posted on October 18, 2004 06:03:53 AM new
MINNEAPOLIS -- As advocacy groups spend record sums to influence the presidential race, Kelley Garry-Marschall and those on her block have formed what is the equivalent of a neighborhood lemonade stand to do battle in this year's political advertising wars.
Incensed by ads that attacked Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam record, the neighbors met over coffee and muffins a few weeks ago, filled out some IRS forms and started planning their own commercial as a newly formed 527 political organization.
"You get frustrated and you want to do something," said Garry-Marschall, a stay-at-home mother and freelance writer who has never before been very involved in Democratic politics.
GeorgeTheMenace.org, the entity the Minneapolis neighbors formed, is an extreme example of just how far 527 groups--named for a section of the tax code--have spread this election season.
Aided by the speed of the Internet, encouraged by media attention and made possible by campaign finance laws that grant them the ability to raise unlimited sums, these political organizations already have played a huge role in this year's election.
A new compilation by the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity shows 527s have raised at least $366 million--more than three times as much as in 2000--for the presidential race and other political causes this election cycle.
The $2,500 raised by fewer than a dozen neighbors in Minneapolis is meager when compared with the millions of dollars raised by the Media Fund, Club for Growth, MoveOn.org and other 527s.
Ad may move to TV
But this new group says it already has enough money to run its Internet advertisement several times on a nightly news program in the Twin Cities. The group plans to decide later this week whether it will try to move its ad from the Internet to TV.
The spot features archived video of Osama bin Laden making a fictitious endorsement of President Bush, thanking the president for boosting his terror network.
"Those [Abu Ghraib] prison photos sent recruitment through the roof," a make-believe translator reads off-camera. "Give it up for George W. Bush, the best friend international jihad ever had."
As the camera pulls away, a bin Laden follower is shown holding a Bush-Cheney sign, an image painted into the frame with computer technology. Although the ad hasn't been widely seen, it angers Republicans.
"John Kerry's campaign has yet to decry the outrageous politics of sleaze that we have seen during this election," said Tracey Schmitt, a Bush-Cheney spokeswoman. "This is yet another example of the politics of personal destruction."
The Republican-backed group that inspired the Minneapolis neighbors, meanwhile, reported significant fundraising figures late last week.
In a disclosure filed Friday, Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, reported raising $9 million through September, an impressive total for a group that didn't emerge until mid-summer.
Initially, the neighborhood group had simply sought to fill their yards with Kerry campaign signs. But when there weren't enough signs to go around, the neighbors decided to create a 30-second ad.
Volunteer help has kept expenses minimal. An advertising copywriter who lives a few houses from Garry-Marschall wrote the script, while another friend who works in video production helped assemble the ad.
After the launch of its Web site about a week ago, the group held a fundraising party in its heavily wooded south Minneapolis neighborhood. Those who gave $20 or more received a T-shirt with the group's logo ironed on.
`Very easy and fun'
"It's been very easy and fun," said Sharon Armus, a speech pathologist who lives three doors down from the Marschalls. "We all care and want to get some points across."
There is some debate within the group, however, about whether to move the Internet ad to television, mostly for fear of some kind of backlash against Kerry.
Still fresh in the mind of Armus and many Minnesota Democrats is the criticism that followed what some considered the inappropriately fiery political tone at an October 2002 memorial service for Sen. Paul Wellstone and others killed in a plane crash.
"When you put something on the Internet, people have to choose to see it," said Armus, explaining the difference she sees between television and the Internet.
Even if the ad never runs on TV, it has caught the attention of college students in Maine, e-mail writers in France and two art institutes interested in archiving it as part of the 2004 campaign.
"It's novel enough that the message gets out way more than if I was simply knocking on doors," said Chuck Marschall, a computer consultant who, like his wife, had never before been very politically active.
Marschall, who figures he has spent about 50 hours on the project so far, said he supports campaign finance reform, but sees a place for some 527s.
"The rules are easily abused," he said. "But if you can make an argument for 527s, it would be for small groups like us."
There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
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Let's have a BBQ, Texas style, ROAST BUSH
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On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares: "the area… that coalition forces control… happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
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