I admit I hadn't been paying much attention to The Denver Group, the adjunct of the No Quarter/PUMA madness that is demanding that superdelegates be given a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Convention.
When I glanced at their recent ad in the Chicago Tribune though I noticed something interesting: a disclaimer at the bottom.
Paid for by The Denver Group (www.thedenvergroup.blogspot.com) and not authorized by any candidate, any candidate's committee, or any political party.
If the wording sounds familiar, it's because disclaimers such as these are required, by law, as part of any advertising done by a Political Action Committee (PAC).
More below.
Sure enough, checking the FEC's website, The Denver Group is officially registered as a PAC. All the necessary i's and t's are crossed and dotted.
Well, so what, you ask? There are all kinds of PACs out there; what's one more? And what the heck is The Denver Group, anyway?
The Denver Group
According to the group's own mission statement, The Denver Group exists
to insure that the Democratic National Committee respect and carry out the democratic process at the convention in Denver this August by meeting certain specific goals. We will be advocating, and if neccessary [sic] pressuring, through purchased mass media as well other accepted avenues, the Democratic National Committee to see to it that these goals and the interests of tens of millions of Democratic voters are met.
Those "specific goals" basically amount to giving the superdelegates a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton if they should suffer a bout of mass insanity and decide not to give the nomination to the person who actually, y'know, got more elected delegates and stuff.
The group itself has a pretty bare bones presence so far. No web site to run a WHOIS lookup against, just a Blogspot account and a Gmail address -- the e-equivalent of living in a van down by the river.
But here's the question that prompted the diary in the first place. If The Denver Group formed "to insure that the Democratic National Committee respect and carry out the democratic process at the convention in Denver this August", then why did it form as a PAC?
PACs exist for two reasons, really: to either contribute to and aid the efforts of a specific candidate or candidates, or to work against the election of a specific candidate or candidates.
If The Denver Group's goal was simply "to insure... the democratic process", a 527 would have been far more appropriate, and with far fewer strings attached. 527s sit outside the current campaign finance system, and while they can spend to their heart's content when it comes to 'issue advocacy' they can't directly contribute to or campaign for or against candidates (although, as the Swifties proved four years ago, they can dance extremely close to that line).
In short a 527 would seem to be the perfect vehicle for their stated mission, and would provide a more effective fundraising and spending framework for pushing their stated agenda.
The only plausible reason for The Denver Group to have formed itself as a PAC is if they plan on running ads either for or against specific candidates, and/or contributing directly to campaigns. Their mission statement is therefore something of a smokescreen; the group is capable of doing far more than merely influencing what happens at the convention.
And the only hint as to who they might support comes at the bottom of their blog:
This site is not affiliated with Hillary Clinton for President, any candidate for President, or any political party.
(which is, to be blunt, a batshit crazy beginning to the disclaimer, considering that the group was formed after Clinton had already suspended her campaign. I'm pretty sure they aren't affiliated with CREEP or Harry S Truman for President or Ross Perot's Reform Party either, and I managed to figure that out without a disclaimer.)
As of yet the group is too new to even show up on the radar of Open Secrets, and the group's two principal officers (Georgetown law professor Heidi Li Feldman and New York artist/filmmaker Marc Rubin) have no donation trail on OS to follow either. It'll be a little while before we can see where their money is coming from, and where they're re-directing it.
Anybody who thinks they'll be throwing what weight they have behind Obama though, raise your hands...
