JOHN KERRY'S SEGRETTI:

The Truth Comes Out (Dotty Lynch, Douglas Kiker, Beth Lester, Clothilde Ewing, Jessica Shyu and Katie Dyer, Feb. 11, 2004, CBS News)

Former Senator Bob Torricelli, who now raises money for John Kerry, joined forces with backers of Richard Gephardt in 2003 to take out Howard Dean. Torricelli and a number of labor unions that supported Gephardt were among the big givers to a 527 group than ran three negative ads against Dean last December in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, reports The Associated Press. The group, Americans for Jobs, Healthcare and Progressive Values raised $663,000 last year, according to finance reports, and nearly all of the group’s donors backed Gephardt, Dean’s main rival in Iowa.

The Dean camp is using the financial records to play up his role as a Washington outsider, saying they link Gephardt’s backers to the group and illustrate how Washington insiders are trying to derail his campaign. And with Gephardt out of the race, Dean is turning his outsider wrath to Kerry: "What we now see is that John Kerry is part of the corrupt political culture in Washington."

Torricelli, who dropped out of the 2002 Senate race after being reprimanded by the Senate for ethics violations, contributed $50,000 from his Senate campaign fund to the group. FEC spokesman Bob Biersack told the AP that it was "fuzzy" whether Torricelli’s contribution was permissible under FEC rules because donations to such groups are not included on a list of permitted uses for campaign funds. Nevertheless, Torricelli wasn’t the highest roller. Two larger donors gave $100,000 each. They were Leo Hindery, chief executive of Yankee’s Entertainment and Sports Network, who also gave money to Gephardt; and Slim-Fast Foods tycoon S. Daniel Abraham, who hedged his bets and gave money to both the Americans for Jobs group and Howard Dean.

The group aired three different ads, the most explosive of which zoomed into a picture of Osama Bin Laden, while an announcer said Dean didn’t have the experience needed to take on terrorism. This ad ran in both New Hampshire and South Carolina. The group aired two other anti-Dean ads in Iowa. One ad targeted his history of endorsements by the Republican-friendly NRA, and the other attacked his support for NAFTA, which Gephardt has vehemently opposed. The group spent $15,000 on the Osama ad and $485,000 on the other two, a point that the group’s treasure speaks of fondly. "We did more with $600,000 than Howard Dean did with $41 million," said David Jones, the group's treasurer and a Democratic fund-raising consultant, referring to money the Dean campaign raised and has pretty much spent.

Maybe there is sufficient personal reason for Dean to go Green.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 11, 2004 6:04 PM