Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Love that media spin...	Itsdb	08/25/04
The Associated Press put some nice spin on the 527 ad wars on the front page of my local paper. They report the top groups in this presidential battle as: Pro-Democratic: 1. Media Fund: $28.1 million. 2. ACT NOW PAC, also known as America Coming Together: $26.9 million. Pro-Republican: 1. Republican Governors Association: $32.5 million. 2. The Club for Growth: $8.5 million. Well, they got the first part right...but the top pro-Republican 527 in this election is The Club for Growth. The Republican Governors Association's primary mission is electing Republican governors, and according to Publicintegrity.org has expenditures of $24,474,202 since the year 2000, with a whopping $2,938,033 spent this year, none of which went to smearing Kerry in this election cycle. The AP implies the RGA is the top soft money spender in the anti-Kerry game, yet omits any reference to the Democratic Governor's Association. The press hammers on Bob Perry's $200,000 in contributions to the Swift Boat Veterans but ignores the $26,630,000 contributed by Peter Lewis and George Soros alone to defeat Bush. The true top pro-Republican player in the presidential election, Club for Growth is number 7 on the list of top 50 committees, $62,086,165 behind pro-Democrat Media Fund, ACT, and MoveOn.org in spending according to opensecrets.org. Will Kerry join in condemning all soft money ads, or will he continue to try to silence only those that aren't favorable to him? What should Bush tell Cleland when he tries to present his letter to Bush calling on him to stop the Swifvet ads? Will Kerry stop the 15 upcoming MoveOn ads? Who's spinning these ad wars, me or the left and a friendly media? Does the truth matter any more?
Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 08/25/04 8:36 am: Here are the top 527s. Just looking at the donors to them tells where they lean. Clarification/Follow-up by Itsdb on 08/25/04 8:39 am: Thanks Tom...I already offered that link :) For clarification, I omitted mention of number one on the list, Joint Victory Campaign 2004, as it is a combination of America Coming Together and the Media Fund. The fact remains that Club for Growth is the top pro-Republican 527, at number 7 on the list.
Answered By		Answered On
tomder55		08/25/04
I have done a flip flop on the whole campaign finance thing. I now see McCain -Feingold as a disaster. Both campaigns now call for the end of ads by PACs ,special interests, and outside groups .The media;those bastions of 1st amendment rights have no problem with the concept of suppression of political speech but God forbid someone try to suggest that obscenity be curbed. In their view it is the issue ads that are the obscenity. To their credit ,the Swifites have told Bush that they have no intention of pulling their ads . Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post got it right today when he wrote :"We've arrived at this juncture because it's logically impossible both to honor the First Amendment and to regulate campaign finance effectively. We can do one or the other -- but not both. Unfortunately, Congress and the Supreme Court won't admit the choice. The result is the worst of both worlds. We gut the First Amendment and don't effectively regulate campaign finance.("http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30280-2004Aug24.html) That is the bottom line. I thought the growth of money and it's influence was corrupting the political process .Now I see that there are bigger dangers and the cure is worse than the illness.

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