Ex-GOP candidates turn attacks back on national panel (NRCC) (Boston Globe)

[Eugene]

Ex-GOP candidates turn attacks back on national panel

By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | March 4, 2007

WASHINGTON -- One advertisement accused the rival candidate of billing taxpayers
for a call to a phone-sex line. One alleged that a candidate "fixed" his daughter's
speeding tickets. Still others stated that a candidate endorsed a "coffee talk with
the Taliban," and that another was supported by the Communist Party.

Each charge was misleading at best, demonstrably false at worst. Yet the National
Republican Congressional Committee paid for each of those ads last year, and its
leaders said they could do nothing to pull them, even after some of the Republicans
whom the ads were designed to help demanded that they come down.

Now, four months after Republicans lost control of Congress, many of their former
candidates are calling for major changes at the NRCC. They depict the committee as
a rogue attack-ad shop that shielded party leaders from having to account for the
claims in their ads -- encouraging over-the-top accusations that often hurt GOP
candidates.

-snip-

The NRCC funneled more than $83 million through a special "independent expenditure"
arm that made all decisions regarding ads.

The creation of the independent entity meant that when candidates such as Meier
called NRCC headquarters to complain about the ads, committee officials said
they couldn't discuss them, much less yank them from the air, without violating
campaign-finance law.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/03/04/ex_gop_candidates_turn_attacks_back_on_national_panel