Recent revelations in Slate and the Washington Post about longtime Republican leader Fred Malek's attempts to fire Jewish government officials during the '70s are being used by Democrats to go after the GOP. What's this have to do with politics today?
It's clear that Malek has some "splainin'" to do -- Dave Weigel gets to the heart of the story here -- but this isn't really about Malek. It's an excuse for Democrats to go after the organization Malek currently chairs -- the American Action Network -- in the latest iteration of a strategy to defang political opponents first used in 2008.
AAN is a CAP-inspired political organization that plans to spend a significant amount of money in support of Republican candidates this fall; the group already spent $54,000 in last month's special election in Pennsylvania's 12th District. AAN is expecting to spend $25 million this cycle, and along with nine other independent conservative groups, about $165 million will be in play this year. That's a lot of money, and Democrats want to be ready for it. So they are doing with AAN what they did with another Republican political organization in 2008.
Then, Democrats' big worry was Freedom's Watch, an organization funded primarily by Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson and staffed with a number of big-name Republican operatives. Democratic campaign committees set out to vilify the organization in the months before the elections, when voters started paying serious attention to the races. That way, when Freedom's Watch began running ads in competitive districts, Democrats would have an angle to attack the group -- and the candidate it supported.
This included criticizing Adelson's work as an international gambling mogul and charging that the group illegally colluded with the National Republican Congressional Committee. When Freedom's Watch ran advertisements in contested races, Dems would inevitably and publicly ask why Republican candidates would accept support from this group with no ties to the district. While Republicans ask the same pointed questions of similarly organized progressive groups, political observers perceived the Democrats' counterattacks as more effective because they laid early groundwork. Now, they're trying to do the same with Malek's AAN.
"The American people deserve to know who is behind these shady right-wing groups like the American Action Network, American Crossroads, and others that are spending millions on dishonest attacks," Ryan Rudominer, a DCCC spokesperson, told me yesterday. "House Republican Leaders need to answer for letting Malek orchestrate their attacks on Democrats this year.”
It's not yet clear whether this tactic will work in 2010. Republicans don't think it had much play in 2008, either. This morning, I spoke to Carl Forti, a veteran Republican operative who has worked at the NRCC and Freedom's Watch. He now consults for American Crossroads, one of the largest conservative independent groups and an affiliate of AAN.
"I think they're going to have the same success they had in '08 – I don't think it had any impact whatsoever," Forti says. "People vote for the candidates on the ballot, not necessarily who their friends are. If people voted for who their friends are, the Democrats would get destroyed, because Nancy Pelosi ... isn't very popular."
Whether or not the strategy works, campaigns will need strategies to counteract spending by political groups. It's not clear how much harder the Citizens' United decision, which allows corporations and unions unlimited political spending, will make this, but Forti expects groups on both sides of the aisle to play a significant role.
"2008 was probably one of the first times we saw a significant presence of outside groups attempting to play in House and Senate races, outside the presidential race," he says. "This time, you're potentially going to see more."
-- Tim Fernholz
