I just realized the other day that I can't remember a single one of the Kerry campaign's 2004 ads. I guess I remember a few visuals (one of the ads involved a big bale of hay) but even then I can't remember what the ads were about.
By comparison, 527 ads tend towards the unforgettable. Consider the classic VoteVets ad where the guy pulls out an AK-47, shoots two dummies, reveals the bulletholes in the stomach of the dummy that wasn't wearing body armor, and tells you that George Allen voted against armoring the troops. You remember the feeling in your stomach after you saw that.
Do you want this spring and summer to be all about 527s kicking the Republican nominee silly with hard-hitting ads that would make Bob Shrum's face turn white? And do you want to pick which ads go on the air? I do too. And if John Edwards is our nominee, that's what will happen.
A lot of people have been worried about Edwards' decision to accept public financing. Yesterday Kos compared it to bringing a spork to a gunfight. But there is a way to win a gunfight with a spork -- you eat your potato salad while your buddies with AK-47s turn the other guy into the non-armored dummy from the VoteVets ad. (There's also the fact that presidential candidates have way more free media access than anybody else, and it's odd to talk about your campaign 'going dark' when you can just go on your favorite TV news show to hit back.)
There are a lot of reasons why 527 ads do better. Since they're disconnected from the campaign, they don't have to worry that going negative will give the candidate a bad reputation. So they can hit as hard as they want. To get funding from donors like you and me, a 527 has to actually come out with a compelling and powerful ad. Forgettable ads don't get funded. By contrast, a campaign media consultant can send off any piece of silliness and collect a big fee.
Obviously, 527s can't explicitly coordinate with a campaign. But that didn't stop VoteVets from helping Jim Webb beat George Allen, and it didn't stop the Swift Boat Liars from doing exactly what Bush needed them to do in 2004. Usually, it's obvious what kind of help a candidate needs, and that's why 527s can be so effective without coordination.
I wouldn't be surprised if the most influential 527s of the next election are groups that don't even exist at present. 527s are easy to start, and the group that ran the most race-changing ads of 2004 -- the Swift Boat Liars -- didn't exist at the beginning of the year. With lots of excited donors willing to give money, and with lots of smart activists out there to produce the ads that'll go on TV, we're going to see 527s pop up like mushrooms in the spring rain.
And I'm looking forward to the future these groups will have in the party. The flower of MoveOn rose from the crap of the Clinton impeachment proceedings. Political infrastructure can be built in strange ways, and I can see some of these groups continuing to be useful for a long time. If "Doctors for Universal Health Care" runs a pro-Edwards spot, I can see them sticking around to campaign for his health care plan when he's president, and to drive the transition to single-payer afterwards. Building power centers outside the DC establishment is always a good thing.
I want to build a people-powered Democratic Party. I want to exclude the DC media consultants who charge ridiculous fees for ad buys. I don't want to just hand my money to a campaign and watch them put up some namby-pamby ad that I forget by the time my Buffy reruns come back on. And I want to prove that a campaign funded and directed by people like us, and not Bob Shrum, can win.
