'Conservative Victory Project' seeks to control GOP, win back Senate

>> trying to prevent another meltdown where senate candidates who are alienating their own party in divisive primaries. steven law , president and ceo of american crossroads, the organization behind this new -- are you connected, of course, with karl rove and the others who are very active in the last election cycle. what do you try to fix? what is the problem -- the republican problem you're trying to correct?

>> our goal is to basically trying to institutionalize the william f. buckley rule when he said that the goal should be to try to nominate the most conservative candidate who can win, and that's going to be different in each individual state, but we saw looking back at this last cycle was some significant candidate quality problems. some of the mainstream candidates were like that. we had some really segment self-destructive candidates who ended up impacting ordinaries on the ballot too, like todd akin in missouri and richard murdock in indiana. our goal is to see if we can try to find those candidates who are going to be discipline and can raise the money and be competitive in a general election .

>> is iowa one of your top priorities snou in.

>> i think almost any race where we see an opportunity either to compete for an open seat or go after an incumbent in a red state , and there are a number of those this election cycle, we want to make sure we find the most effective and competitive conservative candidate we possibly can.

>> is congressman king too controversial? is he potentially going to have a murdock or an akin affect in bah with a away and elect a democrat to a seat that otherwise might go republican?

>> at this stage it's very early in the game. we haven't ruled anybody or in or out, but but things we think that's important to do as part of the process is to vet candidates and to take a look at what they've said, take a look at the things that can be used against them that they'll have to answer to, and make sure that the candidates can also raise money , have message discipline and run an effective race where they can appeal to all manner of voters when they have to do that in the general election .

>> are you also going to have an impact in place like south carolina where there have been some kwfsh pushback against lindsey graham , but you have a senator who is a clear leader, party spokesman on military issues. do you get behind someone like lindsey fwram? do you stop a primary by taking place by putting your money where your mouth is.

>> our goal will be, first of all, to reach out to all different groups on the right and see if we can build consensus about what our priorities ought to be and what candidates we can support. it seems to me that lindsay graham has been providing excellent conservative leadership for the state of south carolina and, you know, our resources really ought to be spent trying to find conservative nominees who can compete in places like arkansas against senator pry yore and other places like that. that's where we ought to be --

>> you have an open seat now in georgia.

>> right. exactly. another one too, yeah.

>> and at some point are you going to look at the presidential roster and what happened last time which with herman cain and a whole group of other republican possibilities, participating so actively it all of those debates, projected an image of the party that was not ready for primetime, and where you had the mitch daniels and the others and haley barbour .

>> other mainstream republicans saying, whoa, i'm want getting into this.

>> that is a big concern. i think it's been a lot of discussion about it. i think a lot of that has to do with the -- the party's own rules and the way they structured debates. there's a lot of discussion about that, and i hope that a lot of that will solve the problem. whether we're focused on that a few years hence is probably too early to say. our focus right now is the senate and the house.

>> thank you very much. fwood to see you.

>> thank you.