(Democrats and 527 collusion) 527s at but not of the Boston Convention

UPI Wash times ^ | Jul. 29 | Marie Horrigan

[dennisw]

Boston, MA, Jul. 29 (UPI)

-- Third-party anti-Bush groups -- Democrats' financial benefactors -- tiptoed a careful line during the Democratic National Convention in Boston, skirting any inkling of the coordination forbidden by campaign-finance regulations.

Several 527 organizations, so-called because of their designation with the Internal Revenue Service, wined and dined donors alongside Democratic and Kerry campaign officials at top-dollar hotels in Boston. America Coming Together and the Media Fund, two of the largest 527 organizations, held a news briefing early in the week at the Four Seasons, the same hotel where top party donors were picking up their special credentials.

The groups benefit from the stringent rules behind federal regulations, according to which "collaboration" is almost exclusively related to advertising or marketing strategy.

According to the Federal Election Commission, 527s are allowed to mingle with campaigns and the national parties. What they cannot do, the law says, is have any material involvement with coordinating communications strategy.

The 527s attending the 2004 Democratic Convention have been careful to reiterate they are not connected to the campaign, in order to follow the rules.

"We're not connected, related, doing anything with the Kerry campaign," Media Fund top fundraiser Ellen Malcolm told United Press International Thursday.

But beyond that, Malcolm flatly rejected any assertion that what the groups were doing was wrong.

"Not only do I reject it, I think what we are doing is the essence of democracy, which is working together with people who agree with us to promote our candidates and our belief. That is the essence of our electoral process," she said.

But Republicans and some reformers charge that the groups, often funded by multimillion-dollar donations, are circumnavigating recent campaign-finance reform laws. While donations to candidates top out at $1,000, and $5,000 to national parties, 527s can receive unlimited soft funds from donors ranging from individuals to corporations to candidates.

"Republicans and to some extent, I think, the reformers, have implied that somehow we've created this new suspicious thing that is odd and even corrupt, and it's not true," Malcolm said. She asserts that these accusations twist the reality about the groups, which operate legally both by giving full disclosure to the IRS and following the rules governing political action committees.

"When the new law was passed, the Congress of the United States said we should stop federal officials and federal candidates from raising soft money and we should stop it from going into the political party because it is too close to the legislative process.

"They didn't do anything to stop PACs from raising money, fundraising, reporting everything, like we do. So the reformers are trying to extend the law that they just passed, but the Congress of the United States did not do what they said.

"You have a law, those are the rules of the game, and you comply with it and that's what we're doing," she said.

Thus far, the Media Fund has spent $27 million of the $28 million it has raised, almost entirely on media buys in battleground states. The group focuses primarily on voter mobilization and intends to put more than $100 million into the effort before the November election.

Malcolm also rejected the theory that such groups, and donors such as George Soros, are auctioning the electoral system to the highest bidder.

"There's a difference between lobbying a member of Congress" and working toward a desired outcome, Malcolm said.

"The connection between the big money and the federal elected officials is severed," she said.

"And (Soros is) very concerned about the direction of the country and so he's helping us get people to the polls to vote because he thinks that will change the direction of the country."

The issue about hanging around the same haunts as the party and campaign, especially with group leaders often coming directly from the political field, has nothing to do with coordination, one analyst said.

"What they're getting out of this has nothing to do with political strategy," Michael J. Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute in Washington, told UPI.

"It's about trying to mingle with potential donors. Just on the face of that, that's not a legal problem," he said.

Malbin said there's no reason for the groups to coordinate with the party or campaign. Already, as Republicans have predicted for months, 527s have outspent the Kerry campaign, the DNC and the Republicans, who had beaten their Democratic counterparts in fundraising.

"They're not only not coordinating with the party, they're way ahead of the party. It's knowing how and why to target which states and which blocks and what issues. They don't have to coordinate that with anybody," he said.

Malcolm ultimately dismisses Republican complaints as political posturing.

"It's ironic what the Republicans have done," she said. "Having spent all this time saying there's something wrong with what we're doing, they're now turning around and saying, 'We should do that too.'

"You know, just this week (former New Hampshire Gov.) John Sununu and (Republican activist) Grover Norquist created some new 527 called American Resolve, so Republicans are clearly playing politics with this."

[RobbyS]

Yet these guys condmen the friends of Bush for "mingling" with N'Neill and other Swiftees. Sauce for the goose...

[Sender]

Also see some relationships presented in this post.