Okay, I'm getting tired of typing this out. The article goes on to say that the tactic is of questionable legality -- "In 2005, the FEC banned political organizations from raising uncapped donations by sayin gthe money would 'support or oppose the election of a clearly identified federal candidate.'" Apparently, it could be just barely legal. Basically, they're targeting wealthy individuals -- many of the same who gave to the shit-flinging boatmonkeys in '04 -- and it also has some of the Swift Boat people on board.In Stunning Maneuver, Allies of Senator John McCain Find Loophole in his Campaign Finance Legislation
Allies of Sen. John McCain have found new loopholes in the campaign-finance law he helped write -- and they're using them to reel in huge contributions to help him compete with Sen. Barack Obama.
In one method, a Republican Party fund aimed at electing governors has started marketing itself as a home for contributions of unlimited size to help Sen. McCain. His 2002 campaign law limits donations to presidential races to try to curtail the influence of wealth.
The Republican Governors Association isn't subject to those limits, and has long gathered up large donations from individuals and companies. Now it is telling donors it can use their contributions to benefit Sen. McCain in some key battleground states.
That makes the group "the best way to help McCain," says donor David Hanna, who gave $25,000 -- more than 10 times the legal cap of $2300 for direct gifts to presidential candidates.
Democrats question the legality, and even the McCain camp questions the accuracy of the group's pitch. In 2005 the federal Election Commission banned such groups from soliciting donations by pledging help to a federal candidate, but campaign-finance experts disagree about how the law might be applied in this case.
The 2008 campaign has featured numerous end runs around supposed donation and spending limits for the benefit of all the candidates during the primaries. In a first for a presidential candidate, Sen. Obama last month rejected taxpayer financing for his general-election campaign, allowing him to spend without limit after the primary season. Analysts now expect him to raise more than $200 million in private donations for the general election, following a record $287 million raised through May 30 for the primary campaign.
Some recent innovations on Sen. McCain's behalf illustrate the acute pressure Republicans feel to close their general-election money gap with the Democratic standard-bearer. Sen. McCain has raised $119 million during the primary phase. Because he is going into the public-funding system, his campaign organization wlil be limited to $84.1 million for the general-election campaign, funded by taxpayers who checked off a $3 contribution on their annual tax forms. To try to keep up with Sen. Obama, the Republican party hopes to raise an additional $120 million on his behalf in a variety of ways. Those include a technique that allows donors to contribute more than $70,000 in a single check.
The $2300 limit on contributions to presidential candidates, set by the so-called McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, is the best-known cap on political donations, but it doesn't apply to all types of fund raising. National parties can accept up to $28,500 and state parties can collect up to $10,000 to spend on federal campaigns. Altogether, individuals can give $108,000 to federal campaigns within each two-year election cycle.
Donors with deep pockets also can avoid limits completely by contributing to groups called 527 organizations, after a provision in the tax code. Those groups can collect uncapped donations from individuals -- and also collect from companies and unions, which have been prohibited from giving to parties or candidates since 2002.
The 527 groups are barred from soliciting votes for or against federal candidates. Most are formed by independent interest groups, such as the Shit-err, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that famously damaged Sen. John Kerry's 2004 campaign by running ads questioning his war record. Both Sens. Obama and McCain have publicly discouraged such groups from raising funds and working on their behalf, but many Swift Boat contributors also are among the top givers to the Republican Governors Association [surprise! -ed].
The Republican governors group and its Democratic equivalent are a different breed of 527 organization, the only ones formed by the parties themselves. Because they aren't set up to contribute directly to presidential elections, they -- like other 527 groups -- aren't subject to the McCain-Feingold caps on donations.
The Democrats say that should prevent them from influencing presidential campaigns. But the Republican group intends to use indirect methods to play a major role: "We are the equalizer in this campaign," says executive director Nick Ayers.
Political Prodigy
The Republican governors' fund-raising strategy was conceived by Mr. Ayers, a 25-year-old political prodigy. The contention of Mr. Ayers and the group's fund-raising head, former RNC Chariman Haley Barbour, is that helping Republican gubernatorial candidates in key states with advertising and voter outreach will help put the McCain campaign over the top in those states as well.
Therefore, they are telling donors, unlimited donations they can give for state races will benefit Sen. McCain. That promise, in turn, helps raise more big donations for the group.
Mr. Ayers, who dropped out of college at 19 to start working on political campaigns, tells donors that "all of the money will go toward winning gubernatorial races and that will inevitably help everyone on the ticket -- from top to bottom, from state legislators to John McCain." In an interview in his Washington headquarters, he said: "It's like planting a lot of food out in the field for one cow; it helps the one cow, but all the other cows appreciate it, too."
To persuade skeptical donors, Mr. Ayers says he provides case studies of elections where money spent on behalf of gubernatorial candidates in the 1990s also helped elect Republican senators, and he says the same theory will work for the presidential race this year.
Mr. Ayers says he has seen a significant increase in contributions from individual donors since he began mentioning the side effects for Sen. McCain's campaign. The group has doubled its take in the first six months of 2008 to $14 million, compared with the same point in the 2004 election cycle, according to figures to be announced as early as this week. That outpaces the Democratic Governors Association's total by $3 million.
McCain is also soliciting $70,100 checks by creating "separate joint accounts" which pool the maximum donations to the national party, presidential campaign, and four swing states (CA, FL, OH, KY). Apparently, they raised $3 million for the fund in a few days during a string of fund-raisers last month. It's not a new tactic -- Bush in '00, Kerry in '04, and Obama this year are all doing it -- but nobody's done it for this much money, nor embraced it like McCain has.
Now, some commentary: is it too much to ask for people to simply play by what is clearly intended to be the rules? Clearly not, especially for the party which is reeling from losing their fund-raising advantage.
