Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) on Sunday mocked GOP strategist Karl Rove, calling him “a bit pathetic on Election Night.”
Brown, who made the comments on MSNBC, was referring to Rove’s criticism of Fox News's electoral number crunchers for calling Ohio for President Obama. Rove had argued that the call was premature and that GOP nominee Mitt Romney still had a chance to win the state.
Brown, though, qualified his criticism, saying that Rove is still an influential political player because “he still has access to tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars and they will be back.”
Rove, whose super-PAC American Crossroads and its nonprofit advocacy arm Crossroads GPS spent $300 million this election cycle, but failed to unseat Obama or take back the Senate.
Rove, though, has defended the group's efforts and said they would assess their work and press on during the next election cycle.
Noting the influence of outside-spending groups, Brown said Sunday that Congress should seek to undo the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United. That 2010 high court ruling enabled anonymous contributions into super-PACs such as Rove’s American Crossroads.
Brown was a target of such super-PACs. His race against GOP Senate candidate Josh Mandel witnessed one of the largest amounts of outside spending in the nation, most of it directed against Brown.
The Ohio senator said super-PACs have the effect of pushing lawmakers to make ill-advised votes and distract candidates from talking about issues.
“Some issues are probably talked about less in campaigns because of the money and the way that we govern in the future,” Brown said.
