and chief counsel to the Republican National Committee.

Krumholz’s group changed the blog post so that it stated Rove and Gillespie “were behind the formation” of American Crossroads, which Krumholz asserted conveys the same message to readers.

“It’s extremely important to note that Rove and Gillespie were put out there so early on as representatives of the organization and have been so important to their fundraising efforts, because that’s what this is all about,” she said.

“This is about the ability to raise $52 million. That’s a huge target in one year, and so I would be surprised if they were not involved at the ground floor.”

Sept. 30,2010