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Blog
The CaucusThe latest political news from around the nation.
Join the discussion.Candidate Topic PagesMore Politics NewsIowans have been bombarded over the last few days with radio spots supporting
John Edwards that were paid for by a group affiliated with locals of the
Service Employees International Union, which just kicked in $800,000 — on top of $760,000 already spent.
Senator
Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, rolled across
Iowa on Monday in a customized black-and-gold bus emblazoned with his picture and the logo of the International Association of Firefighters, which has spent several hundred thousand dollars supporting him. And at campaign events in Iowa, backers in A.F.S.C.M.E. union shirts turned out Monday to show their support for Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York. Those appearances come in addition to the union’s $770,000 advertising campaign promoting her candidacy.
The groups are prohibited from coordinating their efforts with the campaigns. But the candidates, while often distancing themselves from these efforts, certainly benefit from their activities. Iowa airwaves have been filled with commercials from these groups as they take advantage of the June ruling that lifted a ban on broadcast messages from independent groups within 30 days of a primary or caucus.
Independent groups also act as a vehicle for negative advertising that campaigns are reluctant to engage in. The Club for Growth, for instance, has spent $700,000 so far, largely on broadcast spots here and in other early voting states that criticize
Mike Huckabee’s record on taxes while he was Arkansas governor, an effort that has received several hundred thousands of dollars from an Arkansas political rival of Mr. Huckabee, a Republican.
The shifting stand on abortion by
Mitt Romney, a Republican former governor of Massachusetts, has come under attack in broadcast advertisements here and in New Hampshire from the Republican Majority for Choice, a group of Republican women who support abortion rights.
In the final two weeks before the caucuses on Thursday, independent groups have so far spent at least $5 million in Iowa, with much of the money benefiting the campaigns of Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton. During the last presidential primary election cycle, these groups spent nothing on advertising before the caucuses, largely because of the prohibition on such activity in the 30 days before nominating contests. But independent groups like the
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and
MoveOn.org played a major role in the 2004 general election.
The June ruling, in a case involving a Wisconsin anti-abortion group, allowed television issue advertisements from third-party groups — whether unions, corporations or wealthy individuals — to run right up to an election day. Under the McCain-Feingold law, which limits the role of money in campaigns, these spots had to cease 30 days before a primary election and 60 days before a general one.
“This more permissive standard,” said Kenneth Gross, a veteran campaign finance lawyer, “means there will be more money, more ads and more saturation.”
Unlike national political parties and their candidates, many of these interest groups face no limits on how much they can take in from their contributors and often do not have to disclose their donors’ names until after an election. As a result, it is difficult — if not impossible — to determine just how much money they are spending. While there is, ostensibly, an independent relationship between a campaign and these groups, restrictions on coordination between the two are considered so murky that they are often difficult to apply.
In Iowa, the efforts on behalf of or against the candidates involve not only television and radio advertisements, but also the nitty-gritty of a campaign: direct-mail brochures, bus tours, pep rallies, telephone calls, educational efforts to explain the caucuses, and traditional get-out-the-vote efforts. Independent groups pay for billboards, banners, yard signs, caps, T-shirts and mugs and set up Web sites on behalf of their favorite candidates, efforts that often look as though they were produced by the campaign itself.
Senator
Barack Obama of Illinois is the only leading Democrat who has not attracted support from any of these groups in Iowa. By contrast, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards are the biggest beneficiaries of independent efforts, largely because of the union support the two have garnered. And yet both candidates are proponents of stricter campaign finance rules.
Mr. Edwards, in particular, has made tightening such rules a cornerstone of his campaign, putting him in a delicate position as he denounces expenditures coming indirectly from some of his closest supporters, like locals of the service employees’ union.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Edwards has called on the groups, known as 527s for the section of the tax code they fall under, to stop running advertisements supporting him. But he has said he will not ask them directly.
“I do not support 527 groups,” Mr. Edwards said. “They are part of the law, but let me be clear: I am asking this group and others not to run the ads. I would encourage all the 527s to stay out of the political process.”
