Center for Investigative Reporting tracks who is funding the Anti-McCain Ads

So far there is no evidence of the new anti-McCain ads running in the West Michigan media market. However, this new campaign is running in some states and the Center for Investigative Reporting has posted a recent story that looks at which groups are behind this campaign to discredit McCain:

"The Center for Investigative Reporting and National Public Radio have traced the flow of money and interwoven connections behind the anti-McCain ads, which are being run by the Campaign to Defend America, a nonprofit set up last year by MoveOn.org co-founder Wes Boyd, among others.

The group has been running ads in Erie, Pennsylvania over the past weeks, and plans to spend more than $1 million on the anti-McCain ad, according to a press release.

The group's money comes from the Fund for America, a new 527 organization run by major Democrats and top union officials to help coordinate the effort to take back the White House. The Fund's money comes from billionaire investor George Soros ($2.5 million), the Service Employees International Union ($2.5 million), and hedge fund manager Donald Sussman ($1 million), among others. Its leadership includes former President Clinton chief-of-staff John Podesta, Taco Bell heir Rob McKay and executives from SEIU and a national teacher's union.

"A trillion dollars in Iraq over the next ten years. McSame as Bush," narrates the ad. "Tell John McCain we need a new direction. Not the McSame old thing."

The Campaign to Defend America (CDA) declined repeated requests for interviews.

As an independent organization, CDA can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, as long as it doesn't coordinate with the candidate or party committee that it is helping.

CDA uses lawyers who also represent the Democratic National Committee. For example, DNC general counsel Joseph E. Sandler helped incorporate Campaign to Defend America in March 2007, according to documents. Sharing lawyers is usually not a violation of the "coordination" rule, as long as the lawyers don't share or influence strategy, says election lawyer Kenneth Gross.

But it can raise the question of the appearance of improper coordination. Gross notes that in 2004, a legal advisor to President Bush's campaign resigned because he had also represented the independent group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

The McCain ad isn't the only production of the Campaign to Defend America. The group is closely affiliated with Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (or "Iraq 2008"), a coalition of liberal groups that ran the "Iraq Summer" campaign last year, which organized grassroots opposition to Republican members of Congress who opposed withdrawal timetables for the war in Iraq. The Americans Against Escalation coalition is an alias for CDA, according to records filed with Washington's secretary of state.

The Campaign to Defend America itself is organized as a 501c4 nonprofit organization, a form of tax-exempt group becoming more popular among political operatives because it doesn't have to disclose its donors. As yet, however, the group has not received tax-exempt status by the IRS, according to an IRS spokesman.

Unlike 527s like the Fund for America, CDA wouldn't have to disclose who funded its automated calls to voters, which have already received complaints.

But running a TV ad about a candidate close to an election has stricter rules, which is why CDA filed papers revealing its funding. In the filings, CDA also claimed a special exemption that would allow it to use stronger wording than other organizations, explicitly urging voters to vote for or against a candidate."

Readers can also view a chart outlining the relationships between the organizations.