Nonprofits Become A Force in Primaries

Huckabee this week distanced himself from the effort. Romney's campaign asked the Iowa attorney general yesterday to investigate the calls.

Common Sense Issues was created earlier this year, according to IRS records, by Harold "Zeke" Swift, who was recently listed as a co-host of a fundraiser for Huckabee held late last month in Ohio.

Patrick Davis, the executive director of Common Sense Issues, described the calls as educational "artificial-intelligence" efforts and said they are being made nationally.

The precinct-captain organization it is building for Huckabee, he said, will be kept entirely separate from his presidential campaign. The group is also involving itself in a Senate race in Colorado. Davis said the group has decided to file with the FEC reports that identify its election activities as regulated independent expenditures, with the first one listing about $40,000 in expenses.

On the Democratic side, Friends of the Earth Action endorsed Edwards earlier this fall. Then the nonprofit sprang into action. In October, the group aired a 60-second radio ad in New Hampshire that highlighted its endorsement, saying that Edwards has the "courage to lead on global warming."

Last month, the group aired radio ads in Iowa noting that Edwards has taken a "courageous stand" in opposing Senate legislation on global warming that it said is a "breathtaking giveaway to corporate polluters." The ads asked why Clinton has not done the same. "Call Senator Clinton and tell her we've had enough of corporate polluters and billion-dollar giveaways," the ad said.

This week, Clinton sponsored two amendments to the legislation. They address the environmentalists' concerns.

The environmental group, like most nonprofits, had been quieter in previous primaries. The group endorsed former senator Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) in 2000, but it ran no ads. In 2004, it stayed on the sidelines during the primaries.

Americans for Fair Taxation, which was formed more than a decade ago by several Houston businessmen, has spent about $2.5 million on what it calls its "early-primary strategy." It has sought to mobilize voters in the early-voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as in Florida, a Feb. 5 Super Tuesday state.

The group's strategy resembles a candidate's playbook: postcards, humorous issue ads featuring a jackalope and a hospitality suite at one of Iowa's earliest showcases for GOP candidates, the Lincoln Day dinner in April, that offered free liquor and "Fair Tax" stickers.

Fair Tax organizers used talk radio to pitch their plan and scheduled a bus tour to more than two dozen Iowa cities. Huckabee made the group's tax plan a key part of his campaign message. Other Republicans endorsed the plan but have not campaigned on it.

The group's biggest coup came in August when it filled 10 rented buses, mostly with Huckabee supporters, and purchased 400 tickets for the Iowa Republican straw poll, the first symbolic vote of the 2008 race. Huckabee's second-place finish started his rise in the polls.

"Basically, we said, 'If you'd like to go to the straw poll, we'll buy your ticket and feed you funnel cakes all day,' " said Fair Tax spokesman Ken Hoagland.

The Fair Tax group has at least one close tie to Huckabee. The nonprofit's chief operating officer, David C. Polyansky, departed last month to take a senior job in Huckabee's presidential campaign.

The group has kept up its high-profile presence, buying all the tickets to a minor league baseball game in Clinton, Iowa, and giving them away to people who would listen to a five-minute pitch on its tax plan. During the pitch, the group spelled out where each presidential candidate stood on the plan.

The organization acknowledges that it is targeting the presidential primaries. "It is very hard to get any attention or coverage on an alternative tax system," Hoagland said. "Once you have an effect on the political process, then you are having an impact on maybe getting something done."