Opinion: Obama indy ads go all-out in Ohio, Texas; Clinton’s on hold
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With the crucial voting in Texas and Ohio now just a week away, organized labor and liberal groups including MoveOn.org have spent $2 million in independent campaigns boosting Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic contests, while a separate outside effort organized for Sen. Hillary Clinton has stalled. And time is running out.
As of this morning, four days after its planned start, a newly formed pro-Clinton group, American Leadership Project, had failed to broadcast any of its proposed ads in Ohio and Texas.
Last week after the Clinton group announced its plan to launch TV ads on ...
... Friday, the Obama campaign convened a news conference and threatened legal action. Obama attorney Robert Bauer warned that the pro-Clinton group would be violating federal law by airing the spots because donations to the planned effort would be unlimited.
The legal action could include criminal penalties, the attorney warned, and could be a ‘life-changing’ experience for the consultants and any donors.
Apparently the threats worked and the Clinton people and donors blinked. Plus, trends in recent polls in both states have seemed rather ominous for the New York senator.
Democratic consultants Roger Salazar and Jason Kinney, who have been trying to organize the pro-Clinton effort, denounced the threat. Still, the tactic has at least delayed the launch of their ads, if not scuttled their plan altogether.
‘We are still evaluating,’ Salazar said in an e-mail today to The Times’ Dan Morain.
The Service Employees International Union, meanwhile, announced a ‘major escalation’ of its pro-Obama effort in Ohio and Texas today and started airing television spots in both states, which vote March 4. The union already has pumped more than $1.8 million into Obama’s campaigns in the two key states, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
MoveOn, which recently endorsed Obama, has weighed in with an initial offering of $38,000. But another group, the California-based PowerPAC, has spent $380,000 for Obama. In addition to paying for TV spots, the money is going for mailers, on-line advertising and get-out-the vote efforts.
Obama denounces such efforts even though he benefits from them. His campaign sent a letter to one such group, Vote Hope, in December, asking that it cease its effort -- to no avail. Obama spokesman Bill Burton today repeated the candidate’s position, while jabbing at Clinton.
Clinton benefited from independent efforts in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early states. But in Texas and Ohio, independent campaigns by the pro-abortion rights EMILY’s List and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have spent relatively little.
‘While Sen. Clinton has benefited from more than $5 million in spending from outside groups and said nothing,’ Burton told Morain today, ‘Sen. Obama has long said that he would prefer those who want to support him to do it directly through the campaign.’
-- Andrew Malcolm