On March 30, 2004, the Bush campaign and the RNC filed formal complaints with the FEC against the Kerry campaign and the pro-Democratic 527 groups. "Senator Kerry, who supported [McCain-Feingold], is now the beneficiary of the single largest conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws in history," declared Jill Holtzman Vogel, RNC chief counsel.
The legal challenge collapsed on May 13, when the FEC voted 4 to 2 to put off regulating the 527s until after the Nov. 2 election.
But the ruling ended up allaying the fears of many pro-Republican corporate leaders that they would be risking FEC or court sanctions if they donated to 527 groups.
For PFA, the floodgates were open. Among the early big givers were Carl H. Lindner Jr. and A. Jerrold Perenchio, both Bush campaign "Rangers." They were quickly followed by such other Bush fundraisers as Alexander G. Spanos ($5 million); Dawn Arnall ($5 million); Pickens ($2.5 million); and Alice Walton ($1.6 million).
The FEC decision "put us in the ballgame," McCabe said, "and we've been going full throttle since then."
Not only have the two pro-Republican 527s, PFA and the Swift Boat Veterans, recently outraised the Democrats, but the ads run by PFA and the Swift Boat Veterans have also gained far more notoriety than any of the Democratic 527 ads.
The best-known ad was run in early August, right after the Democratic National Convention, by the Swift Boat Veterans. It attacked Kerry's record in Vietnam, charging, "Kerry is lying about his first Purple Heart" and "Kerry lied to get his Bronze Star." These claims were never substantiated, and they were disputed by the Kerry campaign and in newspaper articles, but questions about Kerry's service dominated the campaign through much of August.
More recently, PFA has produced two harshly anti-Kerry ads that have become subjects of controversy and debate, especially in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Iowa where they are running frequently.
First, on Sept. 22, PFA and the Bush-Cheney campaign put up similar ads showing Kerry tacking while windsurfing and quoting Kerry taking seemingly opposite stands on various issues. The Bush ad concludes, "John Kerry. Whichever way the wind blows." The PFA ad ended with, "Whichever way the wind blows, Kerry rides the wave. And Kerry surfs every direction on Iraq."
More recently, the Bush campaign and the PFA have launched new ad buys with other similar themes. The PFA ad shows pictures of terrorist attacks and such terrorist leaders as Osama bin Laden and Mohamed Atta, as the announcer declares: "These people want to kill us. . . . Would you trust Kerry against these fanatic killers? President Bush didn't start this war, but he will finish it." The Bush campaign ad concludes: "How can John Kerry protect us, when he doesn't even know where he stands?"
The effectiveness of the $1.6 million PFA ad buys was reflected in the fact that the Kerry campaign and the Democratic National Committee were forced to respond with their own ads to defuse the attack.
Asked why the pro-GOP ads have had more impact than the pro-Democratic ads, Bill Galston, a Democratic public policy strategist, said he believes the Republicans have developed "messages that inherently have more leverage than others because they go at something that is at the heart of the campaign" -- in this case Kerry's use of his military record.
"They [the Swift Boat Veterans and PFA] weren't going for a capillary, they were going for the jugular of the Kerry campaign," Galston said.
Researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
