McCain Feingold was intended to clean up elections, but, as many predicted, it seems that money is like water and always finds new cracks to flow into...
The current MoveOn ads are clearly Anti-bush, but are they in violation of the Letter as well as the spirit of McCain Feingold?
The Bush/Cheney campaign has asked the Federal Election Commission to rule if these (and similar) ads violate the law, and should thus be subject to restrictions similar to those imposed upon the actual campaigns.
Even the New York Times as weighed in saying these ad may break the law...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/opinion/11THU2.html(registration required)
Any thoughts from the Democrats?
[size=14]Soft Money Slinks Back[/size]
Published: March 11, 2004 - NY Times
We are now engaged in the first federal election contest under the new campaign finance law prohibiting open-ended donations from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals in federal elections. Already, political insiders are carving a giant loophole that the Federal Election Commission must swiftly close. Otherwise, the system will be flooded again with the large and politically destructive contributions the new law was meant to stop.
At issue are a handful of new committees set up by Democratic operatives and dedicated to turning President Bush out of office. The groups are running advertising campaigns in 17 states to counteract Republican commercials that began last week. They insist that because they have no formal ties to the Democratic Party or to John Kerry, they are not bound by the 1974 federal election law or the more recent and restrictive McCain-Feingold law, which prohibits soft money in federal elections. The groups insist that their activities are necessary to offset a 10-to-1 fund-raising advantage in Mr. Bush's favor.
We sympathize with the Democrats' desire to level the playing field. But they do not have to subvert the law to do it. Indeed, Mr. Kerry has already announced his intention to raise as much as $80 million in smaller contributions that are legal. Mr. Kerry appears confident that the Democrats can raise money without making end runs around the reform law he voted for two years ago. Indeed, anyone who believes in the Democratic agenda ought to have similar faith that the Democrats, like the Republicans — or Howard Dean — are capable of raising a great deal of money from small donors.
In addition, anyone who was angered at phony "issue ads" in the last campaign will have little patience with the claims of one group, the Media Fund, that the ads it just unleashed are all about issues, not promoting candidates. One of the group's first broadsides declares that "George Bush's priorities are eroding the American dream," suggesting that the group's one and only ambition is to retire George Bush. That, in turn, represents an illegal use of soft money by an avowedly political group to influence federal elections.
The election commission agreed last month to issue a ruling on whether these groups should be asked to play by the same rules that apply to other political committees. The commission should act quickly. Delay would invite more soft money into a system now meant to exclude it.
