Top Links: Karl Rove faces his donors, conservatives take aim at GOP and how Republicans kept the House

Today is not a good day to be Karl Rove.

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• Karl Rove has to tell a room full of the GOP’s 1% donors today what happened to all the money they gave him. (Ken Vogel)

• “[Karl] Rove spends more for Republican candidates than the NRSC and the NRCC. He’s running things,”[Republican strategist Rick] Tyler said. He added, “Rove is definitely a problem.” (Buzzfeed Politics)

• “Some top donors privately unloaded on Romney’s senior staff, describing it as a junior varsity operation that failed to adequately insulate and defend Romney.” (The Washington Post)

• The 1% and their money are soon parted, or: An accounting of how much this election cost “Job Creators.” (NBC News)

• Why the GOP’s theory of the race—and which demographics would show up to the polls—was so, so wrong. (Burns & Haberman)

• “The ideas that dominated the past four years won’t become more attractive [to Latinos] if all conservatives do is translate them into Spanish.” (David Frum)

• Conservative think tank Heritage Foundation says Mitt Romney’s loss is “not a decisive defeat.” In other news, Waterloo is still too close to call. (Think Tanked)

• Paul Ryan won his congressional seat – but by his smallest margin yet. (Smart Politics)

• President Obama’s re-election was greeted with a protest and reports of racial slurs at the University of Mississippi (“Ole Miss”), 50 years after James Meredith became the first black student to enroll there. (Associated Press)

• Why the President won most of the swing states—but the House configuration remained largely unchanged. (Dave Wasserman) and (Roll Call)

• Your counterfactual of the day: President-elect Mitt Romney’s transition website. (Political Wire)

• Election Night was also a disaster for the Florida GOP. (Tampa Bay Times)