Activists' funds worrying GOP in '04 elections
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/8302707.htmSoon after Richard A. Clarke appeared on CBS's ``60 Minutes'' to say the Bush administration had fumbled its war on terror, the e-mail boxes at MoveOn began to fill up with forwarded transcripts of the show.
Members of the online activist organization thought the damning comments from a former counterterrorism chief who served under four presidents would make a good anti-Bush TV ad. This week it will appear on CNN, backed with $300,000 the group raised in a matter of hours.
The ability to mount such a lightning-fast response has made MoveOn, started by a Berkeley couple in 1998 to defend then-President Clinton during impeachment, a formidable player in this year's presidential contest. MoveOn's fundraising tactics have also made it a target for Republicans who say a MoveOn entity is using the tax code to skirt campaign-finance law and take huge, unregulated donations that were banned by the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform law.It is good that the GOP is worried, even with their large war-chest.