Ex-Clinton aide outlines Democrats’ plan

Thursday, May 6, 2004 | 11:36 a.m.

By early June, Nevadans should see new television ads bashing President Bush, even if the Federal Election Commission rules next week that financing for these independently produced ads should be banned, a top Democratic strategist said Wednesday.

The Washington-based Media Fund, an independent organization of Democratic operatives, has already spent $770,000 on TV ads in Nevada. Media Fund and other political organizations view this state as one of 17 "battleground states" that will determine the outcome of the November president election between Bush and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

Former deputy White House chief of staff Harold Ickes, president of the Media Fund, was in Las Vegas on Tuesday and Wednesday raising funds for ads intended to help Kerry win the election.

Ickes, who served under President Bill Clinton and managed his successful 1996 re-election campaign, said that he planned to raise money on an individual basis from five to eight wealthy Nevadans he would not name.

"They generally tend to be people who supported Democratic causes and candidates in the past and are very concerned about the direction of the country," Ickes said.

Ickes and his Democratic fund-raising colleagues have been doing their jobs so well that they have raised the hackles of the Republican National Committee and the campaign to re-elect GOP President Bush.

The Republicans don't like the fact that Ickes and other Democrats have been able to use a controversial Internal Revenue Service mechanism known as a 527 committee to raise millions of dollars from wealthy individual donors to counter Bush's deep war chest. The "527" name for these types of committees comes from their tax code designation.

As early as May 13, the Federal Election Commission is to rule on whether 527s such as the Media Fund should continue to be allowed to raise unlimited funds from individuals for political ads.

The GOP is pushing for the change. But if the FEC rules in their favor, Democrats and groups affected will challenge the ruling in court.

"We think it's a phony issue," Ickes said. "527s were in existence before McCain-Feingold," the campaign finance reform law passed in 2002 to place stricter limits on fund raising by candidates and political action committees.

Ickes said that law does not apply to 527s. McCain-Feingold made "absolutely no changes" to the status of 527s, and 527s were not the focus when the law was hashed out, Ickes said.

"527s can't coordinate with a candidate or a political party," Ickes said. "And we can't expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate. But we can say that George Bush is bad for health care or that John Kerry is good for health care. We can also use their pictures and words."

So there's a fine line between what the Media Fund does and what the campaigns themselves do when they run ads, an admission Ickes is willing to make. But "the law is the law," he said.

"The Republicans want to cramp our style but we think there is no basis in the law to do that," Ickes said. "We think there is no basis in the law for the Federal Election Commission to exert authority over 527 committees and we think that any federal judge reading the law would agree with that."

For the time being, that means the Media Fund will continue to target Nevada and the other battleground states.

The Media Fund, formed last fall with a staff of Ickes and five assistants, has spent about $22 million so far on TV ads in the 17 states. That included $550,000 in Las Vegas and $220,000 in Reno for ads that ran from March 10 through Tuesday.

The next round of Media Fund ads in Nevada is expected to air in late May or early June.

The ads have focused on:

"We have a radical administration," Ickes said of the Bush White House. "They think they can declare war with no reason at all, such as with Iraq. The result has been a seething caldron of hatred in the Middle East. We are less safe in the world now than when we went into Iraq.

"From an economic point of view we turned a $5 trillion surplus into a $5 trillion deficit. While in the short term there may be stimulating effects, in the long term it will be a disastrous situation."

Bush is also ruining the environment, failing to adequately fund his "No Child Left Behind" education initiative, and hindering individual civil liberties through his continued support of the Patriot Act, Ickes said.

"It's extraordinary when an American citizen can be picked up in Chicago and held incommunicado for two years without being able to see a lawyer," he said.

Because of the focus on battleground states the Media Fund ads are aimed at swing voters, individuals who have voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past. In Nevada, Ickes said a majority of swing voters are women who did not attend college.

"We're focused on the hearts and minds of the swing voter," Ickes said. "They are concerned about jobs, the economy, the dramatic increase in health care costs, education for their kids and national security."

So far, the same ads have been running in all 17 states. But Ickes said it is possible that future ads will be more state-specific. In that vein, he said the Media Fund would consider running an ad on federal government efforts to ship high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Bush won Nevada in 2000. But a Media Fund poll taken last week in Nevada had Bush and Kerry tied at 45 percent each, and other polling has Bush ahead by 3 to 4 percent nationally, Ickes said.

Given the fact that Bush has already spent nearly $70 million nationwide on TV ads versus less than $20 million by Kerry since the Democrat locked up his party's nomination in March, Ickes said the poll numbers look promising for Kerry.

"So far Bush has gotten little for it," Ickes said of the president's fund-raising edge. "Bush is a very strong leader. He is not wishy-washy. But he's going in the wrong direction. He has a very radical agenda. There isn't a deficit he hasn't embraced."

The Media Fund is involved in a partnership with America Coming Together, an organization that is attempting to mobilize voters to defeat Bush and elect Democrats to local, state and federal offices. America Coming Together has its own 527 fund-raising arm, Victory Campaign 2004, that happens to be the biggest contributor to the Media Fund -- $12.7 million through March 31.

The Victory Fund's largest contributors through March 31 were Holloywood movie producer Stephen Bing ($6.9 million), Houston investor Linda Pritzker of the Hyatt Hotel family ($5 million) and Cleveland auto insurance magnate Peter Lewis ($2 million). Lewis was a financial backer of the successful medical marijuana ballot initiative approved by Nevadans in 1998 and 2000.

The Media Fund also picked up $1 million from Service Employees International Union Local 1199 in New York City and $750,000 from the American Federation of Teachers.

Because Kerry has raised more than half of his own campaign money over the Internet since January, Ickes said "that's a measure of how well-organized he is and the appeal for him."

Ickes said the choice between Bush and Kerry is clear.

"Kerry has a much different view of where the country should go and how it should conduct itself," Ickes said. "He's a strong candidate and a fighter and he has something to say."

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