During a heated debate about gun regulations on Sunday morning, ABC News’ Terry Moran accused Karl Rove of using “Orwellian” language to scare people about background checks, noting that the federal government is not seeking to confiscate guns but rather keep them out of the hands of criminals and people who are mentally ill.

Discussing proposals that would require private sellers to maintain records of the background checks they perform, Rove falsely claimed that the government would maintain a “registry if a grandfather wants to give a treasured shotgun to his grandson or granddaughter” and keep a “national registry of gun sales and gun purchases and gun owners.” Moran hit back at Rove, noting that he was spreading “paranoia” and “fear” in order to build opposition against the measure:

MORAN: Karl — stop scaring people, you’re scaring people with this Orwellian sense, that black helicopters and the government are going to confiscate Americans’ guns. That kind of paranoia fuels…

ROVE: Will all due respect, it’s not paranoia.

MORAN: Who is going to confiscate all of the guns?

ROVE: People have a fear of this. Why do it? Why do you need it? …

MORAN: The result of this is that all the votes that have been taken since Newtown have weakened gun control.

Watch it:

The proposals currently being drafted would require a background check on all gun purchases including those by private sellers while exempting family and temporary transfers. In some of the drafts being circulated, private dealers would have to maintain records for all private sales, while other exempt non-commercial private sales from record keeping. None of the bills would maintain a national gun registry, which is already illegal under current law. But the record keeping provision is important, advocates claim, to ensure that the checks are being properly conducted.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 88 percent of Americans, including 85 percent of gun owners, believe “those purchasing firearms at private sales and gun shows should undergo a background check.”

Think of the brewing Republican civil war between establishment-types like Karl Rove and right-wing Tea Party activists as a bullfight.

Initially, in 2009-10, Rove and establishment Republicans were scared of this new, large group that had entered the ring. It was unruly, unrefined. As time progressed, though, Rove came to see its strength and the way it brought in crowds. It moved quickly. It attacked relentlessly. However, the more Rove waved his red flag in an attempt to win contests for his side, the more his sparring partner became enraged. By 2013, Rove had made his decision: this group was too unpredictable to be dealt with. It was time to end things before he and his party got gored.

That’s why Rove announced this week, to much Tea Party consternation, that he was forming a new group—the Conservative Victory Project—to try to undermine far-right candidates who might appeal to Republican primary voters, but would get trounced in a general election. In at least seven races over the past two election cycles, Tea Party candidates prevailed over establishment types in Republican Senate primaries: Todd Akin in Missouri (2012), Sharron Angle in Nevada (2010), Ken Buck in Colorado (2010), Linda McMahon in Connecticut (2010 and 2012), Richard Mourdock in Indiana (2012), and Christine O’Donnell in Delaware (2010).

Unfortunately for establishment Republicans, winning a bullfight is easier said than done.

Like a cornered animal, many Tea Partiers are wildly lashing back. On Thursday, FreedomWorks emailed their list accusing Rove of “working in tandem” with President Obama “to silence grassroots conservatives in the freedom movement.” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) also emailed supporters to declare that “Nobody can bully me out of running for the U.S. Senate, not even Karl Rove and his hefty war chest.” Citizens United president David Bossie simply offered, “The civil war has begun.”

To a certain extent, this conservative reaction is expected. When Tea Party groups think of contested Republican primaries, they don’t think of Akin and Mourdock. They think of some of the right wing’s most beloved figures, like Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT), who defeated establishment Republicans and won the general election. On the other hand, those Akin and Mourdock group of losses are the difference between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

That dynamic could play out again in 2014, in what could otherwise be a banner year for Senate Republicans. Of the 33 seats up for election, 20 are currently held by Democrats and 13 by the GOP. Republicans likely need to pick up six seats to win a majority, but their chances in at least five races—Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, South Carolina, and West Virginia—are already being threatened by establishment-Tea Party fighting.

Tea Party groups aren’t exactly lining up, baby duck-style, behind Rove as he tries to shepherd electable candidates through these races. As Politico writes, some are even threatening to back third-party candidates if Rove’s picks prevail in the primary:

If tea-party-backed candidates lose GOP primaries after they’re attacked by Rove’s group, the Tea Party Express might support them as third-party candidates, suggested the group’s founder Sal Russo. His group has spent $17 million in the past two election cycles and is credited with boosting a pair of 2010 Senate candidates to GOP primary victories only to see them lose general elections that Rove and his allies deemed winnable.

“We discourage our people from supporting third-party candidates by saying ‘that’s a big mistake. We shouldn’t do that’,” he said. “But if the position [Rove’s allies] take is rule or ruin — well, two can play that game. And if we get pushed, we’re not going to be able to keep the lid on that.”

If the conservative vote gets split between Republicans and third-party candidates, Democrats might not just hold the Senate, they could increase their majority.

Three months ago, ThinkProgress ran a series of profiles on several prominent right-wing attack groups that were promising to spend tens of millions of dollars — much of it raised and spent in secret, thanks to Citizens United — to unseat key Democrats across the country. Each group had its own list of target races that they would devote their considerable resources to.

With the dust finally settling after Election Day, ThinkProgress took a look back to see how effective these groups’ collective spending was at unseating Democrats from Congress and the White House.

The answer, it turns out, is not very effective at all. Despite outspending left-leaning SuperPACs and interest groups by a margin greater than 2 to 1, conservative organizations spent election night watching the Democratic majority expand in the Senate, the Republican majority shrink in the House, and President Obama win a second term convincingly. A ThinkProgress analysis of public spending records suggests that 75 percent of Democrats targeted by the biggest right-wing groups won their elections on Tuesday.

A few caveats about our numbers: because of the nature of outside groups and their ability to conceal their actual fundraising numbers, the total amount spent by these groups reflects what has been disclosed to federal election officials. Additionally, the Democrats targeted by each group may be an incomplete list since these groups do not have to disclose whether they are advocating for or against a candidate if their ads are considered “issue ads.”

Already there are indications that these groups’ biggest donors — people like Charles and David Koch and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson — are furiously seeking answers to the question of where their millions went:

“The billionaire donors I hear are livid,” one Republican operative told The Huffington Post. “There is some holy hell to pay. Karl Rove has a lot of explaining to do … I don’t know how you tell your donors that we spent $390 million and got nothing.”

Karl Rove, who is already not having a very good week, is one of the biggest recipients of GOP donor consternation. His American Crossroads SuperPAC and its sister organization Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)4, spent nearly $400 million in private donations only to emerge victorious in just two senate races, one of which was never projected to be close to begin with.

Karl Rove insisted that Barack Obama won re-election by “suppressing the vote,” during an appearance on Fox News Thursday, even though the president secured more popular and electoral votes than challenger Mitt Romney and grew his margins within certain voting blocs.

Rove — whose American Crossroads organizations spent $300 million in a mostly unsuccessful effort to defeat Democrats — attempted to diminish Obama’s victory by explaining that the president won less popular votes in 2012 than in 2008, and only “got more votes…among Latinos.” He complained that Obama characterized Romney, a former Bain executive, as “a rich guy who cares about himself” — a message voters largely embraced:

ROVE: I think the Republicans lost in this election because of two things. One is that the Obama campaign was very effective in keeping roughly 92 percent of the people who voted for President Obama before to vote for him again. But they didn’t do a good job of growing the electorate…The Democrats, the the only group that they got more votes this time around than they got four years ago were among Latinos. About 700,000 more Latinos voted Democratic this year than the year before. But the president succeed by suppressing the vote, by saying to people, ‘you may not like who I am and I know you can’t bring yourself to vote for me, but I’m going to paint this other guy as simply a rich guy who only cares about himself.’

Watch it:

In reality, both Romney and Obama’s 2008 challenger Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) failed to grow the electorate and both won approximately 58 million popular votes, all while election officials in swing states tried to institute voter ID laws and keep minority voters from coming out to the polls.