Subject: [big campaign] "Iowa-based conservative advocacy group includes masterminds of Swift Boat and Willie Horton ads"
From: "David S. Bennahum" <[email-masked]>
To: Big Campaign <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:34:08 -0400
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

http://iowaindependent.com/4203/secrets-of-the-american-future-fund

Secrets of the American Future Fund
Iowa-based conservative advocacy group includes masterminds of Swift  
Boat and Willie Horton ads
By Jason Hancock 8/19/08 12:29 PM

A network of Iowa Republicans is playing a leading role in a secretive  
group advocating nationally on behalf of “conservative and free market  
ideals” in congressional races around the country. Among the group’s  
leaders are two media consultants who played key roles in the Swift  
Boat Veterans for Truth ads in 2004 and the Willie Horton ad in 1988,  
both of which helped defeat Democratic presidential candidates.
The American Future fund has been tied to the 1988 "Willie Horton" ad  
and the 2004 "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads.

The American Future fund has been tied to the 1988 "Willie Horton" ad  
and the 2004 "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads.

The American Future Fund (AFF), operating out of Des Moines, is  
sponsoring advocacy advertisements in closely contested congressional  
races from New York to Louisiana to Minnesota and Colorado. It is one  
of the most ambitious conservative independent expenditure groups to  
emerge in 2008. Most observers expect AFF to begin increasing its role  
in elections around the country, stoking speculation that it will  
spend heavily to prop up lightly funded Republican campaign committees.

Because of the way the group is organized under Internal Revenue  
Service guidelines for nonprofit organizations it does not have to  
disclose its donors and is not governed by the Federal Election  
Commission (FEC).

But an Iowa Independent investigation has found the group has deep  
roots in state Republican politics. And, unlike MoveOn.org, a similar  
group advocating liberal causes, it’s hard to determine who is  
actually behind the AFF. The key players include:

Nicole Schlinger, the group’s president, the former executive director  
of the Republican Party of Iowa.

Tim Albrecht, a former spokesman for Republicans in the Iowa House who  
worked for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and spent a short time  
this year working for the Republican Party of Iowa, is the group’s  
communications director.

David Kochel, another former state GOP executive director and a senior  
adviser to the Romney campaign, who has served as spokesman for AFF,  
although Albrecht said he is no longer associated with the group.

The Washington Post reported in March – and Albrecht confirmed to Iowa  
Independent — that Ben Ginsberg, of the high-powered D.C. law firm  
Patton Boggs, is the group’s legal counsel. Ginsberg resigned as chief  
outside counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign in August 2004 when it was  
revealed that he was also providing advice to Swift Boat Veterans for  
Truth, a group that sponsored error-laden attacks on the military  
service record of 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.

Larry McCarthy, president of D.C.-based media firm McCarthy Marcus  
Hennings, is AFF’s media strategist. In 1988, McCarthy produced the  
infamous, racially tinged Willie Horton television ad that helped then- 
Vice President George H.W. Bush bury Michael Dukakis under charges  
that he was soft on crime.

Public records show the AFF also has connections to Iowa businessman  
Bruce Rastetter, who is widely believed to be considering a run for  
governor in 2010. Rastetter is a regular donor to the Republican Party  
and founder of Hawkeye Renewables, the fourth largest ethanol producer  
in the nation. Eric Peterson, business manager at Summit Farms,  
another of Rastetter’s companies, is listed on documents filed with  
the Iowa Secretary of State’s office as president, secretary and  
director of Iowa Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit that  
essentially morphed into American Future Fund.

The address listed on an AFF ad buy in Minnesota is a post office box  
used by Nick Ryan, a Des Moines lobbyist who works primarily for  
Rastetter’s companies and who served as campaign manager for 2006  
Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle. In February, Ryan was  
acting as spokesman for Hawkeye Renewables when 29,000 gallons of  
ethanol was accidentally spilled at the company’s Iowa Falls plant.

The many faces of AFF

The Iowa Future Fund, technically the first incarnation of AFF, gained  
public attention in March when it ran a series of television and radio  
ads accusing Gov. Chet Culver of increasing spending by 20 percent  
over the past two years and raising taxes and fees by $100 million.

“Culver raises taxes and spends more money and wants to use your tax  
dollars to benefit Microsoft,” the ad’s narrator said, referring to a  
tax package that Culver backed and that the legislature passed geared  
to lure companies like Microsoft Corp. and Google to the state.

The Iowa Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Iowa Ethics and  
Campaign Disclosure Board to determine whether the ads constituted  
political advertising, which would require disclosure of the group’s  
donors.

Charlie Smithson, executive director of the Iowa Ethics Campaign and  
Disclosure Board, said the complaint has not yet been fully settled.

“It is still under investigation,” he said. “The determination was  
made that it did not violate the state campaign laws because it did  
not ‘expressly advocate’ for or against Gov. Culver or a clearly  
identified candidate for office. The issue the Board is now looking at  
is whether any of the state lobbying laws were triggered.”

The next Ethics Board meeting is Aug. 28.

In April, Iowa Future Fund effectively split into two groups: AFF,  
which focuses on federal races around the country, and the Iowa  
Progress Project, which puts its resources toward state issues.

Albrecht said AFF and Iowa Future Fund “are completely unrelated.” But  
they share an organizational history. AFF and IFF were incorporated on  
the same day by the same Virginia law firm. David Kochel served for a  
time as spokesman for IFF and AFF before becoming president of Iowa  
Progress Project.

In March, an ad run by AFF in the race between Democrat Al Franken and  
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman for Minnesota’s U.S. Senate seat caused  
the state’s Democratic-Farmer-LaborParty to file a formal complaint  
with the FEC alleging that the group violated federal election law and  
that its ads constitute blatant electoral advocacy.

“The American Future Fund is a shadowy nonprofit organization,” the  
complaint said. “It purports to be exempt from tax under section 501(c) 
(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. But its notion of ‘promoting the  
social welfare’ is to send valentines to electorally troubled  
Republican Senate candidates. The Commission should take immediate  
steps to enforce the law and expose this group’s secret financing to  
light of day.”

Under federal election law, the organization is prohibited from  
engaging solely in “express advocacy,” which would include asking  
voters to vote for or against a certain candidate. But so long as the  
ad hasn’t been coordinated with a campaign and doesn’t outright say  
“vote for” or “vote against,” it is not considered express advocacy,  
according to Paul S. Ryan, FEC program director for the Campaign Legal  
Center, a Washington, D.C.-based organization.

“An organization that is careful about how it writes the script of its  
ad can fly under the radar or stay outside of the net of campaign  
finance activity,” he said.

The ad in question didn’t ask voters to vote for Coleman, but rather  
asked voters to “call Norm Coleman and thank him for his agenda for  
Minnesota.”

In 2004, several groups filed complaints against so-called independent  
expenditure committees saying they ignored campaign finance law. It  
took the FEC two years to rule on the complaints. In the end, the  
groups had to pay less than 2 percent of the fund they illegally  
raised and spent.

Brad Smith, a former chairman of the FEC and currently a professor of  
law at Capital University Law School in Columbus, Ohio, said that if a  
group’s “major purpose” is not trying to affect elections, “they are  
not regulated by the FEC.” But Smith added the definition of “major  
purpose” is not clear, which could open the door for some nonprofit  
groups to face a challenge on their tax status.

“I think there would be an opening for someone who wanted to prosecute  
a group who is spending millions of dollars on advertising,” said  
Smith, a Republican who has been a vocal critic of campaign finance  
reform.

Albrecht said there is no validity to claims that AFF is anything but  
an issues-focused organization.

“We are an issues organization,” he said. “That is evident by the  
things that are prominently displayed on our Web site and in our work.”

Ads without expenditures

Since running the Coleman ad in Minnesota, AFF has been busy.

In July, ran radio ads in Nevada, asking voters to “call [Democratic]  
Sen. Harry Reid and tell him to allow a vote” on expanded domestic oil  
drilling.

Also in July, it ran radio ads asking Colorado voters to call U.S.  
Rep. Mark Udall, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and “tell him  
to stop delaying energy exploration.” Last week, AFF launched a  
television ad critical of Udall’s stance on domestic oil exploration.

The group also released a series of three Web ads, asking voters to  
call U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D- 
N.Y., to tell them they “shouldn’t get sweetheart deals,” referring to  
accusations that they profited from the mortgage crisis.

In May, AFF officially filed a statement of organization for its own  
political action committee, called American Future Fund Political  
Action. Ryan said this is a standard procedure for many nonprofits as  
it allows them to solicit donations for exclusively “express advocacy”  
work.

The AFF PAC has used YouTube to distribute a series of ads against  
Franken in Minnesota (in May), Senate Majority Leader Reid in Nevada  
(in June), U.S. Rep. William Jefferson and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu in  
Louisiana (in May and July), and Democratic presidential candidate  
Barack Obama (in May).

However, according to reports filed with the FEC on July 13, the group  
has raised no money and has had no expenditures, a fact that Ryan  
called “odd.”

Albrecht said AFF is simply a reaction to liberal groups like  
MoveOn.org who have dominated this realm of politics for years.

“For far too long the left has been on the field with no opposition,”  
he said. “American Future Fund has said it’s time to play ball. We’re  
not going to sit on the sidelines any longer. It’s important for free  
market, conservative principles to be highlighted in public, and  
that’s what we intend to do.”

The difference is that MoveOn.org, a decade-old liberal group,  
identifies its leadership on its Web site, boasts more than a million  
members and never shies away from the spotlight as a means for  
amplifying its message. AFF is decidedly lower-profile, disclosing  
nothing about its leaders, history or membership on its Web site, and  
it makes little or no effort on public appearances, press conferences  
and media bookings.

The potential impact that groups like AFF could have on this year’s  
elections will be difficult to gauge until the votes are in on  
Election Day. In 2006, independent expenditure committees for both  
parties spent about $430 million, according to the Center for  
Responsive Politics. Despite objections to such groups from both major  
parties’ presumptive nominees for president, many experts expect that  
number to be higher this year.

To view selected ads from the American Future Fund, click here.

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