It’s no secret that the Bush-Cheney war chest is enormous. These guys are the most prolific fundraisers in the history of democracy. As far as I can tell, collecting checks from fat-cat donors is about the only thing in which this White House really excels.
Of course, there’s an end to these means. BC04 needs all of this money to flood the airwaves with campaign commercials that smear John Kerry and conceal the administration’s failures in every area of public policy.
It looked, for a long while, like the GOP would have nothing to worry about. Bush’s fundraising machine was not only breaking every record, it was exceeding its own expectations. In the meantime, Kerry’s fundraising was offset by his having to campaign vigorously for the Dem nomination in a crowded campaign field. Looking ahead, Bush was likely to have at least twice as much money for the general election campaign as Kerry.
Consider just March, for example. Both campaigns were running ads, but Bush spent an unprecedented $41.8 million (in one month!) while Kerry spent $5.8 million.
BC04, however, wasn’t counting on an unintended byproduct of the new campaign finance laws — the success of independent liberal organizations in raising money and airing ads against Bush and other GOP candidates.
It turns out groups like MoveOn.org — which are generally called 527 because of their area of the federal tax code — are doing so well, they’ve become a force that can compensate nicely for Kerry’s inherent fundraising disadvantage. So, naturally, the Republicans have launched an effort to crack down on 527s before they can do more damage to the White House’s campaign prospects.
The Bush campaign and the Republican Party filed charges yesterday with the Federal Election Commission accusing the Kerry campaign and seven “independent” organizations of conducting a criminal conspiracy to inject large amounts of “soft money” into the 2004 election.
The Bush campaign, which this month has spent an unprecedented $41.8 million on television ads, many of them attacking Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), has become increasingly frustrated by the ability of Kerry and such “independent” groups as MoveOn.org and the Media Fund to counter with nearly $20 million in ads.
If this crackdown is successful, and these independent groups are not allowed to participate in the political process, free speech will be stunted and Bush will have won a major advantage for the rest of the year. And that, of course, is the point.
But the whole GOP argument is premised on nonsense. The FEC complaint, for example, charged Kerry with being part of an “unprecedented illegal conspiracy” to coordinate campaign efforts with groups like MoveOn.
As proof of the alleged coordination, however, the Republicans point to…nothing in particular. In fact there is no evidence that Kerry and these 527s have made any effort to synchronize their campaign activities at all. There is no “illegal conspiracy,” because there is no connection between the Dem campaign and the independent groups. They share a common rival — Bush and the GOP — but that’s hardly illegal.
Let’s take a closer look at the specific charges:
* The Media Fund (one of the lib 527s) noted some of Kerry’s economic proposals in an ad before the Kerry campaign released its economic plan publicly.
Not true. Everything the Media Fund cited was on Kerry’s website for months.
* Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, attended a MoveOn.org party in San Francisco.
True, but irrelevant. One social gathering does not illegal coordination make.
* Some of the 527s’ staff and volunteers run websites that link to the Democratic Party and the Kerry campaign.
Also true, but also irrelevant. I have a link to the Kerry campaign but that doesn’t mean I’m coordinating my campaign activities with them (unless they want to hire me, in which case my door is always open).
* The 527s are running ads in the same 17 battleground states that Kerry is running ads, so they must be connected.
This one’s my favorite because it’s so dumb. Did it occur to the GOP’s lawyers that maybe the 527s are running ads in these states because they’re the competitive states in the general election? Probably not.
As a matter of FEC procedure, there are two things to watch.
One, the FEC is already considering new rules to regulate 527s and has issued proposed rules for public comment. By all means, check MoveOn’s member alert about this and let the FEC know your concerns.
Two, the GOP actually wants the complaint it filed yesterday to be rejected. Yes, that may seem odd. The FEC can take months, and sometimes years, to investigate campaign finance irregularities. Bush can’t wait that long, so the GOP is asking the FEC to reject the party’s own request for a probe so they can go to court and get a quicker ruling.
The whole thing is a mess, but the bottom line is this: Bush can’t tolerate independent groups raising money and speaking out against him, so he’s trying to use the FEC to censor his critics. This may seem like political minutiae and turgid campaign finance details, but the outcome of this controversy could very well dictate whether Bush wins another term.
Stay tuned…