Can Karl Rove survive his $300 million debacle?

>>> now might not be the best time, but could i borrow $300 million? is that possible?

>> do you believe that ohio has been settled?

>> no, i don't. i think this is premature.

>> karl is in big trouble . they're going to take his thumbs, and karl is almost all thumb.

>> as the republican party undergoes a period of self-reflection to better understand its defeat at the presidential polls last week, one man appears to be taking the most heat. not mitt romney and not paul ryan , but karl rove . mr. rove took mornd $300 million from conservative donors on a promise that he would deliver mitt romney to the white house . sadly for mr. rove and painfully for his donors, it didn't quite work out. joining us now is rick tyler , who is a former spokesman for the great newt gingrich and he also worked on the senate campaign for todd akin , and ken vogel is chief investigative reporter for politico. if i can start with you, rick, you make an appearance in ken's extensive story calling karl rove a colossal failure and then you say this, i don't think donors are ever going to invest in that level again because it turns out the architect didn't know what he was talking about. what do you mean, that karl rove didn't know what he was talking about, mr. tyler ?

>> well, karl rove makes great tv and he's interesting to read in "the wall street journal ," but after karl rove lost the gingrich majority, i always questioned karl rove . remember, karl rove was the one who designed the second bush campaign where george w. bush won and then claimed to have enough political capital to reform social security . of course he didn't. i had assembled more people that hated john kerry than john kerry assembled that hated george bush . that doesn't lead to a man date for governance. that's a mandate for gridlock which is exactly what we got.

>> mr. tyler , how do you explain karl rove 's power within republican circles? are people simply stupid? are they prepared to part with their money because he's a persuasive salesman?

>> no, a lot of people that give to karl rove are very smart people , they're entrepreneurs and they do great work. i'm hearing from them now. and karl rove is ver persuasive. when you talk to him, he knows his stuff but he didn't know his stuff here. what it gets down to, martin, you had 14 million people who didn't show up in 2012 -- that turned out in 2008 . you have to reduction of 14 million voters. that's very significant. that tells me this was not a national campaign, that it was a tactical campaign. therefore, the battleground states mattered. voter contact mattered. we lost every single one of the battleground states , and it turns out -- and i think it's actually sort of good news. one, you can't buy a presidential election . two, you can't just run ads and you can't just do robocalls. you actually have to have not points of contact but points of persuasion and i think this is where the obama camp just kicked our butts because i personally knew in my own town who i would contact if i wanted it get on board with the obama campaign . i couldn't tell you who to get a sign from from the romney campaign 37 it wasn't a point of persuasion, that is someone who i could identify on my caller i.d. calling me to telling me to vote for romney. it was a point of contact. you can't count points of contact. you have to build relationships with the communities. then all the ads work because they're just validaters. if you just run ads and do robocalls you're going to lose and that's what this party has to learn.

>> ken, you found that some republicans are continuing to defend karl rove . now, why? because isn't the overbhem wheming evidence as mr. tyler has just said that he didn't know what he was talking about?

>> well, he certainly holds great sway, and i agree with rick on that. he is very persuasive, but the sort of platform from which his aura, his reputation is built, is very much at risk right now because it's based not only on his relationship with these donors who he was telling that they were just so close if only they could get another $5 million, $10 million to being able to not just capture the white house for mitt romney but win some key senate states and now they're kind of questioning, hey, what you were telling us this stuff, is that because you just wanted our money or because you didn't actually have a grasp of the data and that is the other piece of the platform on which he's built his reputation, this idea that he's a master of the data, that he is on top of the polling and that he is on top of the tactics that are sort of most useful in tipping elections. in this case we have both of those things, legitimate questions being raised about both of those things, and he's going to need to do a good bit of sort of damage control in order to be in this position again. it's interesting though, we see him not retreating at all. in fact, doubling down saying that crossroads and the groups with which he's involved are going to expand their role headed into 2014 and 2016 --

>> good luck with that. rick, on election night itself, mr. rove appeared to be performing the role of king lear . nothing comes of nothing, that way madness lies. but since then he's blamed hurricane sandy. he says the president somehow suppressed the republican vote. does he care about the republican party or is he actually more concerned about the fact that he may no longer be able to make million frtion docile republicans?

>> i have been on record criticizing karl rove . look, i have no relationship with karl rove . i met him one time. i have never had a single business dealing with him, but i don't think it's right for someone person to have so much sway over the republican party . as far as i could tell, you know, the chairman of the republican party seems to work for karl rove . the nrsc, the senatorial committee, seemed to work for karl rove . that just is my analysis of it. now he wants to get involved in republican primaries because he says it wasn't his fault he had to run all the candidates that lost. well, i have two words for him, tommy thompson . tommy thompson lost wisconsin. tommy thompson was not a tea party candidate. tommy thompson is about as establishment as they get, and yet he, too, lost. i also learned that karl rove and the crossroads didn't actually focus group test their ads. they're so smart they just put up ads they thought were persuasive persuasive. turns out they weren't persuasive. yes, you need to have masters of data but you also need to have relationships with communities. the republican party has abandoned that model. when you look at african-american vote, latino vote, women's vote, all these votes, you have to have a relationship with them. then you build tres. then the ads will matter. lacking that, you're just a liar with a good ad.

>> mr. tier, thank you for burying mr. karl rove and ken vogel, thank you both.