THIRD ROVE TERM?

Politico's Ben Smith writes about the spawn of Karl Rove:

Crossroads love for Romney

The Crossroads groups were the Republican establishments key outside force in 2010 and are likely to be again this year, so when two Crossroads figures seemed to align themselves with Mitt Romney today, their quotes got some quiet but intense attention from people involved in the 2012 race.

"Romney is the best opportunity for the Republicans to have a well-funded campaign," American Crossroads Communications Director Jonathan Collegio told Reuters. "He's basically been running for six years and he has a network of local leaders and fundraisers across the country."

"It's up to the other candidates to knock him off the top rung, and at this point the other candidates have shown an unwillingness to even really try,” consultant Carl Forti, a former Romney aide who is American Crossroads' political director, told Alex Burns, offering that Pawlenty had “whiffed big time at the last debate when presented a great opportunity." ...

Smith offers some caveats about that apparent pro-Romney leaning, but, well, Rove did spend months in 2008 trying to talk John McCain into picking Romney as his running mate, as Robert Novak, John Heileman, and Steve Kornacki, among others, reported at the time. As for this year, while I take anything in Newsmax with massive infusions of salt, I see that Doug Wead, a former special assistant to President W, writes there:

Insiders have told me that Karl Rove has been advising the [Romney] campaign and some insist that he is the mastermind behind this new formidable fundraising juggernaut for Romney.

Maybe the second coming of Shrub isn't Rick Perry at all.

(Cross-posted at Balloon Juice.)