GOP fears $420M avalanche (from left-leaning advocacy groups)

Republicans fear left-leaning advocacy groups will raise up to $420 million in unregulated contributions, the kind of soft money that the 2002 McCain-Feingold law prevents the parties themselves from collecting.

While Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie questioned the legality of pledges from wealthy donors like George Soros and Peter Lewis who advocate the defeat of President Bush, Republican groups will use those high numbers to galvanize their own soft money base.

Gillespie told reporters in a conference call yesterday that he was unaware of any Republican groups that are “prepared to spend 360 to 420 million dollars [in soft money] to defeat a candidate for federal election.”

Gillespie’s public estimates, which he said were based on press accounts, track with similar figures that Republican soft-money groups have been privately circulating on K Street in recent weeks.

The Project for America (PFA), a 501(c)(4) group with close ties to Gillespie and the White House, arrived at an estimate of $328 million to $338 million of left-leaning soft money earlier in October. The PFA is also soliciting donations.

K Street sources said that groups like the PFA are using the $338 million figure to spur potential corporate donors to counteract what they fear will be an unprecedented level of soft money, even after last year’s Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act prohibited unlimited contributions to either national party.

The PFA shared its estimate with GOP operatives and lobbyists at a conference in October it sponsored to help Republican compete with Democrats in the soft-money contest. Speakers included Gillespie, anti-tax activist Grover Norquist and Ken Mehlman, who will head President Bush’s reelection effort. The PFA did not respond to repeated inquiries for comment.

But the PFA invitation to the conference warned that “it has become apparent that liberal special interest groups are at work.

“They are forming organizations whose single goal is to attack and defame the issue agenda of President George W. Bush.”

A breakdown of the PFA estimates shows that America Votes, a union-enviironmental umbrella group, plans to spend $250 million, including $52 million from the AFL-CIO and $75 million from Americans Coming Together (ACT).

Soros has pledged $10 million to ACT, a so-called 527 group run by Emily’s List President Ellen Malcolm, bringing ACT’s current pledges to $30 million — well on its way to the $75 million goal.

Also included under the America Votes rubric are unions such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) ($16 million). Service Employees International Union ($4.2 million), the Sierra Club ($9.5 million) and the People for the American Way ($3.1 million).

Soros also has pledged an additional $5 million to the MoveOn voter fund, said Zack Exley, the group’s director. That organization has already raised $6 million in soft money toward its short-term goal of $10 million, said Exley. It has another soft money drive planned for the spring and summer.

Despite a welter of enthusiasm for Soros’s money, union operatives questioned any total figure above the $300 million.

“It looks like a classic case of double counting,” said Don Kaniewski, the Legislative and political director for Laborers’ International Union of North America, of the PFA’s estimates.

Another union source said, “Anything above $300 million seems awfully high to me. I just don’t see us getting there. We [would] like to be there, believe me.”

In the last two presidential cycles, when soft money could be raised directly by the parties, Democrats and Republicans both spent roughly $250 million, according to Steven Weiss, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

As a result of the finance reforms, which aimed to curb unlimited soft money donations, outside interest groups established 527s to gather money that was previously netted by the national committees for party building purposes.

But in one of the many unintended consequences of campaign finance reform, 527s are not monitored by the Federal Election Commission and need only to file tax disclosure form with the Internal Revenue Service every six months.

Republicans have to show the voters the consequences of liberalism. Divorce, drug dealers, cost of illegals, terrorism, welfare, AIDS, lost and uneducated children, enviro catastrophies, overfilled prisons, race baitng....
Nothing about liberalism is good. It all ends in loss and dispare. Someone should be using that knowledge. If used right, little money would be necessary. We have truth on our side. Democrats wouldn't be able to fight back. It's real.
They need to get out there front and center about the consequences America is suffering from liberalism, and why it needs to be stopped.

I think that the ONLY way to stop this $$$$ abuse by ALL parties is:

Local elections can ONLY accept $$$ from those within their area. PERIOD

City elections only from inside city limits
county from within the county
etc etc etc.

$$$ for pres/v-p can ONLY be SPENT within the areas where they were donated. I would limit that to at the widest, state level.

No LIMITS for the amount of $$$ donated by anyone except for the above limitations.

If SOROS wants to donate $500 million - great! But it ALL must be spent only in the state he legally resides.

ALL donations will be OPEN - donations will be publically posted to the internet IMMEDIATELY upon receipt of check/money to include name/address/amount.

NO NATIONWIDE Advertisement - Tough Luck PBS, CNN, Turner et al. They would only be used to try to get around the above regs.

That's a good start!

.

Now correct me if I'm wrong . . . . these liberal special interest groups can collect all the money they want, but they can't use a penny of it after August 4, 2004, for any advertising on any medium.

consequences of liberalism ....drug dealers,

On the contrary, drug dealers are caused by the same people who brought us another total failure at regulating a drug that people wanted and were willing to break the law to get, alcohol. As proven time and again, laws cannot stop a particular behavior, it can only punish it.

Outlawing drugs only INCREASES crime instead of reducing it.

"Republicans fear left-leaning advocacy groups will raise up to $420 million ......."

They [Republicans] better fear "we the people", if and when those communist/socialists take our country.

It's one thing to have some of them in our government. It will be an entirely different thing if they take total control.

If you deprive money of legal means of political expression, it will just find illegal means. I'm less worried about Soros's money than I am of the liberal media monopoly. The sick thing is that the media, who would scream their heads off if the Republicans were doing this, will say little or nothing about it.

If the voters know that someone is spending a lot of money to buy an election, they usually take that into account. But the media will run lots of stories about Bush raising big money from rich donors, while they bury the Soros story.

As for McCain, he wasn't born yesterday. He came back from Vietnam, dumped his loyal wife, married a rich heiress, and bought his senate seat. So he knows all about buying elections. And he didn't expect his bill to stop him from doing it again.

they can't use a penny of it after August 4, 2004, for any advertising on any medium

Do you seriously expect the Democrats to obey the law? If they win the election they will bury the evidence. If they lose it, the Republicans will let them get away with it, as they always do.

The Democrats have openly stolen five or six senate seats in the past decade. Did anyone even slap their wrists for doing it?

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