http://www.alternet.org/election04/19351/The top 12 VIPs in the fight to oust George W. Bush aren't on the Fleet Center stage at the Democratic Covention. They're the wealthy funders of progressive "527" groups.
One year ago, conventional political wisdom held that the Democratic presidential nominee would be in trouble right now. After spending all his cash in a tough primary battle, the thinking went, the candidate would have to spend April through June scrambling to raise money for the general campaign. In the meantime, Bush's team would be free to use that three-month window to define the Democrats' front-runner through attack ads the latter couldn't afford to counter.
Things turned out differently: the attack ads flung at Senator John Kerry have not gone unanswered. In fact, in addition to Kerry's own ads, more than $15 million of political advertising has run in the past three months, most of it bashing Bush, most of it in key battleground states–without costing the Kerry campaign a dime. The ads have been created and paid for by organizations known as "527s," named for the tax-code section that defines them. These groups do not fall under Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulations, as long as they limit their activities; most significantly, they cannot support a candidate directly or coordinate their efforts with a candidate's campaign.
They can, however, accept contributions of unlimited size, from anybody. Depending on your perspective, this is either an unsavory back-door maneuver around campaign-finance reform, or an exciting new outlet for political discourse.
Either way, it's probably a big reason why John Kerry entered July in a dead heat in the polls despite the tens of millions of dollars spent on negative advertising against him–and one of the reasons why Bush's favorability ratings are at an all-time low.
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