Attacking Democrats Without Leaving A Trace

The American Issues Project, which burst into the presidential campaign in August with multi-million-dollar attack ads tying Barack Obama to former Weatherman radical Bill Ayres, is back.

The group's new million-dollar ad buy, though, takes a very different tack. It blames the economic crisis on congressional Democrats, tracing the meltdown to such "Senate liberals" as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). (Note: Reid and Dodd aren't up for reelection.) The ad concludes with the (grammatically iffy) question, "Who should you trust on the economy?" It comes as Democrats, from Obama to Senate and House candidates, seem to rise in the polls every time the Dow Jones falls.

Talk about a brilliant strategy. The ad raises doubts about all Democrats -- "liberals protect corruption" -- without actually naming any candidates. That means the American Issues Project doesn't need to file any papers showing who footed the bill. Because AIP's previous ad attacked Obama, the group had to disclose that Texas billionaire Harold Simmons bankrolled it. An AIP spokesman confirmed that won't be happening this time around.

There's another benefit as well. As a 501(c)(4) group, American Issues Project can do unlimited amounts of issue advocacy but would jeapordize its tax-exempt status if political work became its primary activity. So AIP can say this ad is about issues, not candidates, thereby protecting its tax status, and it can still implicitly criticize candidates at the same time.

The smart strategy is no accident. The group counts as consultants two GOP operatives connected to the most influential conservative groups of the 2004 presidential election. There's Chris LaCivita, who worked with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and Tony Feather, who co-founded Progress for America.

With brains like these, no wonder AIP has figured out how to have its cake and eat it too.

-- Will Evans

4:56 PM ET | 10- 9-2008 | permalink

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Obama Goes After Conservative Group -- But Can't Find Business Filings

The Obama campaign has gone on the offensive against a multi-million dollar ad campaign by the American Issues Project, a conservative group tying the Democratic candidate to Bill Ayers, a one-time leader of the Weather Underground.

This new ad from the Obama campaign asks why John McCain is "talking about the '60s" -- a direct message that he's ignoring current problems and a subtext that he's stuck in the past.

And because this is a campaign finance issue, there's also action on the legal front. Obama's lawyer Robert Bauer has done what lawyers do -- dispatch letters, both to the Justice Department, demanding an investigation of the American Issues Project, and to stations running the ads. The letters were first reported by Politico .

In a small bit of irony, the letters from Bauer resemble an attack he mounted against the American Leadership Project, a 527 group that backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries and attacked Obama. It's ironic because ALP is now going after McCain on Obama's behalf.

Odder, perhaps, is this gap in Bauer's research, and what it shows about the inner workings of independent political operations.

In an Aug. 21 letter to station managers, Obama's attorney Bob Bauer writes, "There is no 'American Issues Project.' It is not incorporated anywhere...Its name is only a front to hide the true sponsors of this base and mendacious attack, and FCC regulations do not permit a shadowy front group to claim sponsorship of political advertising."

Apparently the Obama legal team did not look in the home state of Obama's running mate, Joe Biden. The American Issues Project does indeed exist, and Delaware, a popular spot for business incorporations, is where it's incorporated.

The story gets stranger from here. AIP was originally incorporated in May 2007 under the name Citizens for the Republic, according to Delaware filings.

Continue reading "Obama Goes After Conservative Group -- But Can't Find Business Filings" »

2:27 PM ET | 08-26-2008 | permalink

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Swift Boats Revisited Part 2 -- The Money

The new ad that links Barack Obama to a one-time 1960s militant turns out to be funded by one man, someone who's spent plenty of time and money playing in the political sandbox.

Harold Simmons, CEO of the Contran Corp. of Dallas, put up all of the $2.8 million to buy airtime for the ad in Michigan and Ohio, and paid to produce the ad as well. Christian Pinkston, a spokesman for the American Issues Project, said Simmons' name was the only one listed on a disclosure report filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Add this to a long list of political contributions made by Simmons and his company -- a list topped by, you guessed it, $3 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004.

At first glance, Simmons' beneficiaries look like birds of a conservative feather: the three GOP national party committees, GOPAC, Republican Governors Association, the 501c4 group Progress for America from '04 and too many congressional Republicans to list here.

Then it gets more interesting. This year, Simmons maxed out with $2,300 contributions to four of the Republican presidential primary hopefuls: Rudolph Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Duncan Hunter and John McCain.

And more interesting still: two grand to a Democratic presidential candidate, Bill Richardson.

It's even possible -- we'll know soon enough -- that Simmons might be supporting the running mate of the candidate he's now attacking. Back in May 2007, he gave $2,300 to Chet Edwards (D-TX), now said to be on the shortlist of Obama vice-presidential possibilities.

-- Peter Overby

6:40 PM ET | 08-22-2008 | permalink

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New Anti-Obama Ad -- Swift Boats Revisited?

A previously unknown conservative 501c4 group, the American Issues Project, announced Thursday that it's running this ad through Aug. 29 in Michigan and Ohio.

The ad ties Barack Obama to Bill Ayers, who was a member of the Weather Underground in the 1960s, a fugitive from the FBI in the 1970s, and is now a neighbor of Obama's in Hyde Park.

To skittish Democrats, this looks and sounds a lot like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad that undermined Democratic nominee John Kerry's credibility as a Vietnam War hero. The first Swift Boat ad ran at the start of the Democratic convention four years ago; this year's convention starts Monday. That ad was financed by a few wealthy conservatives. Some of AIP's donors will have to be identified, but with the group's tax status, most of them can remain anonymous.

The Obama campaign seems to be thinking Swift Boat too. Unlike Kerry, who was disastrously slow to react, it had a six-page rebuttal out to reporters before the ad hit the airwaves.

Continue reading "New Anti-Obama Ad -- Swift Boats Revisited?" »

6:22 PM ET | 08-21-2008 | permalink

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