Mississippi Gov. Barbour Joins Karl Rove's Super PAC

Sitting Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has joined Karl Rove's well-funded, politically "conservative" super PAC, Crossroads GPS. As a former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), Barbour has a reputation as a prodigious fundraiser who will likely help Crossroads make progress toward achieving its goal of raising a whopping $240 million, which will be spent in the 2012 election cycle to try to defeat President Obama, win a majority in the Senate, and increase Republicans' majority in the House. The $240 million figure is twice Crossroads' 2010 fundraising goal, and blows the doors off the total that Rove's groups spent in the 2010 election cycle. In the 2010 election cycle, both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS together spent about $43 million. Rove created the Crossroads groups with Ed Gillespie, another Republican strategist and former RNC chair, after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling opened the flood gates to unlimited corporate spending in elections. Crossroads GPS is a 501(c)(4) organization and has not disclosed its donors, although the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has demanded that it disclose who is bankrolling it.  CMD has reported on a number of efforts by Crossroads GPS over the past two years, including: "Karl Rove's Secretly-Funded Crossroads GPS Attacks Unions in Nationwide Ad" and "Corporate Interests Try to Split American Workers."