According to the Hill, the liberal Democrat supporting 527 groups are very far behind in their goal of raising the hundreds of millions they wanted to run negative ads against President George W. Bush.
This is particulary disturbing considering that so many in the DEM party were counting on having these resources to combat the estimated 170 million that Bush will spend between now and his early Sept convention defining the DEM nominee....apparently Sen. Kerry. Although Kerry opted out of the public finance system he is still not raising funds anywhere near the clip of George Bush and Kerry still has two major challengers who vow to fight him into March. This will eat up most of his new found campaign funds just about the time that Bush and Rove start THE GREAT SMEAR campaign. Kerry is particulary vulnerable to a smear campaign based on his extensive liberal voting record in the Senate, his controversial Vietnam protests, and his homestate connections (Kennedy, Dukakis, and MA gay marriages).
Another important fact is that these groups cannot directly coordinate with Kerry's campaign regardless of whether they raise the hundreds of millions they promised.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
The network of soft-money fundraising groups known as the "shadow" Democratic Party has fallen significantly short of its fundraising goals even as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), faces heavy Republican attacks in coming months.
Eight of the largest and most prominent liberal soft-money funds -- known as 527s after a section of the federal tax code -- have raised less than 10 percent of their expected outlays for the 2004 election.
......Earlier published projections set $275 million as a reasonable goal.
The fundraising activity of these 527 groups has apparently been chilled by Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaints filed by campaign finance watchdog groups, subpoena threats by Republican House lawmakers, and indications that several members of the FEC now want to crack down on these groups.
.......Although political groups tend to raise more money in the second year of an election cycle, the fundraising totals are troubling for Democrats because their presidential candidate will need these funds most in the coming months, before he receives $75 million in public funding after the Democratic convention.
Before receiving that windfall of public money, the Democratic nominee will face a daunting funding disparity compared to the president.
For example, at the end of January, Bush reported raising $130 million last year and saving close to $100 million of that total.