Karl Rove Jr.
by digby
Read this story about the Karl Rove of Missouri — and Ted Cruz’s campaign consultant. (He’s worked for Huckabee and Perry also.) You may have heard about the suicide of a Missouri politician a month or so ago because of rumors and innuendos. This guy is widely held to be partly responsible:
Will Kraus, a candidate for Missouri secretary of state, is certain.
Jeff Roe is still his guy.
“I plan to continue to use Jeff and Axiom Strategies,” the Lee’s Summit Republican said last week. “They’ve done a great job for me.”
It’s been more than a month since Roe, a well-known and often-feared campaign consultant, helped produce a mocking radio commercial in the Missouri governor’s race. The ad, aired in Kansas City and other markets, suggested state auditor and GOP candidate Tom Schweich was a “bug” and compared him with bumbling TV character Barney Fife.
Days after the spot aired, Schweich took his own life.
Some of Schweich’s friends quickly concluded the ad played a role in the suicide and accused Roe of bullying the candidate. Former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth urged Republicans to walk away from Roe, a request he repeated last week.
“We should disassociate ourselves from anyone who conducts this sort of campaign,” he said in an email.
But nothing suggests candidates are taking Danforth’s advice, or that Schweich’s death dented Roe’s multimillion-dollar Kansas City-based political enterprise in any significant way.
Roe — who declined to comment for this story — remains the chief campaign strategist for Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who announced his presidential bid last week. Roe’s companies maintain longstanding connections with Republican U.S. Reps. Sam Graves of Missouri and Kevin Yoder of Kansas, as well as more than two dozen other candidates for federal office.
[…]
Some colleagues said Axiom’s client roster remains intact because candidates believe Roe shouldn’t be held responsible for Schweich’s suicide. They said that the anti-Schweich radio ad, while tough, wasn’t unusually aggressive or fundamentally unfair, and that suicide is almost always an act without a clear motive.At the same time, the 60-second spot was aimed primarily at Schweich’s appearance and personality, not his positions on issues. For weeks Schweich’s allies have said the ad wasn’t meant to convince voters, but rather to rattle the sometimes high-strung state auditor.
[…]
Controversy has defined Roe’s career.In 2006, he ran TV ads chastising a disabled candidate for working for an adult publication. She actually sold ads for a company that owned that magazine and others.
He connected former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes with “San Francisco values” during her unsuccessful effort to oust Graves.
He’s hired operatives to track opponents with video cameras, leading some to complain of unnecessary provocation and to file complaints with police. His deep research into his opponents’ personal records is legendary. He’s been accused of orchestrating a lawsuit to gain access to a candidate’s personal papers.
In 2014, a Roe mailer Photoshopped a candidate “in the classic Marlon Brando Godfather pose and likened him to a mobster,” according to The Dallas Morning News.
He was part of a long-running feud with former U.S. Sen. Kit Bond that eventually entangled both men in the controversy over fired U.S. attorneys during the George W. Bush administration.
Candidates have been known to hire Roe just to keep him from working for the other side.
Roe has never apologized for his approach.
“These are not prom-queen elections,” he has said. “Who’s elected, what their values are, all that determines the direction of the nation.”
He’s been paid by the payday loan industry and the Missouri Republican Party. He ran the unsuccessful campaign for the Jackson County health research sales tax.
He’s a real pip.
The article says that he might become a problem for Cruz as Republicans might use him to degrade Cruz’s reputation. I suppose it’s possible in these days of social media rage but these are Republicans we’re talking about, so I have a feeling that no matter how piously they declare they are above such tactics the guy who actually employs them will be more respected by the base.
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