Democrats Plan $40M Hit On McCain

(The Politico)  This story was written by Ben Smith.

---

Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Senator John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist.

The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what's expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA.

The move comes after the groups that had been expected to spearhead attacks on McCain - the Fund for America and Progressive Media USA's previous incarnation, the Campaign to Defend America - failed to raise the money needed to dent McCain's armor.

"We're a little behind where we need to be," he said.

But after a dinner Tuesday night at the Manhattan apartment of liberal megadonor George Soros, at which Brock and the consultant Paul Begala laid out the group's plans, Brock said his group now has commitments worth $7.5 million - almost twice what the Fund for America is expected to report raising in the first quarter of this year. He said the group would begin running ads before it meets its $40 million goal.

Brock suggested that the group could do the work of a press corps that, he says, has "fallen down on the job" when it comes to McCain.

"A void that might be filled, while the Democrats fight it, out by the press is not going to be filled, because the press is in love with John McCain," Brock said in an interview at the Regency Hotel in Manhattan. "It's what McCain is allowed to say without being challenged by facts that will show him to have said something different in the past."

Brock's most recent book is called "Free Ride: John McCain and the Media." 

Brock wouldn't detail Progressive Media USA's strategy, and stressed that - as required by his group's nonprofit status -  the spending would be on a mix of direct electoral politics and issue ads with no direct connection to the race.

But he said he's scrambling to raise "a few million" dollars more this month to get ads on the air - ads which have already been drafted for the group by a number of Democratic consulting firms.

"There's a sense of urgency, and people want to go, and we want to go and the question is bringing the money in to say we're ready to go," he said.

Brock's remarkable emergence as a leader of the Democratic party's shadow campaign efforts marks a milestone in a long personal journey that began in the early 1990s with the notoriety he gained from magazine stories written for The American Spectator, a conservative monthly. Among his controversial articles was one alleging that Bill Clinton had used Arkansas state troopers to facilitate his philandering, a piece that set the wheels in motion for Paula Jones to file suit against Clinton for sexual harassment. In 1993, Brock authored The Real Anita Hill, a critical book about the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page »

[mudrose-2009]

He really is the Manchurian Candidate. In November B. Hussein Obama said he would accept public financing for the general campaign if John McCain committed to public funds. Now he doesn''t want to be tied down by the spending limits attached to public funds. This is embarrassing. Solution: call his Internet contributors a "parallel financing" system. Actually B. Hussein lives in an alternate Universe. He is George Soros''s Water boy which is why he can smile in his arrogant way with his little behind up in the air, rather smug because he knows who his pimp is. There is a real parallel funding system ready to support B. Hussein Obama. It''s called George Soros and so-called 527 groups such as the Democrat-supporting Fund for America or the newly named Progressive Media Fund founded by none other than a guy of questionable sexual orientation by the name of Brock. Then there is Bagala. That makes for the Divine Trinity of backers for B. Hussein Obama. Soros, Brock and Bagala. Progressive Media recently announced that it plans for a $40 million four-month campaign against Mr. McCain, and that''s only one group. They are going to smear McCain through the 501(c)s since you can''t identify the donors that way. So while B. Hussein Obama is attempting to preserve his reputation as a reformer, he''s exploiting his new financial advantage. My, my we are all beginning to learn how expansive the meaning of "change" is.

[mudrose-2009]

McCain-Feingold coming back to haunt you, eh John? You''''re a loser RINO adn I hope they give you what you deserve! Maybe this will teach you a lesson about trying to work with democrats.

Posted by LibH8er

Yup, it bit him right in the azz. Good news however, is the the American people will now know who Obama panders to with his parallel funding system. Soros is his pimp.

[libh8er]

McCain-Feingold coming back to haunt you, eh John? You''re a loser RINO adn I hope they give you what you deserve! Maybe this will teach you a lesson about trying to work with democrats.

[jack3213]

LET HIM PLAY HIS GAMES- BECAUSE WHAT HE SAYS AND DOES WILL LOOK AS FOOLISH AS ANY DEMOCRAT RUNNING FOR POSITION, THAT WILL SHOVE NEGATIVE MESSEGES AND EMPTY PROMISES DOWN THE THROATS OF THE PUBLIC FOR THEIR OWN GAIN,EVEN IF IT IS NOT TRUE. HE WILL NEED TO BACK UP EVERYTHING HE SAYS AND WHEN HE CAN''T HE WILL FALL FLAT. THE INSANE AND IRRATIONAL ARE VERY DANGEROUS.

[jockh]

The Clintons are tight fisted money grabbers. Despite lining their pockets with 109 MILLION, Hillary merely LOANS her campaign 5 MILLION. Why doesnt she GIVE it to her campaign instead of LOANING and put her money where her mouth is? After all, other candidates like Mitt Romney put millions of their own money into their own campaigns.

That way she would be showing that she has complete confidence in herself and her campaign and this in turn would encourage other donations.

However, she loans instead of gives to her own campaign because she knows she is going to lose so she would rather lose donors money in her futile campaign and keep all her millions nice and safe; so she can sleep in a solid gold bed with a mattress stuffed with 100 dollar bills. And solid gold pant suits for herself and Chelsea !!

[rowdytexan2]

Where the hell are the democrats going to get their money after they''ve pulled their Obama ***** game!

Core democrats should yank they money, and let this game playing bustward rot!