TrustHuckabee Calling
There's a new group campaigning in Iowa, but it's not saying much about where its money comes from.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

GO TO TrustHuckabee.com, and you'll see what appears to be a typical campaign Web site. "Governor Huckabee can win the Iowa Caucuses if you commit yourself to attending your Precinct Caucus and become a Precinct Captain," it says. Supporters can sign up to stuff envelopes, buy "Trust Huckabee" gear (a junior hoodie is $27.99) or watch videos of Huckabee appearances. At the very bottom of the site is a discreet disclaimer: "Trust Huckabee is a grassroots independent organization committed to educating voters to support Governor Mike Huckabee. . . . Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee."

The group popped onto the frenzied Iowa campaign scene Sunday when it began making calls to voters touting Mr. Huckabee's virtues -- and spreading negative information about his opponents. Patrick Davis, the Colorado political consultant and former political director of the Senate Republicans' campaign arm who runs the group, resisted the term "push polls." He described the calls as "personalized educational artificial intelligence polls" and said they were only the start of TrustHuckabee efforts nationwide. TrustHuckabee is a part of a larger effort, Common Sense Issues, created last year and now active in key Senate races.

"I don't know who's behind it," Mr. Huckabee said yesterday. "We've asked them to stop because it really defeats the kind of politics that I want the campaign to be a part of." But if he has a problem with the group, he need only look to his own supporters: TrustHuckabee is backed by several individuals who co-hosted an Ohio fundraiser that Mr. Huckabee attended last month.

How much money is TrustHuckabee spending, and whose? Disturbingly, that may never be fully known. "We're not going to reveal our donors, or how much money we're spending," Mr. Davis told us. The group says it qualifies for an exemption in campaign finance disclosure rules for nonprofit corporations that permits it to accept unlimited contributions from individuals, requires it to report only a part of its spending (what it does to expressly advocate Mr. Huckabee's election) and only requires disclosure of donors whose money is used for this express advocacy. In other words, this group can occupy an especially secret corner of the political world, with less known about its finances and donors than would be true for regular political committees that register with the Federal Election Commission or for "527" political groups that report their spending and donors to the Internal Revenue Service.

TrustHuckabee's lawyer says the group's operations are no different from those of other 501(c)4's that have become major campaign players, including NARAL Pro-Choice America and the League of Conservation Voters. We think all campaign activity should be conducted in the open, with limited donations. But there is a difference between those groups and newly created entities that may be careful to comply with tax rules that limit the amount of money they can spend on campaign activities but seem to have been created with electoral politics in mind: Common Sense Issues just started running television ads ridiculing Senate candidate Rep. Mark Udall (D-Colo.). If Common Sense Issues and TrustHuckabee are harbingers, as they appear to be, of the growing involvement of nonprofits in electoral politics, that is a troubling and dangerous development.