http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4491379/By Dan Balz and Thomas B. Edsall
Updated: 6:46 a.m. ET March 10, 2004
Led by veterans of presidential and congressional campaigns, a coalition of Democratic Party interest groups, armed with millions of dollars in soft money, is rapidly constructing an unprecedented political operation designed to supplement the activities of Sen. John F. Kerry's campaign in the effort to defeat President Bush.
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Most of these new organizations have been established as "527s," shorthand for the provision of the tax law that covers their activities. The 527s are controversial because they accept soft money from corporations and unions, which critics say represents an evasion of the ban on large, unregulated contributions in the new campaign finance law known as the McCain-Feingold Act, and because they operate under less stringent disclosure regulations.
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Ben Ginsberg, a lawyer for the Bush-Cheney campaign, called the Media Fund ads "a blatant circumvention of the new campaign finance law." He said the president's campaign plans to immediately file a complaint that seeks to have the Federal Election Committee determine whether groups "knowingly and willfully" solicited donors "to contribute in excess of federal law and to determine whether they
knew that the money was to defeat a federal candidate."
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