You have to credit Repubicans, they don’t do subtlety.
First, party officials petitioned the Federal Elections Commission to rule that “527” groups, named after the section of the law under which they operate as “shadow” campaign organizations, were illegally spending money on ads critical of President Bush.
When the FEC didn’t rule that 527s had to desist (but did lay the groundwork for restricting them in the near future), Republican National Committee chief counsel Jill Holtzman wrote a letter (scroll down to the third story) to 250 TV stations with a thinly veiled threat that if the stations ran ads by MoveOn, a 527 group, stations could lose their licenses. Holtzman writes that stations must refrain from “illegal activity.”
Of course, the RNC, last I checked, doesn’t pass or enforce laws. They don’t get to decide what’s illegal. And the RNC hasn’t even asked the FEC for a ruling on the MoveOn ads. What the RNC is doing, quite blatantly, is intimidating stations. If they run the ads, they could get a call from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell and a GOP puppet.
During the Democratic primary, MoveOn didn’t endorse a candidate. But it did and continues to criticize Bush. It produced a TV ad (go to “Child’s Play”) that mentions no Democratic candidate and has no voiceover. It simply shows a series of video shots of children working in adult jobs and ends with the on screen question, “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?” The GOP successfully pressured CBS into refusing to run the ad, claiming it was “controversial.”
MoveOn makes no bones about its agenda. It is fiercely in the “anybody but Bush” corner. Should Kerry win the Democratic nomination, it will undoubtedly work for his election.
Under 527 rules, MoveOn can’t “coordinate” its campaign with the nominee’s. Campaign laws revolve, in part, around the definition of “coordinate.” I won’t pretend to explain, much less defend, the rules.
But it seems if we’re going to go after 527 groups, it’s a slippery slope. In fact, the little friction on that slope has led me to think that campaign finance reform is a good idea that can’t possibly be legislated. And maybe it shouldn’t.
If I were Bill Gates, I’d be spending a couple of billion to defeat Bush. And that should be my right. As long as I don’t break laws against lying on the airwaves or use coercion, bribery or blackmail, I should be able to spend as much as I want to influence the election. On election day, my money doesn’t mean anything to someone who has read newspapers and done the research necessary to cast an informed vote. It’s really not that hard to be voting literate. Those who claim that millions spent on TV ads unfairly biases an election are simply saying people are too stupid to know the difference between erectile dysfunction and getting the shaft.
The slippery slope of campaign reform gets more dangerous when the party in power tilts the angle through intimidation. Fortunately, a key member of the FEC is apparently poised to kicks the legs out from under those angling for censorship, at least temporarily.
And MoveOn announced it’s adding another $1 million to its current ad campaign.