THE PLANK OCTOBER 2, 2008
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
An organization called the Judicial Confirmation Network has a new ad up linking Barack Obama to Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright.
Oddly, the group is not a 527. Rather, they're a "judicial confirmation war room" that publicly consists of two employees, a post box, and a website. Originally created in November 2004 by Becki Donatelli, a Republican PR doyenne who chairs Campaign Solutions (the firm used by Bush-Cheney '04, McCain 2008, the RNC, the NRCC, and even the 527 Vets For Freedom), the JCN's original purpose was to shepherd Bush's Supreme Court justices to confirmation.
Nobody knows exactly where its money comes from, but JCN seems to have a lot of it. During the 2005 and 2006 confirmation battles, it vowed to spend about $18 million on ads and a multistate ground operation to put grassroots pressure on legislators. Now it claims that it's spending over $1 million against Obama. The only official tally of its expenditures is $80,000 for lobbying services from Covington & Burling.
JCN is run by Gary Marx, a former Bush-Cheney operative who is seriously steeped in the ways of outreach to the Christian Right. Indeed, in 2007, Mitt Romney hired him to placate concerned parties about his stances on judicial nominees. The other employee, Wendy Long, is a former clerk for Clarence Thomas.
I'm not an expert on campaign-finance law, but it seems a little odd that a seemingly unregulated organization can just raise money and buy anti-Obama ads without leaving any record. I'm still looking into the issue. Can any of our readers shed some light on this in the meantime?
--Barron YoungSmith
Update: Readers, I'll be keeping track of 527 organizations as they run ads. If you see any, please email me information about the ad and the group at tnr527@gmail.com. Thanks.
7 comments
We knew this was coming; we knew it would come in October; we knew that it would be done in a clandestine way by people with loads of money. Nothing surprising here. As McCain's numbers go down, he and his campaign will get more deranged, the attacks will get get more and more bizarre.
And it will get uglier and uglier; there will be no let up because McCain is a dishonourable man and because the Republicans have no shame. By October 15, you will have the sad spectable of the Christianists and Christofascists overtly appealing to racist sentiments on YouTube and elsewhere (MSM will probably not run the ads).
Obama will keep his cool, lose the south, and win by about 5 points; unless of course the American people surprises the hell out of me and consign the Repugs to the history books because of the mismanagement of the last 28 years (minus 8) and the shameful conduct of the last four months.
- icarusr
October 2, 2008 at 11:24am
I'm still wondering: Where are the Dem-leaning 527s in this race? All you need to do is show candid clips of John McCain being a jerk and then laughing about it like a bully. Very little narration, almost no production costs, and you don't even have to use my preferred tagline, "John McCain. Kind of a Dick, Isn't He?" I'm not asking Dems to go down the Swift Boat road and find McCain's service peers who are willing to point out what a dangerously bad pilot he was or anything; just give us raw footage of McCain being a jerk.
That, or 30-second mini debates between John McCain and John McCain. Hitting him with video of himself talking both for and against drilling, for example, could be particularly crushing, in that it hits him on a hot-button issue and contests his reputation for honor and straight talk.
I like what the Obama campaign is doing with its disciplined high-road approach, patiently working the body as it were, but dammit, someone's gotta work the kneecaps too.
- rhubarbs
October 2, 2008 at 11:28am
Rhubs, I'm sorry to tell you this, but we screwed up. We nominated someone who can actually lead, and who does not like 527s. He's asked the 527s to step off, and they have complied. Its too late.
Someone had an ad showing McCain flip-flopping all over himself a while back. Maybe it just needs to make the rounds again?
- GSpinks
October 2, 2008 at 12:04pm
What is the real penalty for ignoring the law in this case? Not much, really. Maybe this group will be forced to pay a fine (so what), or disband, but the same people can create another one immediately. The only real penalty they could pay for breaking the law would be if they made the mistake of leaving evidence of collusion with the real campaign, which I am sure they are smart enough to avoid.
So I agree that we can expect more of this, and worse.
- JEFF FREY
October 2, 2008 at 12:50pm
This was the most amateurish ad that I have seen in this campaign cycle on behalf of any candidate (not counting You Tube clips from some guy's basement). Is it really worth anyone's time and effort to track down and punish this group? Whoever gave them that $1 million to spend against Obama is really not getting his or her money's worth.
- wildboy
October 2, 2008 at 2:05pm
Gspinks, Obama lightened up on the 527's several weeks ago. At some point, the ads should show up...hopefully.
- jet
October 2, 2008 at 2:11pm
In the spring, both Barack Obama and John McCain strongly discouraged 527 groups from running attack
- Anonymous
October 8, 2008 at 5:45pm