Democrats’ soft money running low
hillnews.com
By Alexander Bolton
The network of soft-money fundraising groups known as the “shadow” Democratic Party has fallen significantly short of its fundraising goals even as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), faces heavy Republican attacks in coming months.
Eight of the largest and most prominent liberal soft-money funds — known as 527s after a section of the federal tax code — have raised less than 10 percent of their expected outlays for the 2004 election.
“My view is that most soft-money donors are not going to move money to outside groups to keep it flowing into federal campaigns because the incentives for giving this money are not there,” said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, who spearheaded the lobbying effort to pass the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.
“The two biggest reasons this money was contributed was either to seek influence with federal office holders, who were soliciting money and to gain access to them in the process. That’s now gone because federal officeholders can’t solicit money.”
However, Aron Pilhofer, the editor of the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity’s database, said it is too soon to draw conclusions about the liberal soft-money groups based on last year’s performance.
“Whether they’re going to meet their targets is anyone’s guess,” he said.
Reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service at the beginning of this month show that these eight groups raised only $27.6 million through the end of last year.
Earlier published projections set $275 million as a reasonable goal.
The fundraising activity of these 527 groups has apparently been chilled by Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaints filed by campaign finance watchdog groups, subpoena threats by Republican House lawmakers, and indications that several members of the FEC now want to crack down on these groups.
America Coming Together (ACT) and the Media Fund, two soft-money groups run by longtime Democratic allies, had planned on raising $95 million each for the 2004 election. So far, however, ACT has raised $12.5 million and the Media Fund has raised $3 million, IRS records compiled by the Center for Public Integrity show.
Although political groups tend to raise more money in the second year of an election cycle, the fundraising totals are troubling for Democrats because their presidential candidate will need these funds most in the coming months, before he receives $75 million in public funding after the Democratic convention.
Before receiving that windfall of public money, the Democratic nominee will face a daunting funding disparity compared to the president.
For example, at the end of January, Bush reported raising $130 million last year and saving close to $100 million of that total.
By contrast, Kerry, who through Monday had won 10 of 12 contests in the Democratic presidential primary, raised under $30 million last year. Since then he has spent much battling opponents in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and other states. Since emerging as the clear Democratic frontrunner, Kerry’s fundraising has picked up considerably, but he still has much ground to cover before catching Bush.
Since the passage of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law in 2002, Democrats have feared that a funding shortage after the March 2 round of primaries, known as Super Tuesday, would prevent their nominee from countering Republican television ads until August. Then GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole (R-Kan.) faced such a problem in 1996 against President Bill Clinton, a disadvantage that many Republican strategists say hurt his changes of defeating the incumbent.
Democratic allies had planned that 527 soft-money groups would bridge the disparity. But with Super Tuesday only three weeks away, it now looks as though that may not happen.
In November, months before the Democratic-allied groups reported their fundraising activities with the IRS, Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie predicted that the liberal groups would spend between $360 million and $420 million, a figure based on press accounts and matched by predictions by other Republican strategists.
ACT and the Media Fund are only two liberal groups that have fallen short of their reported goals.
Grassroots Democrats, a voter mobilization group formed since the passage of McCain-Feingold, raised $611,000 last year, according to an IRS report. That total is far short of the $10 million it had been projected to raise.
Voices for Working Families, another group formed in the wake of campaign finance reform, has raised $780,000, far short of its reported $25 million goal. The group’s main goal is to “kick George Bush out of the White House.”
Partnership for America’s Families, also formed in reaction to the ban on soft-money donations to federal parties, raised $3 million last year, a quarter of its $12 million projection. The group was founded to mobilize non-union voters in battleground states.
MoveOn.org Voter Fund was projected to raise $15 million for the election. So far it has raised $4.8 million. Founded in September of last year, the soft-money fund was created to fund ads to challenge Bush’s policies and governance.
The New Democratic Network has raised $2.7 million through its 527 fund, a modest contribution to its goal of raising $10-20 million for the election cycle. It is a soft-money created to support centrist Democrats.
Environment2004 Inc. identified by Republicans as a liberal soft-money fund, raised $223,000 last year, a fraction of the $5 million it was expected to raise. |
