Something old is new again

Opinion: August 24, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Karl Rove is up to his old tricks.

In 1973, a young Karl Rove conspired to steal the leadership of the national College Republicans. At the Tan-Tar-A Resort at the Lake of the Ozarks, Rove threw the election into such a quagmire — in part by questioning the voting qualifications of his opponents — that somebody else, in this case George H.W. Bush, had to choose the winner.

The elder Bush was then the chairman of the Republican National Committee. He chose Rove. The rest is ignominious history involving Bush’s son, two wars and a nation in economic crisis.

That history leads us today to Todd Akin, where Rove is using the same script to fix another Missouri election.

The 217,430 Missouri GOP voters who decided on Aug. 7 that they wanted Akin to take on Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill in a race for the U.S. Senate should be deeply offended by what Rove is trying to pull.

On Monday, following Akin’s ridiculously stupid comments about “legitimate rape,” Rove’s billionaire-funded Crossroads GPS, a Super PAC that intends to spend millions of non-Missouri dollars to defeat McCaskill, said that it would take its money and spend it elsewhere if Akin didn’t withdraw from the race.

Once Rove spoke with his donors’ cash, other top Republicans fell in line.

That one man — Rove — has the power and audacity to try to undo the will of 217,430 voters, and that many top Missouri Republicans are aiding and abetting his efforts, should confound and dismay most Americans.

It confirms what those who have been paying attention to the big money in our political system have known for a while. To deep-pocketed donors, the U.S. Senate race in Missouri has nothing to do with Claire McCaskill.

It is about money and power.

To Rove, this is simply about removing obstacles to his power. McCaskill was in his way. Now it’s Akin. Voters? They’re just a means to an end.