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Independent Spending in the '08 Race
Published on February 12, 2008
Category: Political Committees & 527s
As the campaigns await results from today's "Potomac Primary", now may be as good a time as any to review the impact of independent spending on the presidential primary.
Voters have been inundated with floods of information from both candidate campaigns and outside advocacy groups. These same voters may also have heard proponents of strict campaign finance laws, and even some candidates, decry the involvement of these groups in the political process.
Indeed, Republican frontrunner Senator John McCain has declared that independent advocacy groups are "a disgrace" that "have to be eliminated." Meanwhile, Senator Obama's campaign has made clear that "they do not think people should be donating to 527s."
Defenders of free speech and the First Amendment believe these groups play a vital role in ensuring a vibrant campaign and an informed electorate. Simply put, there can be no such thing as too much political speech and citizen-driven speech deserves the most protection of all.
So, as advocacy groups undoubtedly grow more active this year - always mirrored by louder denouncements of their activity - it is important to remember and recognize their valuable role in our democracy.
Mike Huckabee arguably gained the most from citizen groups. He has enjoyed the support of an organization called Common Sense Issues and another group called Americans for Fair Taxation. Without these groups Huckabee's surge in the polls may have never happened.
Last August, Mike Huckabee was an overlooked candidate with resources that matched his also-ran status. Americans for Fair Taxation, a group that advocates replacing the income tax with a national sales tax, paid to send 10 busloads of their activists to the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames.
The "fair-taxers" attendance helped Huckabee, who has endorsed the national sales tax, secure a strong second place showing in the event. His impressive finish drew attention to his campaign and began his climb in the polls.
Closer to the caucuses, Common Sense Issues placed "robo" calls to 850,000 Iowa households touting Huckabee's record and campaign.
Although Huckabee remains a long-shot to win the Republican nomination, he continues to win many states and remain competitive in even more - a position unimaginable to most pundits just 6 months ago. There can be little debating that without the help of independent spending, Huckabee would have never emerged as a top tier candidate.
The Democrats' primary experience differed notably from Huckabee's Repubican surge and offers more telling lessons about the role of non-candidate advocacy groups.
Barack Obama won Iowa without the noticeable aid of any citizen groups while his two rivals received strong support from advocacy groups. In Nevada, the roles were somewhat reversed as support from the state's most prominent labor union was unable to secure an Obama victory. These facts alone should make it nearly impossible to claim that the organizations have an undue influence on election outcomes.
But no matter the influence of these groups, all have a right to be involved in the support or opposition to a candidate's nomination and add to the political process. Unfortunately, too often apparent political concerns trump any effort to protect the speech rights of citizen groups, who all told, represent the ideas and issues of millions of Americans
Hillary Clinton has earned support from Emily's List, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Obama, meanwhile, has the support of Vote Hope, Unite Here, and PowerPAC.
But Obama, who is also supported by Oprah Winfrey, has criticized the independent groups who support him, and more notably, the groups who supported his rivals in Iowa. Campaign manager David Plouffe declared that participation in the political process by the outside groups in Iowa "exploited the biggest loophole in the campaign finance system."
Dave Regan, president of the pro-Edwards SEIU 1199, rightly called the accusation "out of bounds" and noted that the Alliance "enables working people to pool their resources to gain a voice on the key issues facing America as the country heads into the 2008 elections." He also pointed out that district 1199 represents 28,000 health care and social service workers and the SEIU has 1.8 million members nationwide.
Similarly, the president of the pro-Clinton AFT Ed McElroy said, "Our members have as much right as Oprah Winfrey does to participate in the political process."
Then, as the campaigns began to focus on Nevada, Obama received the support of Nevada's most powerful labor union - the Culinary Workers Union. In the process, the sad fact that First Amendment politics can seem primarily about political gain was cemented.
Despite disparaging the advocacy of labor unions in Iowa, the Obama campaign was quick to stand up for the Culinary Worker's input in the Nevada caucuses. Obama addressed union members by asking, "Are we going to let a bunch of lawyers try to prevent us from bringing about change in America?"
Obama's rivals were quick to criticize Obama's apparent contradiction, which resulted in an Obama spokesman saying that Obama still believes, "Campaigns should fund themselves and discourages supporters from spending outside the campaign."
The disparate Democratic experiences in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada coupled with Huckabee's emergence as a top tier candidate, should confirm that the influence of outside groups can be over-hyped but not overlooked.
The reason for this apparent paradox is simple: outside groups provide information to voters but voters are savvy enough to discern which messages they care about and which ones do not matter to them. Voters do not need "protection" from outside political speech and are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves what messages are important.
While this year's presidential election is proving to be entirely unpredictable there is one certainty. Citizens' voices are being heard thanks to the advocacy groups that represent them. Speaking out on the candidates and issues is their Constitutional right and only leads to a better informed electorate.
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