Following up on an item from Monday, Ben Smith reported that there were multiple independent efforts underway in progressive circles to help “define” John McCain while the Democratic nominating race continues, but they fizzled over the last month or so. The “soft-money groups don’t have the soft money,” in large part because Democratic investors are focused more on the Democratic primary, not the Republican opponent.
It was frustrating to see this, but it appears the landscape may soon change.
Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Senator John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist.
The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what’s expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA.
The move comes after the groups that had been expected to spearhead attacks on McCain – the Fund for America and Progressive Media USA’s previous incarnation, the Campaign to Defend America – failed to raise the money needed to dent McCain’s armor.
“We’re a little behind where we need to be,” he said.
True. Ideally, by April 10, an organized effort would be well underway, especially now, when there’s a bit of a vacuum in news for political reporters. Instead, Progressive Media USA is just getting started.
Nevertheless, Brock & Co. are moving forward where others came up short — picking up financial support and crafting a plan.
[A]fter a dinner Tuesday night at the Manhattan apartment of liberal megadonor George Soros, at which Brock and the consultant Paul Begala laid out the group’s plans, Brock said his group now has commitments worth $7.5 million – almost twice what the Fund for America is expected to report raising in the first quarter of this year. He said the group would begin running ads before it meets its $40 million goal.
Brock suggested that the group could do the work of a press corps that, he says, has “fallen down on the job” when it comes to McCain.
“A void that might be filled … by the press is not going to be filled, because the press is in love with John McCain,” Brock said in an interview at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan. “It’s what McCain is allowed to say without being challenged by facts that will show him to have said something different in the past.”
Keep in mind, Progressive Media USA isn’t necessarily starting from scratch. Brock is raising money for broadcast media, but he doesn’t have to create new ads, he’s going to go with spots already drafted by the Campaign to Defend America, which couldn’t maintain enough financial support to move forward. (Brock noted that the group’s “McSame” ad, aired briefly in Ohio last month, “tested off-the-charts well.”)
And just as an aside, it’s worth pausing to consider the irony of Brock taking the lead. The Media Matters founder was, in the early 1990s, responsible for scurrilous attacks on Anita Hill and the Clintons, among others, before he began an ideological transformation.
Given the quality of his work, and his willingness to step up when needed, I’m glad Brock’s on our side.