The Committee of Seventy CEO Zack Stalberg called the formation of a so-called "527" group to air attack ads against Tom Knox “another brazen attempt to avoid the City’s campaign finance law" in a press release just issued.
"When the purported mission of a committee is to simply attack a candidate, you have to ask whether that committee is crossing the line," he added.
The problem is, 527s are not supposed to be affiliated with a candidate -- or formed to fight one. They are supposed to advocate on issues. (Now, go ahead and ask me what issue the Swift Boat Veterans were pushing besides the issue of getting the president elected, and how paying a fine later somehow changed the impact that group had. I'm just talking about this case.)
It does seem that something called the "Economic Justice Coalition for Truth" could constrain itself to crowing that payday loans, for example, are bad. But that's not the group's aim, at least according to what attorney Alex Talmadge told Dave Davies. He said this:
"It’s our intent to raise enough money to get television ads on before the election to raise issues people don’t know about Knox, including his payday lending."
“If this is truly the group’s aim,” Zack said in the press release, “it doesn’t appear to be legitimate issues advocacy, but blatant negative advertising.”
Zack asked the Board of Ethics to rule on whether the Economic Justice Coalition for Truth is a genuine 527 committee and independent of any of the candidates in the Democratic primary -- as well as the Democratic party organization.
Zack also took a moment to point out that he's certainly not happy that a millionaire's massive ad buys are scrambling a race that otherwise has been controlled by campaign finance limits, but said 527s are not the answer.
“Once again, Seventy cautions voters not to be unduly persuaded by positive or negative ads aired by any candidate or committee,” Zack said in the release. “Voters should do their own homework on the issues, the candidates’ background and their vision for the future of Philadelphia.”
Hey, we know just the place for that!
Comments (1)
Brady's campaign staff must not be too bright.
How can they not see that this just plays into Knox's hands. "Brady the party hack resorts to dirty tricks".
Posted by Anonymous | April 28, 2007 10:01 AM