Federal Rules Help Shield Creators of Political Advertisements

FEDERAL RULES HELP SHIELD CREATORS OF POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENTS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Anne Kornblut & Jim Rutenberg]
When an advertisement mocking Representative Harold E. Ford Jr. set off controversy in the Tennessee Senate race last week, a question quickly arose: Who was behind the provocative and, critics said, racially loaded television spot? No Republicans wanted to take credit. When the identity of the producer, Scott Howell, emerged, Democrats quickly pounced on his history of bare-knuckled tactics and close relationship with Karl Rove as evidence of a familiar Republican approach. And the incident quickly set off a wave of denials and denunciations from Republican officials, including the national party chairman and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has hired Terry Nelson, another consultant affiliated with the spot. Campaign finance regulations limit how much money the political parties can spend on campaigns with which they coordinate. But they allow parties to spend without limit if they set up committees that operate independent of the party leadership. Advocates for stricter campaign finance laws say the regulations, a result of court decisions several years ago, do little more than provide a fig leaf for the parties, insulating them from controversy like the one that is now engulfing the advertisement in Tennessee. All independent expenditure units are required to sign legal papers promising not to have contact with the campaign that they are hired to advocate on behalf of, and to receive only financial support, not strategic advice, from the national party.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/us/politics/27ads.html
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* RNC pulls ad in Tenn. amid racism charges
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20061027/a_eline27.art.htm

* Compounding a Political Outrage
[Commentary] Strategists from both political parties use the “independent” route of the campaign law for launching sleaze and disclaiming provenance. Voters across the nation are hard-pressed to separate wheat from chaff in the whirlwind of political ads. But one of the few keys they have in figuring out who’s responsible for something particularly egregious is the tag line required at each commercial’s close.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/27/opinion/27fri2.html

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/26/AR200610...