NPR is reporting what we have known for a while. The fix was in for IOWA! Working through Leo Hindery and Robert Torricelli, Kerry and Gephardt colluded to fix the Iowa race! When the hate ads came out Gephardt claimed he knew nothing about them. By law the 527 had to report who paid for them by 1/31/04. The cat is now out of the bag! Gephardt is tied directly to these smear ads. He knew he was going to lose. He knew he would be safely on the sidelines by 1/31/04. Therefore there had to be an agreement between at least Gephardt and Kerry that by the end of Iowa, Gephardt would be behind the scenes. Otherwise this information of dirty politicking with the likes of Torricelli and Leo Hindery fom Global Crossings would have been devastating to Gephardt's run. He didn't care, he denied knowledge, why? Ask tourself who benefits ... Kerry. They knew the outcome before the vote! They knew Gephardt was going to lose the race, and, they must have known when they formed the 527 and started collecting funds!
This was reported on NPR today:
Dirty Democrats
NPR 2-14-2004
The new campaign finance laws are making it harder for political contributers to spend a lot of money, but its by no means impossible. Just in the last few days, some federal disclosure forms have made it clear how a group of influential Democrats spent almost 2/3 of a million dollars. They used it to drag down the Presidential candidacy of Howard Dean in the critical weeks before the Iowa caucases.
NPR's Peter Overby has been tracking this story, and Peter remind us what this group was and what it did.
The group is called Americans for Jobs and what they wanted to do is to bring down Howard Dean.
Now you have reported the existence of this group previously. Its known as a 527 group, which is a reference to the Internal revenue code which covers it. It is outside the campaign finance law. But what is known now is who contributed and how much.
So, what do you know?
We know that they raised about 660 thousand dollars or a little bit more. A lot of it is from people whose names are familiar. You had a guy who was Dick Gephardt's college classmate and has since been a fundraiser for Gephardt. You have poeple whose names show up again and again on democratic contributer lists. Robert Torricelli, the former senator from NJ. Youve heard about Robert Torricelli? Yes
Yes, he put in 50,000 from his senate campaign, which still has a lot of money left. You remember that he resigned from the senate and withdrew from his reelection campaign about a month before election day back in 2002.
Now you told us about the TV ads that these guys were able to pay for last month and id like to play one now. This is attacking Howard Dean and the visual on TV shows Osaba bin Laden's face.
(DEEP VOICE) We live in a very dangerous world. and there are those who wake up every morning determined to destroy western civiliation. Americans want a president who can face the dangers ahead. But Howard Dean has no military or foreign policy experience. and Howard Dean just cannot compete with george bush on foreign policy. Its time for democrats to think about that, and think about it now."
So this commercial caused real trouble for Howard Dean and was it possible to really know at the time who paid for it? No. if you saw the ad on tv it would say "paid for amereicans for jobs, health care and progressive values" but if you wanted to know who paid for Americans for Jobs Health Care and progressive Values, you would have to wait until the financial disclosure statements were filed. That didnt happen until the end of January.
which is after the Iowa voting. right.
And Peter, I think the one thing which most people do understand about the new campaign finance law, new for this presidential election, is that most peeole are supposed to be allowed to contribute only 2000 to a presidential candidate. And that does raise the question of how it is legal for these individuals to spend tens of thousands of dollars, or even 100 thousand dollars attacking Howard Dean.
These groups, so called 527 committees are not a political commitee under the definition of the FEC so it doesnt have to comply with the contribution and spending limits.
They are spending money to affect a political race, but they are technically independent of any candidates and for the moment, independent virtually of federal campaign finance laws.
Right. You know they are not coordinating with the candidates. On a thing like this you don't need to coordinate. it seems pretty clear that Dick Gephardt and John Kerry wanted Howard Dean brought down a peg, so you dont have to coordinate with the campaigns to figure that out! But you have people who are fundraisers for Gephardt and for Kerry, like Bob Torricelli is raising money for John Kerry, giving large amounts of money to this independent non-coordinating committee.
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What do we stand for as Democrats? Are we going to let these kinds of dirty tricks and dirty politicians like Torricelli decide our Nominee?
What would you say if this was ROVE?
Do the right thing! Do not let Kerry and Gephardt get away with this.
If we do not stand on principle what good is winning?
These people have tampered with the sacred right of the American people to have a vote and a voice in a free and fair election.
This is worse than, or at least tantamount to any lie that Bush told!
Please, help get these dirty politicians out of the party and out of this race.