Political Mugging In America

[Larkspur]

Anatomy of an "independent" smear campaign

(March 4, 2004) — As Mark Twain once put it, "A truth is not hard to kill and a lie told well is immortal."

In the 21st century in the United States of America, it is still astonishingly easy to assassinate a political opponent's character, with little or no accountability or basis in fact. It is hardly new to politics anywhere that money and the messages it buys often create devastating perceptions. But such smear tactics are more serious and offensive when they benefit major "mainstream" candidates seeking the Presidency, are utilized anonymously by mysterious, outside organizations and they occur in the wake of recent, historic, campaign finance reform and new political disclosure requirements.

Today, Americans for Jobs released new disclosure forms to the IRS with an additional $337,000 bringing the 527's total receipts to $1 million.
On November 7, 2003, a strange new group no one had ever heard of called "Americans for Jobs & Healthcare" was quietly formed and soon thereafter began running a million dollar operation including political ads against then-frontrunner Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. The commercials ripped Dean over his positions or past record on gun rights, trade and Medicare growth. But the most inflammatory ad used the visual image of Osama bin Laden as a way to raise questions about Dean's foreign policy credibility. While the spots ran, Americans for Jobs—through its then-spokesman, Robert Gibbs, a former Kerry campaign employee—refused to disclose its donors.

The Dean campaign cried foul, but no one, including the news media, could figure out exactly who was behind "Americans for Jobs." The disturbing mystery was partly solved by Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post on February 11, after reviewing public Internal Revenue Service records filed under Section 527 of federal tax law. Unfortunately for voters and the general public, that legal disclosure information was filed January 30, 2004, nine days after the Iowa caucuses in which Massachusetts Senator John Kerry upset former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Those contribution records were updated again with another $337,000 in donations on March 4, 2004, for a total of exactly $1 million that the group raised.
<SNIP>

Another reason not to donate to Kerry's general election campaign. The first is that Kerry's spokesperson Reuder said that money doesn't win elections, so I'll comply with her wish and not send Kerry any.

[Metrix]

1. I doubt the ads were that influential in Iowa

Up close and personal, people were not overwhelmingly impressed with Dean. The negative campaign he ran against Gephardt hurt Dean. Putting down the senior citizen farmer really, really hurt Dean. Dean's army of volunteers from out of state were not that influential. It comes down to this -- the majority of voters in Iowa preferred other candidates.

[Larkspur]

2. Will Greider disagrees with you

from
Dean's Rough Ride
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040308&s=greider

n forty years of observing presidential contests, I cannot remember another major candidate brutalized so intensely by the media, with the possible exception of George Wallace. Howard Dean contributed some fatal errors of his own, to be sure, but he also brought fresh air and new ideas, a crisp call to revitalize the Democratic Party and at least the outlines of deeper political and economic reforms. The reporters, as surrogate agents for Washington's insider sensibilities, blew him off. Dean's big mistake was in not recognizing, up front, that the media are very much part of the existing order and were bound to be hostile to his provocative kind of politics. To be heard, clearly and accurately, he would have had to find another channel.

For the record, reporters and editors deny that this occurred. Privately, they chortle over their accomplishment. At the Washington airport I ran into a bunch of them, including some old friends from long-ago campaigns, on their way to the next contest after Iowa. So, I remarked, you guys saved the Republic from the doctor. Yes, they assented with giggly pleasure, Dean was finished--though one newsmagazine correspondent confided the coverage would become more balanced once they went after Senator Kerry. Only Paul Begala of CNN demurred. "I don't know what you're talking about," Begala said, blank-faced. Nobody here but us gunslingers.
SNIP

[madfloridian]

3. Yes, here is the quote from the Kerry spokesman:

QUOTE: "But the Kerry campaign is not intimidated by Bush's war chest, said Kathy Roeder, his spokeswoman.

Referring to former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's record-setting fund-raising among Democrats, she said, "The primary already shows that you can't buy an election." END QUOTE

http://www.cleveland.com/election/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1078407042270670.xml

[madfloridian]

4. Here is the Center for Public Integrity link to your article

http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=557&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0

[Mairead]

5. Larkspur, pick something else. This one is just an embarrassment to you.

It's all view-with-alarm innuendo, desperately trying to build a mountain out of rumours of a molehill.

All it actually says, when you boil it down and skim the fat off, is 'this group got its funding from people who'd also given money in the past to the same people who now opposed Dean'. What would you expect them to do?

Yes, Dean was evidently treated very unfairly, and those who've looked into it seem to think it started when he said he was going to break up the media monopolies. There might actually be irony involved: there was never any policy on his website about it, it was only something he said in a few speeches, so he might not have actually meant a word of it. But whether he meant it or not, he evidently worried the ruling class and so they decided they didn't need to take the risk. And that was the end of Dean. The lords give and the lords take away. Curséd be the lords.

Pick a different article. That one's worthless.

[madfloridian]

6. I don't agree.

Don't believe that Charles Lewis is viewed as one who deals in rumors. Have you seen him on TV? Have you been to the website?
That is a credible article.

[Mairead]

7. Did you read the article? Because I accurately summarised it.

People who had contributed to those candidates in the past were behind that ostensible 'grassroots' organisation. But anyone who thinks that they're the first to ever create a false-front political organisation is a little deficient in historical knowledge. There's no 'there' there.

We can argue, and I would, that such organisations should be forced to disclose their ties to existing campaigns, but under current law they're not required to and so they don't. Claiming that makes them particularly duplicitous or unethical or that there's a deep dark conspiracy afoot with them at the center of the web is unsupportable.

[madfloridian]

8. Yes, I read the article. I would not comment if I had not.

Yes, things happen. But NO, things like so many factors against one element do not happen open.

Dean was not a perfect candidate. Neither is Kerry, neither was Edwards, none of them are.

If you read the article closely, if you do a search on Carter, Dean, Clinton all together, and further limit the search to Plains, you will see just a couple of things further. There was a whole lot of involvement by party folks.

Dean spoke out that he did not like the direction in which the party was going. Of course they wanted him out, just as soon as he started getting all that attention.

[Mairead]

9. Perhaps I'm missing your point

I'm not disputing that the organisation has the ties it does, I'm disputing that this somehow stands out from the pack in its duplicity. I'm saying, basicly, that this kind of thing is business-as-usual but is being made to seem outstandingly awful.