September 22, 2004
JOHN KERRY, NANCY PELOSI, TED KENNEDY AND YOUR CONGRESSMAN WANT TO...:
Bush Team Orchestrates Larger Ad Campaign (LIZ SIDOTI, 9/22/04, Associated Press)
President Bush's political team is orchestrating a vastly larger advertising campaign than thought possible under federal law, taking control of millions in Republican Party funds simply by inserting the phrase "our leaders in Congress" in selected commercials.The GOP strategy had gone unnoticed for weeks by Sen. John Kerry and the Democrats, who now may abandon their own less cost-efficient approach to advertising.
Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, said in an interview that federal election law allows the campaign access to party money "provided that your message is broader than the individual candidate and includes a discussion of the overall agenda and the message of the party." The Republican National Committee has $93 million on hand.
This month the Republicans began airing television and radio commercials paid for jointly by the president's re-election campaign and the RNC and including the words "our leaders in Congress."
The sound you just heard was the gasp of Congressional Democrats who just realized that John Kerry is going to be draped around their necks by the DNC now. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2004 11:47 PM
This should be a winning move by Bush and the GOP by tying Kerry closer to Kennedy etc. and by tying Dem House and Senate candidates closer to Kerry and Kennedy.
Posted by: AWW at September 23, 2004 12:12 AMThis is certainly not a "Morning in America" approach. Bush is pushing all his chips to the center of the table. Will be interesting to see how Dem Congressmen and Senators vote on those tax cuts with the thought nagging them that a $93 million war-chest is at the ready to remind voters of their decision.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at September 23, 2004 12:29 AMIt's not clear how the Democrats can take advantage of this, since "John Kerry and the Democrats in Congress were in Vietnam" just doesn't have the same ring to it...
Posted by: brian at September 23, 2004 12:58 AMThe Dems have to pass the tax cuts.
After years of "Bush cut taxes for the rich", how can they win re-election campaigns by voting against tax cuts for families and low income people ?
There's no way.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 23, 2004 1:21 AMAnyway, I thought that the Dems were supposed to be the sharpies ?
How could they let this loophole escape them ?
As of 1 Aug, the DNC had about $ 60 million on hand.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at September 23, 2004 1:30 AMA Democratic friend attended a fundraiser for Patty Murray (Wash.) here in L.A. (our dems write bigger checks). Anyway, the article's wrong. She already knew about them because they started running in Washington State two weeks ago. It's really not pushing all the chips to the center. It's a series of ads, with a different issue featured in each. The clever thing is they can tailor the ads to both candidate and issue, and run the issue ad that hits a particular opponent hardest.
Posted by: Dave Sheridan at September 23, 2004 6:55 AM