Dirty Democrats (NPR on why Dean came in third in Iowa)

[janx]

click on this to listen to the realaudio of the story below.

http://tinyurl.com/2wohy


Dirty Democrats
NPR 2-14-2004

The new campaign finance laws are making it harder for political contributers to spend a lot of money, but its by no means impossible. Just in the last few days, some federal disclosure forms have made it clear how a group of influential Democrats spent almost 2/3 of a million dollars. They used it to drag down the Presidential candidacy of Howard Dean in the critical weeks before the Iowa caucases.

NPR's Peter Overby has been tracking this story, and Peter remind us what this group was and what it did.

The group is called Americans for Jobs and what they wanted to do is to bring down Howard Dean.

Now you have reported the existence of this group previously. Its known as a 527 group, which is a reference to the Internal revenue code which covers it. It is outside the campaign finance law. But what is known now is who contributed and how much.

So, what do you know?

We know that they raised about 660 thousand dollars or a little bit more. A lot of it is from people whose names are familiar. You had a guy who was Dick Gebphart's college classmate and has since been a fundraiser for Gepbhart. You have poeple whose names show up again and again on democratic contributer lists. Robert Torricilli, the former senator from NJ. Youve heard about Robert Torricelli? Yes

Yes, he put in 50,000 from his senate campaign, which still has a lot of money left. You remember that he resigned from the senate and withdrew from his reelection campaign about a month before election day back in 2002.

Now you told us about the TV ads that these guys were able to pay for last month and id like to play one now. This is attacking Howard Dean and the visual on TV shows Osaba bin Laden's face.

(DEEP VOICE) We live in a very dangerous world. and there are those who wake up every morning determined to destroy western civiliation. Americans want a president who can face the dangers ahead. But Howard Dean has no military or foreign policy experience. and Howard Dean just cannot compete with george bush on foreign policy. Its time for democrats to think about that, and think about it now."

So this commercial caused real trouble for Howard Dean and was it possible to really know at the time who paid for it? No. if you saw the ad on tv it would say "paid for amereicans for jobs, health care and progressive values" but if you wanted to know who paid for Americans for Jobs Health Care and progressive Values, you would have to wait until the financial disclosure statements were filed. That didnt happen until the end of January.

which is after the Iowa voting. right.

And Peter, I think the one thing which most people do understand about the new campaign finance law, new for this presidential election, is that most peeole are supposed to be allowed to contribute only 2000 to a presidential candidate. And that does raise the question of how it is legal for these individuals to spend tens of thousands of dollars, or even 100 thousand dollars attacking Howard Dean.

These groups, so called 527 committees are not a political commitee under the definition of the FEC so it doesnt have to comply with the contribution and spending limits.

They are spending money to affect a political race, but they are technically independent of any candidates and for the moment, independent virtually of federal campaign finance laws.

Right. You know they are not coordinating with the candidates. On a thing like this you don't need to coordinate. it seems pretty clear that Dick Gebphart and John Kerry wanted Howard Dean brought down a peg, so you dont have to coordinate with the campaigns to figure that out! But you have people who are fundraisers for Gephardt and for Kerry, like Bob Torricelli is raising money for John Kerry, giving large amounts of money to this independent non-coordinating committee.

[rucky]

1. Any group called "Americans For __________"

is really against what they say they're for. I'm convinced of it.

:tinfoilhat:

[displacedtexan]

28. Howard Dean started a 527 the other day. What's his called?

Anyone know the name of Dean's new 527?

[Dookus]

2. If ONE commercial can totally destroy a candidacy

it's probably not a very strong candidacy to begin with.

Give the Iowa voters a little more credit. Caucus voters are among the most committed Democrats. They pay attention, they care, they take it seriously. They are not sheep.

Blaming one commercial may be convenient, but it ignores the larger reality: more voters (a helluva lot more) prefer Kerry over Dean.

[mzmolly]

4. You missed the larger point...

:hi:

[Dookus]

12. which is what, exactly?

That one commercial can ruin a campaign?

If that's true, then Dean was bound to collapse as soon as Bush ran the first ad against him.

Personally, I don't believe a commercial can have the kind of impact implied by the original poster. How many people saw the commercial? How often was it run? Are there polls showing that people changed their candidate from Dean to Kerry after seeing the commercial? Were there enough of them to account for the rather large turnaround?

It's the media, it's Gephardt, it's voter fraud in New Hampshire.... Why is it so impossible to believe that maybe more voters just preferred another guy? Remember, not everybody feels as strongly about Dean as you do. It's a mistake to try to transfer your feelings onto the electorate as a whole.

Dean's failure came as no surprise to me at all, so I don't feel the need to blame everybody else. As a Clark supporter, I also feel that Clark failed to catch on in a significant way through no fault of the media, dirty tricks or whatnot.

In ANY primary campaign, the supporters of all but one candidate will be disappointed in the end. Most of us accept it and move on to the next step. Wallowing in conspiracy theories isn't productive.

[mzmolly]

14. If commercials weren't effective, they would'nt put so much $$ into them

The commerical you speak of did it's job, that along with the media zeal to declare Dean unelectable.

They took out Dean, be glad it worked.

Regarding voter preference, election exit polls showed *overwhelmingly* Iowa voters went with their second choice. They preferred Dean, but bought the BS "he's unelectable" meme.

Dirty politics works. That's the moral of the story....

[Dookus]

17. that's rather defeatist

it implies that there is no defense possible against something like this.

I disagree. EVERY successful politician has fought off such attacks. Kerry has been attacked harshly and unfairly, too, and yet he's winning handily.

If Dean's demise is due to ONE commercial, how could he possibly have beaten Bush? All Bush would have to do is run ONE commercial and the game's over.

I don't believe your premise, that voters are just sheep who are easily swayed by a single tv ad.

[janx]

19. This one was especially low because campaign

finance reform was supposed to have taken the stealth elements out of ads like this.

[mzmolly]

20. This ONE commercial was effective...

Though, I didn't claim that a *single* TV add was responsible, it obviously is much more damaging to have Democrats run this type of slime against the frontrunner then the Rethugs...

It indicative of the bullshit lengths and dirty tricks, that some people will go to in order to win an election. It's also indicitive of the fact that Gep/Kerry put their own election ahead of the Party/Country.

[LandOLincoln]

30. If dirty politics worked as well as you seem to think,

Howard Dean would still be the frontrunner.

Now, I used to like the good doctor, and still do to a certain extent, but when he, Stephanopoulous and Trippi teamed up to make Wes Clark look like a liar re Dean's VP offer, I took a closer look.

Can't say I liked what I saw, therefore can't say I'm terribly sympathetic. I will say, however, that I thought the scream business was WAAAAYY overblown.

[janx]

31. Sorry, but that is absolutely nothing compared to the

Osama job.

Nothing.

[LandOLincoln]

32. I agree that using bin Laden's image was lowdown,

but you really can't argue with the basic premise of the ad, can you? Dean does have a major foreign policy/national security gap in his resume, as he himself has admitted more than once.

[janx]

35. Using an allusion to the murder of 3,000 Americans to show

that Dean wasn't in the military or has little foreign policy experience was possibly the lowest form of politics I have ever witnessed.

That it came from his own party was even worse.

Not everything in our country revolves around the military (television coverage of all things military in the last couple of years not withstanding). We have the greatest military on earth, but our presidents are typically civilians with a great deal of education and common sense who can make responsible decisions.

That kind of argument is the cheapest imaginable.

[Sushi-Lover]

15. When some RW group makes anti-Kerry ads

sporting OBLs lovely face wont you please post again and tell all of us how inconsequential this type of ad is. I'm sure that if they effect Kerry's standing you will explain this is because his candidacy is weak. Maybe you can tell us how the informed citizenry is making a well thought out decision in their support of GW.

People do not have to be sheep to have their opinion affected by this type of ad. In a way, that is why they work. On a rational level nobody admits to themselves that a smear ad biased their thinking. You may argue that other factors were more important, but I'm amazed to see people making the argument here that these ads had no affect or that, if they did, it is because the subject of the attack is weak. Do you feel the same way about the ads used against Cleland? or is this the only nasty attack ad that you justify to yourself in this manner? That being said, these ads were not the only factor in the outcome of the Iowa vote. I don't think many are putting forward the argument that this commercial alone is at fault. I think the point is its disgusting, especially coming from fellow Democrats.

[Dookus]

18. You

won't see me complaining that such ads actually contribute in a meaningful way to a candidate's loss. I don't believe they do. I especially don't think ONE commercial can have the kind of effect people are claiming that one had.

Dirty tricks like the commercial (and I agree it was dirty) are normal in every campaign. The job of the candidate is to overcome them. If Dean could be brought down by a single commercial, then how was he going to beat Bush? Do you think Bush wouldn't run such commercials?

[Sushi-Lover]

25. Wow ... so people spend hundreds

of thousands of $s on ads that have no meaningful contribution to the outcome of a race?

I don't think that Dean was brought down by a single commercial and I said so in my post. I don't think that the Iowa primary can be viewed as a simple microcosm that will be reflective of the GE either. Another thing I will briefly note is that the ad may have been received in a way that those which GW makes will not be, because the ad was from Dems to Dems and the message was not 'don't vote for this bad person' the message was 'other people won't vote for this person'. The ad was also not, in fact, normal as this ad and those which were run against Cleland are oft mentioned as being especially nasty.

I do think Bush will run OBL scare type commercials and I don't think our nominee should complacently dismiss them, as you do, when he does. I think he should openly and quickly respond either through his own ads or in interviews. In the GE there probably will be enough time to respond .. in this case time was short.

[Dookus]

26. I never said

such things should be complacently dismissed. In fact I said the opposite.

If a candidate cannot fight back against attacks, he can't win.

But nonetheless, I still maintain that Dean lost because as the election neared people looked at the candidates and preferred Kerry.

[dionysus]

33. what about that commercial, plus

push-polling and robocalls in the middle of the night pretending to be from the dean campaign? It wasn't just that one commercial, there were a myriad of dirty tricks used there.

[Dookus]

34. I've heard such rumors

but I've never heard anybody

a) confirm them or
b) quantify what impact they had on the race.

Were tens of thousands of people phoned in the middle of the night? Do you have a script for the alleged push-polling? How many people were contacted? Have these people claimed that they changed their vote as a result?

The fact is, when people started looking closely at the race, they chose Kerry. That's not an unreasonable choice, despite what Dean supporters may think. There's no reason why large number of Democrats shouldn't support a national leader who has a solid liberal record, a certified war hero, and has served 20 years in the Senate.

[mzmolly]

21. BRAVISIMO !!

And Welcome to DU Sushi-Lover

:toast:

[GodHelpUsAll2]

24. You will not hear me complaining

The difference here is, that type of add is to be expected from Bush and co. And if people don't expect it they better wake up now. But to have it come from within your own party is sickening. And that puts it mildly.

[Exgeneral]

22. it's more than that

but we all know that, right?

To pretend otherwise is just a disservice to quite a few progressive Americans that were harmed by this.

[GodHelpUsAll2]

23. Anyone actually seen an Iowa causus???

I have. Serious, committed and paying attention doesn't even come close to what goes on there. And, it's all they can do to even get 1% to go caucus. 150,000 state wide. There are more than that in my suburban town. That, at best is pathetic.

[dsc]

3. I would rather eat radioactive ground glass than vote for

either Toricelli or Gephardt ever again.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Someone who knows told me...

that The Torch is "lights on, no one home" these days. Just a lost little boy, now that he's been stripped of all his power. Simply in a fog.

[dsc]

9. on a personal level

I feel sorry for him but I still don't morn his retirement from public life.

[revcarol]

6. We ferreted this out a long time ago.

And it doesn't say much for Gephart's ethics that he sold the unions out to the GATT, free trade with China, NAFTA loving candidate. :thumbsdown:

And it doesn't say much for Kerry that he is letting Toricelli continue to fund-raise and bundle contributions.:grr:

YUK!! :argh:

[ozone_man]

10. I won't be voting for kerry in the GE,

but this act was the icing on that decision. I rate him below Lieberman now.

[janx]

11. It's nice, at least, that someone bothered to report it though,

yes? ;-)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. "It

seems pretty clear that Dick Gephart and John Kerry wanted Howard Dean brought down a peg..."

[Cocoa]

8. this report said nothing about Dean placing third

I listened to the whole thing, there was nothing about how this ad affected the outcome.

Dean came in third because two candidates got WAY more votes than he did, I don't need NPR to explain that to me.

[wabeewoman]

16. In Washington state we had caucus's

and EVERY Kerry supporter I talked to liked Dean better but figured Kerry was more electable (Was said over and over and over on TV as well in the week or two leading up to Iowa). Maybe he is, maybe he isn't but I think its time for DUers to be honest and say, yes, these dirty tricks mattered. They mattered to McCain, they mattered to Cleveland and they mattered to Dean. That and the fact that the 'powers that be' managed to paint Kerry as electable and Dean as not. The people admitted perceived 'electability' was more important than voting records or positions as many people had to hold their nose to vote for guys who 'stood with' bush and voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot act. I certainly hope Kerry will beat bush but lets not make out that he is a silk purse when he is really a sow's ear....

[Cocoa]

36. electability is not a media creation

it's real, and people at DU, including Dean supporters, have been talking about it from the beginning.

Dean was the first candidate I heard talking that way, he said very early on "I'm the only one that can beat George Bush." That was way way back at the beginning of the campaign.

Now that actual voters are saying Kerry is electable, people are suddenly saying that it's invalid to think that way.

[revcarol]

13. Add the dirty tricks regarding Clark's and Dean's campaign staffs,

and you've got...and this man is supposed to be the most powerful person in the world??

[maggrwaggr]

27. is moveon.org a 527 committee?

If so, well, it's difficult to be against the concept.

[janx]

29. It's a definition more than a concept.

You can do all kinds of things with a 527 as it is defined.