Democrats' Ads in Tandem Provoke G.O.P.

WASHINGTON, March 26 — Senator John Kerry's advertising campaign is so closely complemented by those of two major liberal groups running commercials against President Bush that Republicans are accusing the Democrats of trying to evade campaign finance laws.

An analysis of advertising data provided by Republicans, Democrats and an independent group shows a striking synchronicity between the advertising campaigns of Mr. Kerry and Moveon.org and the Media Fund, which flatly deny any illegal consultations. They have been advertising in the same 17 swing states, in most of the same markets while almost uniformly ignoring others.

In mid-March, while Mr. Kerry advertised slightly more in the morning, the groups advertised slightly more at night. At other times of day, the two groups and the Kerry campaign together matched Mr. Bush's advertising nearly spot for spot, in a couple of cases exceeding it. That level of correlation has delighted Democrats, who acknowledge that the groups have gone a long way in helping Mr. Kerry to meet the advertising onslaught of Mr. Bush, whose campaign has raised far more money.

Officials of the two groups say that they do not need to speak to the Kerry campaign to join it in answering the Bush campaign. But such help is becoming a focal point in what is widely expected to be a legal battle with Republicans and some advocates of election reform over what legitimate role the groups, which are called 527 committees for the section of the tax code that created them, should be allowed to play.

The 527 groups' significance has grown exponentially this election cycle because they are able to collect millions in unregulated, unlimited contributions from unions, corporations and wealthy individuals. The parties and candidates are now prohibited from that type of fund-raising under the new campaign finance law.

While the law does not affect the fund-raising practices of these groups, it prohibited them from coordinating their efforts with federal parties or candidates. Though they provided no definitive evidence, Republicans contend the groups are violating that provision with their advertising.

"It is coordinated contrary to the law," said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer representing the Republican National Committee and Mr. Bush's re-election campaign. "It would appear to an unbiased observer that there's got to be coordination by the fact that they're in the same market, not in the same market. They split up the day in a particular way."

For instance, Mr. Ginsberg said, it seemed suspicious to him that neither the groups, nor the Kerry campaign were running advertisements in Miami or Pensacola, Fla., in mid-March, while all of them were running spots in Little Rock, Ark., where, for at least one weeklong period earlier this month, they outspent Mr. Bush.

Mr. Ginsberg said he was especially suspicious of the Media Fund because one of its consultants, Jim Jordan, used to manage Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign.

But officials of Moveon.org, the Media Fund and Mr. Kerry's campaign say there has been absolutely no coordination between them.

"Absolutely, positively untrue," said Jim Margolis, one of Mr. Kerry's media consultants. "There is no contact whatsoever on what anyone is running, on anything that's being produced, and we are being meticulously careful about that."

Officials of Moveon.org and the Media Fund, which share media buyers and pollsters, said they did not have to coordinate with the campaign because it is easy to complement each other's efforts without ever speaking.

All they have to do, they said, is monitor Mr. Kerry's advertising purchases and those of Mr. Bush through the many services that do so to figure out what needs to be done and where. Anyway, they said, they were all targeting similar sorts of voters — core Democrats and others open to liberal arguments — who happen to live in specific areas.

"We are picking the markets where there are the most persuadable voters and that means we would tend to be advertising together," said Mr. Jordan. "Swing voters are where swing voters are. Targeting is done by a scientific method when it's done by smart people."

As for Miami, Mr. Jordan said, the group was not ruling out advertising there in the future but said that the market is already rich in Democratic voters who will likely vote for Mr. Kerry. Miami is also almost prohibitively expensive, he said. Mr. Jordan dismissed accusations of illegality as lies born of Republican "panic and paranoia."

Wes Boyd, who is a co-founder of Moveon.org, said the Republican accusations were an effort to silence the opposition.

"If we were doing an ad the headline would be `Goliath demands slingshots be confiscated,' " Mr. Boyd said. "It's very worrisome this idea that opposition voices would be silenced and stripped of the ability to talk about powerful men."

Mr. Boyd added that if the groups were truly coordinating with the Kerry campaign, the three entities would more likely be divvying up their campaigns state by state, to share the burden more evenly.

Still, independent media consultants said the purchases were impressive in their coherence.

"They are certainly operating almost as a unit," said Evan Tracey, chief operating officer of T.N.S.M.I./Campaign Media Analysis Group, which monitors political advertising. "If you look at them in total, it's just dead-on buying. If you were to roll it up and call it the Kerry campaign, it is spot-on parity with what Bush is buying right now. They're being very efficient."

Ken Goldstein, director of the Advertising Project of the University of Wisconsin, said: "They are targeting with a high degree of correlation. There are very few, if any, markets where one group is up and the other group isn't."

The Advertising Project released a study this week highlighting the parity in advertising between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry with the help of the liberal groups.

Mr. Goldstein said it was entirely possible to devise advertising strategies that correlate this closely without speaking directly by monitoring purchases, highlighting the difficulty such cases will have before regulators or judges. Fred Wertheimer, president of the advocacy group Democracy 21 and a vocal critic of the Media Fund, said while the correlation in the campaigns did not "constitute coordination" it did reinforce "the fact that the purpose of these 527 groups is to help defeat a presidential candidate."

Because of that, Mr. Wertheimer and others said, the groups should register as political committees overseen by the Federal Election Commission, which would prohibit them from using unregulated donations for their advertisements.

Lawyers for the Media Fund have said they believe that it complies with the law because it does not expressly advocate the defeat or election of a candidate, an interpretation with which Republican lawyers disagree.

The Federal Election Commission is considering changing the rules to clarify when donations to a group should or should not be regulated and is expected to do so in mid-May.

For now, Mr. Jordan said, "the mission of the Media Fund all along is to provide Democrats up and down the ticket with protection, with air cover, where Republicans and Bush are advertising.

What nonsense. All these 527 ads *do* is advocate getting rid of Bush! And where's John McCain on this? I guess he's too busy defending his great friend John Kerry to find time to speak out against these ads. Wasn't the whole point of McCain-Feingold to prevent stuff like this?

It is very troubling to think that people who may share the same views would assemble, share their thoughts on the subject, and present them to a candid world for consumption or rejection. What will happen next? Fortunately, they're not advocating election or defeat of someone with whom they disagree--that would be unthinkable.

Campaign Finance Reform would have imposed federal penalities on Ross Perot, were they in effect when he made a bid for the presidency. Unions and others have to assume a false identity to speak. Elected officials cannot be referred to by name--they have to remain anonymous. One cannot run ads anonymously. "Publius" would have been subject to federal penalites--Jay, Hamilton, and Madison would have been hurled headlong into the Pit with Perot. And after Election 2004, Congress will embark on more limitations of the freedoms of association and speech. Others won't wait for Congress to begin demanding the actions that Congress has already stated they will take. The system indeed.

Well he did pipe up last week - but their seems to be no follow through. What is truly disturbing about this is that the Dems have found a way to let foreign monies - an, one assumes, foreign governments - into the American political process, a point this article should stress but does not. They needs to bring this to the people.

We have reached such e depth of corruption in the election process that one wonders how we can survive.

McCain peeped a tiny bit about these ads last week, even thought they've been going on for months, [it was such an effective peep that I forgot he did it! ;)] but you are correct that he hasn't done anything about them. Yet he has all the time in the world to defend Kerry. And you're also correct about how foreign moneys can be used to fund these ads.

The Supreme Court put an end to the inquiry last December. As Justice Kennedy said: This has it all backwards. If protected speech is being suppressed, that must be the end of the inquiry.

Any ongoing inquiry into the matter will reflect the effectiveness of associational rights and the effectiveness of the ads. The ads themselves have become the issue. The First Amendment protects these ads; it doesn't give license to silence others. Insisting on the enforcement of an unconstitutional law does little toward aggressively defending our God-given and first amendment guaranteed rights to free speech, free press, free religion, and freedom of association. But it will play well in Congress after the elections. Senator McCain has already begun his efforts.

The SCOTUS decision was only the direct analysis on the law. Next to come will be someone actually claiming damage from the law taking it before the court. SCOTUS has not seen the last of CFR.

But it is all very chilling, I grant you.

As chilling is the amounts of money being used. How much has George Storos given to 527s? Let alone to foreign countries, in some cases more than our government has given.
Is it possible to topple governments with the use of large sums of money? Financial terrorism?

That is just my point. It is really scary what is happening, it is like the end of the Roman Republic. The GOP does not seem to grasp how evil this people really are. They need to take it to the people. Someone like Powell and rudy needs to take it up with the media, but the y never do.

Storos has written openly about his use of his war chest of money to effect change in other countries. Given his ideas about Social Darwinism and survival/cooperation, I wonder if he endorses the idea that Iraq is becoming an "open society".

If the tables were turned the N.Y. Slimes headline would appear as...

"GOP Ads Called Illegal"

"Republicans Bypass Campaign Finance Law"

or some such nonsense. Liberals see nothing wrong with what these groups are doing because they support the cause.

Soros does not have "ideas" any more than Joe Stalin had "ideas." They are just window dressing to mask an arrogant grasping for power to satiate an ocerweaned ego. I can never understand that why the GOP never speaks direvtly to the Socialist Threat. They always dpeak in subtexts. They need to take off the gloves.

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