While Democratic delegates and party notables are attending receptions and visiting Boston's sights, fund-raisers for independent-expenditure committees are trawling for dollars. The McCain-Feingold bill of 2002 really did transform politics, though not in a way that anybody predicted. It ended the era of unlimited donations to parties, while permitting endless donations to independent groups. (These groups are known as “527s,” after the section of the Internal Revenue Code that authorizes them.)
At first, before the original McCain-Feingold bill was watered down, reformers actually hoped that it would reduce the role of money in politics. Then, when the compromise bill passed, allowing unlimited donations to 527s, Democrats groused that the result would increase the Republican advantage, as Republicans ultimately have more money than Democrats and Republican-leaning 527 groups can presumably outspend Democratic ones.
But then something funny happened. Progressive fund-raisers got angry and organized, and money just poured in -- more than $100 million. To date, Democratic-oriented 527s plus official Kerry-campaign spending have about just about equaled Republican-oriented 527s plus Bush spending. There is a very simple division of labor: 527s cannot, by law, run a coordinated effort with a campaign, so the progressive 527s are mainly running ads critical of George W. Bush, while the official campaign mainly runs positive John Kerry ads.
"It costs us about $30 million a month to be financially competitive in the 17 battleground states," says one progressive 527 operative trawling Boston for high-roller contributors. "If we don't raise all of that, we'll just focus on the more important battleground states."
The progressive groups, most notably Americans Coming Together (ACT), have emphasized voter registration and education, as well as advertising. It sounds like an unanticipated bonus that money-and-politics reformers never expected. Big money was not expunged from politics, but Democrats will be competitive after all.
Not quite. One big problem, another progressive donor cautions, is the Senate. "Only one of the key Senate races is considered a presidential battleground state," he says. In other words, not much 527 money and organizing is being targeted to Senate battlegrounds.
If Kerry is elected, Democrats would need just one net pickup in the Senate to take control. That would produce a tie, which Vice President John Edwards, as the Senate's presiding officer, would break in the Democrats' favor. The Democrats are expected to lose at least two, and perhaps three, of the southern states that have retiring Democratic incumbents, but they have a decent chance of picking up seats in Illinois, Alaska, Colorado, and Oklahoma.
Yet of these nine states where Senate seats are in contention, only one -- Florida -- is receiving major investments in organizing and advertising as a presidential battleground state. A second state where Democrats have a fighting chance to hold a Senate seat in a tight race, North Carolina, is potentially competitive in the presidential contest, but is currently not considered a battleground state. In the remaining seven states, say political activists, the progressive 527 groups are not engaged, and winnable Senate seats could be lost for lack of financial competitiveness.
So the 527 groups, plus rare Democratic unity, have created more financial parity than expected -- for the presidential contest. But there are still far more rich conservatives than rich liberals. And the Democrats' effort to retake the Senate could still be the victim.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect.
