Sarah Palin hit back at former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie this morning after he suggested that Republicans should approach their governing strategy “with great care” and only “try to repeal those parts of the health care reform bill, the Obamacare bill, that have caused premiums to go up, shifted people out of the insurance they like, into a public plan.” Appearing on Laura Ingraham’s radio show, Palin called Gillespie’s comment “out of touch,” and insisted that Americans didn’t want health care reform “to start with”:

PALIN: No, no, see how out of touch even a comment, an idea like that is? No! What Americans are saying is, Obamacare, for instance, the mother of all unfunded mandates. We didn’t want it to start with, we knew we couldn’t afford it. Nobody would ever explain how in the world we would pay for this $3 trillion boondoggle when there are better, more sensible reforms for health care that, of course can be provided the problem and we can find some solutions that way. But instead no, now people are talking about already, ‘well, let’s just compromise on some of it, and some provisions can be repealed or reformed.’ No! Repeal the whole thing, replace it with market based, free-market based patient-centered reform that Republicans tried to get Obama to listen to.

Listen to a compilation:

“Anyone in the GOP who thinks they can cut a little deal here, there with Obama or Pelosi, to maybe raise taxes, tax here, they’re going to find themselves without a job in 2012. We gotta remind these folks, in the next couple of years, we put you in, we can take you out,” Palin added. The Wonk Room has more on how the rift between Gillespie and Palin only highlights the growing chasm between the current Republican leadership and so-called repeal purists.

Defenders of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have adopted a new line of attack in trying to defend the Chamber against ThinkProgress’s report that detailed how the Chamber may be using foreign money to fund political attack ads in the United States. In recent days, Karl Rove, former RNC chair Ed Gillespie, and Bruce Josten, the Chamber’s chief lobbyist, have all parroted the line that since the Center for American Progress doesn’t disclose its donors, there is hypocrisy afoot and the ThinkProgress report must somehow be questionable. Watch a compilation:

Just to be clear, the Center for American Progress is not involved in running political ads like the Chamber is. CAP released a statement today explaining the difference:

Neither the Center for American Progress nor the Center for American Progress Action Fund electioneer or run candidate campaign ads. If CAPAF ever does run such ads, we will disclose the donors funding that activity. 501c4′s are not required to disclose donors and we do not see a disclosure problem with 501c4′s, like CAPAF, that continue to operate in the traditional role of a public education and issue advocacy organization; nor have we criticized the Chamber for its traditional work in support of its mission. Our concern is with organizations like the Chamber and others who have taken advantage of the Citizens United ruling to behave like a PAC by running massive amounts of candidate campaign ads without disclosing the source of funding for the ads. There is a long standing legal requirement for PACs to disclose donations, the Chamber and others are acting like PACs but without the disclosure.

As Greg Sargent writes at the Plum Line, “The comparison to the Center for American Progress is absurd, because it does not and has never run campaign ads…[and] even so, Rove’s assertions about these groups are still absurd, because we already know what their issue positions and agendas are.”

Rove and company are attacking the messenger with a false comparison, thereby sidestepping the central issue: will the Chamber reveal the well-heeled special interests behind their unprecedented political ad campaign?

Republicans often bristle at being called the “party of no,” yet they have thus far failed to articulate a clear positive agenda with new ideas about how to govern. Earlier this year, former Bush advisor Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie helped form American Crossroads as part of proliferation of new conservative advocacy groups that were quickly dubbed the “Shadow RNC,” and were designed, in part, to help generate these new ideas.

But today, Crossroads GPS, the advocacy arm of American Crossroads, will release a proposed platform on which Republicans should run in November that is based almost entirely on obstruction. As the conservative Daily Caller notes, “instead of things they think the GOP should do, the agenda…is made up mostly of things they think Republicans should oppose or eliminate.” Indeed, Crossroads GPS is even calling the platform an “emergency intervention to stop” President Obama’s policies:

The program calls on the GOP to “stop” the Bush tax hikes from expiring at the end of the year, to “end” stimulus projects deemed to be “wasteful,” to “call a ‘timeout’” on Obama’s health care bill, to enact a “moratorium” on “government handouts to banks, automakers, labor unions and other politically-connected interests,” to “block” any bill putting a price on carbon emissions, and to “stop stalling” on securing the border.

On the nation’s looming entitlement crisis, Crossroads’ GPS proposes a commission to study the problem and suggest solutions, even though President Obama has already created a commission that has been meeting for most of the year.

Even the seemingly positive items on the Crossroads GPS agenda use obstructionist language. For example, the “Prioritize American Energy Development” item calls for Republicans to “block” any means of pricing carbon, while the “Protect our Borders” bullet urges Republicans to “stop stalling” on border security.

American Crossroads vowed to raise $50 million to influence the 2010 elections, and are on their way thanks to just four right-wing billionaires, who alone have contributed 97 percent of the group’s money. Rove has directly credited his group’s fundraising prowess to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.

Following scandal after scandal, many donors have abandoned the Michael Steele-led Republican National Committee in favor of other right-wing groups preparing to attack Democratic candidates in this fall’s elections. The two biggest beneficiaries of the RNC’s woes appear to be American Crossroads, the “shadow RNC” setup by Bush operatives Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, and the Republican Governors Association, currently chaired by Mississippi Governor and former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour. Despite their apparent strategic differences, these three groups still have one thing in common: massive infusions of cash from Big Oil. Over $4 million of oil-related cash has spewed into the three groups in the second quarter alone.

AMERICAN CROSSROADS: American Crossroads, the shadowy 527 group setup by Rove and Gillespie as a supposed “grassroots” alternative to the RNC, and whose stated goal is to distort the facts in order to brand the BP oil disaster as “Obama’s Katrina,” has received 97 percent of its funding from just four right-wing billionaires. Of these, two made their fortunes in the oil and gas industry, according to a report by Salon. The two Dallas-based oil billionaires, Trevor Rees-Jones and Robert Rowling, each contributed $1 million to the group, which recently began airing misleading attack ads against Senator Harry Reid. Rove and Gillespie have also explicitly taken advantage of the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision to setup a related 501(c)4 organization, American Crossroads GPS, in order to conceal the identity of some of their donors. The public will likely never know where the $5.1 million the group raised in June came from because of “the value of confidentiality to some donors,” but it could have come from other right-wing oil billionaires like tea party-funder David Koch to major corporations like BP America and Goldman Sachs.

RGA: Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour has moved aggressively to promote the RGA as an alternative to the RNC. In addition to setting up “victory funds” across the country that have long been “the province of the RNC,” Barbour recently told a private audience that “[he] had to raise the RGA budget by $10 million because the RNC is in such bad shape.” Barbour, who has made something of a recent career out of downplaying the severity of the BP oil disaster, has indeed driven RGA fundraising to new heights during his tenure as chairman. As we previously reported, the oil and gas industry appears to have shown its appreciation for Barbour’s Big Oil apologism by contributing more than $2 million to the RGA’s coffers in the last quarter alone.

RNC: Despite its almost constant series of travails, the regular RNC, which still lists Gillespie as the owner of its headquarters, continues to take in boatloads of cash from Big Oil. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that so far this election cycle the RNC has received $555,439 from the oil and gas industry — enough to make Big Oil one of the embattled committee’s top ten sources of cash. The RNC unveiled a new ad yesterday attacking President Obama’s response to BP oil disaster, perhaps in the hopes of drumming up even more cash from Big Oil.

Unfortunately for the regular RNC, there’s at least one major GOP donor who is only giving his money to the shadow RNCs. Texas leveraged buyout billionaire Harold Simmons, best known for funding the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004 and false attack ads linking President Obama to Bill Ayers in 2008, has recently channeled $1 million to American Crossroads and $125,000 to the RGA.

Republican insiders and donors have, for months, tried to diminish Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele to a mere figurehead. Afters a series of gaffes and other missteps, Republicans like Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie formulated a plan to establish what has been called a “shadow RNC” of Republican attack groups, policy centers, and state outreach organizations to work around the normal RNC. Facing mounting criticism and a drain of resources to the RNC, Steele has harshly rebuked his detractors, declaring again, “I ain’t going anywhere.” But according to property disclosures filed with the D.C. government, the RNC building is still registered to Gillespie, a former RNC chair. View a screenshot below:

While Steele remains the face of the RNC, he is quickly losing power. Not only does Gillespie command control of the “shadow RNC,” he still technically owns the regular RNC.

Disgruntled with perceived mismanagement by Chairman Michael Steele, Republican consultants Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie founded a network of right-wing attack groups to rival the power of the Republican National Committee. The “shadow RNC” consists of organizations like American Crossroads, a 527 to run campaign ads and the American Action Forum, a Wall Street-funded clearinghouse for pro-corporate ads and events. While Gillespie promised to raise $50 million dollars for his new venture, the Politico points to disclosures which reveal a far more modest haul:

The group, American Crossroads, raised only $200 last month, according to a report it filed Monday with the Internal Revenue Service, bringing its total raised since launching in March to a little more than $1.25 million. [...] Trevor Rees-Jones, president of Chief Oil and Gas, a privately held energy company in Dallas, in April contributed $1 million to American Crossroads while B. Wayne Hughes of Lexington, Ky., the chairman of Public Storage, contributed $250,000 in March.

In sum, outside of two large checks, American Crossroads has failed to attract any widespread support so far. While the low fundraising numbers may lead some critics to discount Rove and Gillespie, both have many connections to deep-pocketed donors. Gillespie has been meeting with financial executives, and Rove has recruited a top official from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to assist with his efforts. On the other hand, the right-wing establishment promised in 2008 to press forward with a similar attack network, called Freedom’s Watch, which eventually dissolved despite months of similar hype.

Just two weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of opening the floodgates of corporate donations into electoral politics, a class of Wall Street Republicans have assembled around a new GOP group that aims to capitalize on corporate America’s empowerment. According to The New York Times, the group aims to “develop and market conservative ideas…hoping to capitalize on the fundraising and electioneering possibilities opened up by a recent Supreme Court ruling.” “This administration as well as Citizens United — when you combine the two the prospects for funding these types of efforts are greatly enhanced,” said former senator Norm Coleman, one of the group’s organizers.

The Republican figures behind the American Action Network have a long history and symbiotic relationship with Wall Street. Here’s a breakdown of the key players in the group:

The Wall Street Republicans behind American Action Network

Robert K. Steel
Former Goldman Sachs Exec & Wachovia CEO
Robert Steel spent close to 30 years with Goldman Sachs before joining his Goldman colleague Henry Paulson in the Treasury Department. Steel and Paulson helped ensure that Bush’s 2008 Wall Street bailout would leave Goldman “among the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion U.S. plan.”

Kenneth Langone
Home Depot Founder, Investment Banker
Wall Street titan Kenneth Langone was called “The Man Behind Grasso’s Payday” after NYSE Chairman Richard Grasso was awarded $139.5 million amidst controversy over Wall Street excesses in 2004. Langone, chair of the compensation committee, defended the exuberant pay, arguing that Grasso was entitled to the amount. Then-NY AG Eliot Spitzer filed a lawsuit against the NYSE — including Langone — charging that “the board of the NYSE was misled about parts” of Grasso’s compensation. In 2004, a businessman in Florida also sued Langone for $1.8 billion. The suit charged him with “conspiring to interfere and interfering with business relationships,” as well as “extortion, defamation, fraudulent misrepresentation, and violations of the Florida Antitrust Act and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act.”

Ed Gillespie
Fmr RNC Chairman, Lobbyist
Ed Gillespie’s lobbying firm includes a host of clients whose interests are grounded in Wall Street: Enron, Citibank, Bank of America, Zurich Financial, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the “clean coal” front group ACCCE.

Fred Malek
Thayer Capital Partners Founder
Fred Malek is a super-wealthy Republican operative who got his start with the Nixon administration. The former co-owner of the Texas Rangers with George W. Bush was responsible for a 1972 scheme that was investigated by the Senate Watergate Committee to politicize broad segments of the federal government in favor of reelecting Nixon. In 2004, Malek “was fined $250,000 for what the SEC called a ‘fraudulent scheme.’”

It is clear that the parties involved in forming the American Action Network all have a history of fighting for pro-corporate policies. Malek already summed up what we can expect from the group going into the future: “My strength is loyalty, my downfall is loyalty.”