Swift Boat Vets ties to George W. Bush

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Swift Boat Vets ties to George W. Bush
34
Fri, 08-20-2004 - 9:25am
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 3:45pm
Did you spend all day looking for that one Renee? Can't stand the fact that someone that worked for Bush campaign had ties to the ad after you claimed there were no ties yesterday?
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 4:26pm

It's about time this issue was address and thrown back.

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 4:34pm

Different site, similiar information ( I hope this site is not considered to be as right leaning as the last site I posted)


http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/localpolitics/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1087734641278220.xml


Counting on 527
They are from a relatively new but well-organized web of groups with deep pockets and, they say, 20 millionmembers, mobilizing liberals and like-minded voters to-they hope-oust Bush.

Sunday, June 20, 2004
Stephen Koff and Mark Naymik Plain Dealer Reporters

They talk about John Kerry positively, and occasionally glowingly, shoving aside any misgivings over his stands on trade or Iraq or moderation. They are liberal, and they tend to villainize President George W. Bush.


They implore anyone who will listen to get to the polls in November - a message carried door to door on June 12 across Northeast Ohio.


Yet the hundreds of tradesmen, janitors, nurses, teachers and other union members fanning out that and other weekends, and the environmental and abortion-rights activists and paid workers from special-interest groups, are not from the Kerry campaign. They aren't from the Democratic Party, either.


Rather, they are from a relatively new but well-organized web of groups with deep pockets and, they say, 20 million members, mobilizing liberals and like-minded voters to - they hope - oust President Bush.


Jim Jordan, Kerry's former campaign manager and now a consultant to the groups, refers to the coalition as "sort of a campaign without a candidate."


"We hope obviously to help elect John Kerry, and there's no doubt that what happens at the top of the ticket influences races everywhere," he says. "By putting together real effective and efficient turnout operations, we're hoping to elect Democrats down at the courthouse level, the city council level."


The groups have names like America Coming Together, the Media Fund and the MoveOn.org Voter Fund. An umbrella organization that keeps the coalition organized is called America Votes.


Many of the leaders have personal or professional ties to Kerry, former President Bill Clinton, organized labor and just about every leading liberal political organization.


They are mobilizing volunteers and registering voters, using computers and Palm Pilots in gathering data from each household, broadening their membership and fine-tuning what they hope is a compelling message. And despite some talk about returning political influence to the people and eschewing the inside-the- Beltway ethos, they are in fact politically sophisticated.


The MoveOn.org Voter Fund, for example, uses market testing before spending millions of dollars to air the commercials its supporters (who include advertising pros) make.


"It's just good business sense," explains Joan Blades, cofounder of the Internet-driven MoveOn, which was formed by activists who wanted to tell Republicans during the Clinton impeachment to "move on." "When you invest in something," she says, "you want to do it well." Democratic muscle


With their sights on Ohio and other battleground states, the groups within the America Votes coalition promise to be a force in the Democrats' attempt to retake the White House. Though not officially connected to the Kerry campaign, they are in essence providing the ground support any campaign needs.


"I think he can't win without mobilization of the grass roots, and that's a big piece of what we're doing and what other people are doing," says JoDee Winterhof, political director for America Coming Together, or ACT.


Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, says the groups have done "yeoman's service" for Kerry, adding that they've "kept Kerry competitive since he won the nomination."


In many ways, their work mirrors the efforts of the Bush-Cheney re- election team, the Republican National Committee and, less directly, the Christian Coalition and anti-tax groups that support the president's re-election.


Kevin Madden, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, says, "Our whole campaign was focused on building a grass-roots organization. There's not a need on our end for a supplemental grass roots, because we were so focused on making sure that we had these activists out there the registering the voters, the knocking on doors, the voter contact."


What's arguably remarkable about the effort on the left is not that it's occurring outside the Kerry campaign organized labor generally works to get out the vote anyway but that it has managed to stay disciplined as the coalition has grown.


"Democrats by nature tend to be a little more independent and chaotic," says Jordan, who left the Kerry campaign in a staff shakeup during the primaries. "Like Will Rogers said, I'm not a member of any organized party, I'm a Democrat.' That's who we are, and that's how we behave. But I think doing what we can within that temperamental framework to organize ourselves more efficiently is a necessity."


As Sabato puts it, "Everybody's being sweet and nice. Whatever their internal battles, they hate George Bush so intensely, it's overwhelming everything else."


The potential force of the left-leaning "527" groups named after the federal tax code section that allows independent groups to operate outside the stringent regulations of campaign finance laws is evidenced in the credentials of their leaders and top givers.


Hedge-fund honcho George Soros and Cleveland insurance wizard Peter Lewis, both billionaires, are leading contributors to ACT and MoveOn. Collectively, Soros, Lewis and film producer Stephen Bing have donated $26 million to the "527" groups since 2000, according to the Center for Public Integrity.


Steve Rosenthal and Ellen Malcolm formed ACT he, the former political director of the AFL-CIO, she the founder of Emily's List, which helps elect women who support abortion rights. Harold Ickes, a top Clinton administration official, started the Media Fund, which spe cializes in advertising.


Helping to publicize and strategize the activities of ACT, the Media Fund and America Votes, and overseeing a staff of opposition researchers, is Jordan and his consulting firm, the Thunder Road Group.


Thunder Road is the name of a Bruce Springsteen song with a glorious, break-through-the-barrier climax. In an interview in his office, across the street from the AFL-CIO headquarters and a block from the White House, Jordan in jeans, a Polo shirt and loafers with no socks cited the song's lyrics:


"It's a town full of losers, and I'm pulling out of here to win."


Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

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Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 6:27pm

Hardly. I ran across it on one of my daily reads. Do you have a problem with it?


The guy didn't disclose his involvement in the ad to the Bush campaign. When they saw him on it, he was fired. There

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 6:29pm
No. There have been flyers printed up in Florida with the Bush campaign & the SBWT on them. That's coordination.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 6:41pm

Co-ordination is a memo from Karl Rove to John O'Neil telling him when to start airing the Swift Boat ads.


When you find it, I'm sure the FEC would be interestested in seeing it.

Renee ~~~

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 7:18pm
Why aren't the Florida flyers coordination??? They have been found.
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-17-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 7:44pm

Hmmm...there must be a bit of nuance in the law. Otherwise, I'm sure we wouldn't find something like

Renee ~~~

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-07-2004
Sun, 08-22-2004 - 9:21pm
The nuance is that they were advocating over a single issue, the tax cut. They were not endorsng a particular candidate.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-18-2004
Mon, 08-23-2004 - 4:01am

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I could be wrong -

Miffy - Co-CL For The Politics Today Board