Democratic-linked groups mount ad offensive

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

WASHINGTON - 501(c)(4) — it’s the most potent little algorithm in politics right now.

A 501(c)(4) is the Internal Revenue Service term for a tax-exempt organization “primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the community.”

However one might define “the common good,” the IRS allows such groups to take part in campaigns opposing or supporting candidates, as long as such electioneering is not the group’s primary activity.

IRS guidelines suggest that as long as the group does not target voters in a candidate’s state or district with ads shortly before an election, and as long as it has been running a series of “issue ads” outside of election season, then its tax status is safe.

One alluring feature of using these tax-exempt groups is that — unlike campaign committees — the donations to a 501(c)(4) are anonymous and unlimited in amount.

A single donor could, under cover of the 501(c)(4)’s anonymity, give $20 million or $200 million to pay for political ads.

Keeping heat on GOP incumbents
Since the beginning of this year, Democratic-allied 501(c)(4) organizations such as VoteVets.org and Americans United for Change, headed by former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spokesman Brad Woodhouse, have been keeping pressure on Republicans up for re-election next year.

The Democrats charge these Republicans with supporting what these groups see as a failed policy in Iraq.

VoteVets.org and Americans United for Change are targeting GOP senators such as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and House incumbents, including Rep. Jim Walsh of Syracuse, N.Y. ,who barely staved off a challenge last November from underfunded Democrat Dan Maffei.

A flurry of VoteVets ads launched this week features retired Marine Corps Gens. John Batiste and Paul Eaton and targets four Republican senators up for re-election in 2008, including Collins, as well as nine GOP House members.

The tag line for the ad: “Sen. Collins [or whoever the targeted member is], protect America, not George Bush.”

“The intent is to increase her negatives,” said Republican consultant Chris LaCivita.

Collins, running in a state that Democrat John Kerry carried in the 2004 presidential election with 54 percent, will face Democrat Tom Allen next year.

GOP warning at meeting with Bush
Two of the VoteVets House targets, Walsh and Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, were at a White House meeting on Iraq with President Bush on Tuesday, a get-together first reported by NBC’s Tim Russert on Wednesday.

The members warned Bush of the political risk to Republicans from the morass in Iraq.

On Wednesday and Thursday, VoteVets spent its money to do an ambitious fly-around: eight cities in 30 hours. It deployed Batiste and Eaton to Syracuse to hammer home the message to Walsh’s constituents; to Bangor and Portland, Maine, to pressure Collins; to St. Paul to put the heat on Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman; and to other GOP districts in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

VoteVets says its 501(c)(4) "primarily focuses on nonpartisan education and advocacy on behalf of troops, veterans and their families." VoteVets.org Chairman Jon Soltz said his group’s ads are “very much about the votes in Congress, not the votes in elections.”

As for the targeted members, all of them Republicans, in his ads: “Some of the targets are in very safe seats, frankly,” Soltz said, arguing that the ads were not election-related.

“If there are Democrats who start to blindly support the failed strategy in Iraq, we'll go after them too,” he said. “Right now, though, there aren't any.”

Democrats exempted from targeting
But seven House Democrats did, like Republicans Walsh and Castle, vote to support President Bush on the May 2 Iraq spending veto override effort.

The Democrats included vulnerable members John Barrow and Jim Marshall of Georgia. The group chose not to target these Democrats.

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