Gillespie and Rove Speak Out

Through the midterms, Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie avoided direct confrontation with tea party radicalism. Now it seems they may be getting ready to rumble.

Have you noticed the cautionary murmurings being heard from Ed Gillespie and Karl Rove?

Gillespie has been warning against trying to repeal the Democratic health reform outright. Rove has extended his criticisms of the O'Donnell Senate candidacy in Delaware to the possibility of a Sarah Palin presidential candidacy. These noises, cautious in public, have presumably been expressed even more emphatically in private.

If the word "establishment" means anything, Rove and Gillespie are it. Their "American Crossroads," built in a single election cycle, has emerged almost as a shadow RNC. Through most of that cycle, they refrained from direct confrontation with Tea Party radicalism. But now it seems: they may be getting ready to rumble.

If so, good for them: they are needed - and they have the clout to prevent some dangerous harms, both for the movement and the country.