Political ads: Cash still king

When the Supreme Court upheld campaign finance reform last December, the hopes and fears of political observers ran high.

Many in the public hoped that, at last, the ban on so-called "soft money" to political parties would banish forever the distorting influence of big money from campaigns. Others predicted the crippling of political parties. Still others, such as the Supreme Court's most conservative justices, warned that freedom of speech and press could be in peril.

Nothing of the kind has happened. The parties, now unable to receive those large, unlimited donations, have been forced to expand their donor bases, and are wealthier than ever. The Democratic Party, which doomsayers predicted would die first, is in better financial shape than when soft money was king. And anyone paying attention to the media is seeing as lively a campaign as ever.

But nobody ever said that "lively" would equal "fair." To this electrified campaign environment, powered by the sharp partisan divide in the electorate, comes new emphasis on independent groups that are the recipients of the corporate and union soft money that parties may no longer accept.

As the Supreme Court majority itself noted in its campaign finance ruling on the McCain-Feingold law, "Money, like water, will always find an outlet."

Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and supporter of McCain-Feingold, put it this way: "No matter what set of laws we've ever had, the ability of individuals to spend whatever they've wanted as has always been there."

Thus has this campaign seen the rise of so-called 527 groups, named for the section of the tax code that governs them and which are now responsible for some of the most inflammatory ads on television, such as the Vietnam veterans' group trying to discredit Democratic nominee John Kerry's war record. The quantity of these groups, which existed long before McCain Feingold became law, has exploded, particularly on the Democratic side; suddenly they are the bogeyman of the 2004 campaign.

On Monday, President Bush avoided specifically condemning the ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, instead issuing a blanket rejection of all the ads by such groups: "I'm denouncing all the stuff being on TV of the 527s," he told reporters at his Texas ranch.

But, observers of campaign finance note, the president has yet to propose any changes to the system that allows these groups to operate. And more important, the issue of negative ads by outside groups goes far beyond the 527 committees. In fact, the liberal group that Republicans blame most for nasty ads against Bush isn't even a 527. It is the Moveon political action committee (PAC) that is running ads taking on Bush for his avoidance of military service in Vietnam and his record in the Texas Air National Guard.

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