with 527s what does this actually all mean as someone in England I really do not understand what the 527s are and what McCain has to do with some Bill regarding them etc can you please explain
When President Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill, he and Congress made the way for organizations to produce political ads that are not regulated by the same laws in making these ads that regulate the democrat and republican parties. I think 527 refers to some section of our Internal Revenue Service tax code; in any event, it is the umbrella name for groups like the Swift Vets, and George Soros' MoveOn.org, enabling them to make political ads without having the same financial accountability as the political parties.
The law created a loophole, 527's, that have allowed unlimited millions of dollars to be used to blast President Bush (and they have been used; something over $60 M to date), AND the Swift Vets for Truth incorporated under the 527 umbrella.
Kerry didn't have any complaints about the use of 527's till the Swift Vets for Truth aired its first ad. Now he's whining all over the place that Bush needs to condemn and make the Swiftees remove that ad, which Bush has absolutely no authority to do, and the Federal Elections Commission has refused to make them stop exercising their free speech. Kerry is NOT calling for the removal of the Bush-bashing ads.
Bush's strategy is to stop the 527's insofar as they use unregulated money.
Anyone, please correct any inaccuracies in the above.
Hello Gretchen and good evening (I think?) snugs!
Gretchen, mail to you :-)
As I understand it, you're right about the 527's.
Bob Dole was on Dayside today (FOX at noon) and said JFK had called him a few days ago. According to Dole, he (Dole) really gave it to Kerry, saying it wasn't fair that Kerry wanted the ads against him to stop, but not condemning the ads against the President, pointing out that there had been many more $$$ spent on ads against the Pres. Dole said along with many vetrans he was upset by what Kerry had said AFTER he came home from Vietnam. Dole also made some comment about the main stream media not covering the flip flops and important issues. It was very telling!
Also, re McCain: CFR (Campaign Finance Reform) was generated by Senators McCain and Feingold (notice how no one is talking about Feingold on this? One guess which party he belongs to: if you said Democrat, you're right). So Bush is calling on McCain to work with other Senators to fix the legislation (rewrite the bill and send it to him in a viable form so that unregulated monies can't be spent in campaigns).