Obama Campaign Files FEC Complaint Against Pro-Clinton Group

CNN reports:

Barack Obama's campaign has filed a formal complaint over a pro-Hillary Clinton group running ads attacking the Illinois senator on jobs and the economy in the critical primary state of Indiana.

The American Leadership Project, which includes veterans of the Clinton administration and longtime supporters, is a "527," which means it is not bound by federal campaign finance laws as long as it does not directly advocate on behalf of a particular candidate.

The group announced earlier this week that it was planning to buy $700,000 worth of airtime in the state leading up to Tuesday's vote.

The Obama campaign planned a conference call this morning with general counsel Bob Bauer to discuss the specifics of the complaint filed Tuesday with the Federal Elections Commission.

Here's the ad in question:

Comments

[mark77]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_el_pr/political_play_of_the_day

According to Yahoo News, Clinton has not driven a car or pumped gas for many years. She spent the past 30 years in the governor's mansion, White House, and US Senate. She actively worked to send jobs to Mexico, and her campaign advisor worked on the Columbian free trade deal. But Clinton is not elitist because there's Clinton drinking beer! There's Clinton shooting ducks! There's Clinton riding to work with a steelworker (and six secret service guys)!

Ask yourself this: why doesn't Obama have 527s making ads for him in every state? Because big business likes Clinton's policies but not Obama's, so they're going after Obama with all the money they've got. Wake up, people. If Obama loses the nomination, we're not going to be worried about Rev Wright and flag pins anymore. We're just going to be faced with the same problems in our daily lives and the same Washington that never does anything about it.

[Dragonfly0867]

Unfortunately, I think it will be far, far worse...

[Roshi98]

Which policies of Hillary's does big business favor? Please, just name a couple of them.

[writerswrite]

Most importantly, she accepts money from PACS and lobbyists. That means she's beholden to them. So is McCain. They are corporate candidates, Obama is not.

[Pammy1151]

Insurance (medical) companies for one!!

[BOBZILLA]

NAFTA (duh)

[mark77]

NAFTA. Bankruptcy bill. Health care plan based entirely on tax refunds that doesn't cover those who are unemployed. Unwillingness to raise the payroll tax on incomes above $250,000 in order to save social security.

[patmancando]

Can you please tell us Clinton supporters just what makes this a 'negative Swift boat' type ad?
If he is upset by this, how could he ever stand up to a real GOPpher swift boating? It seems to me that this is a campaign for the nominee and one has to point out the deficiencies of the other candidate. How did Obama's campaign justify pushing the Bosnia story as a lie to question Hillary's trustworthiness? Won't Mc Cain be able to swift boat her with that? Seems like Obama's campaign wants it both ways.... don't tread on me, but I'm going to throw mud on you with personal attacks...­.......Gro­w up!

[mark77]

What's your response to my point about 527s supporting Clinton?

[tc399]

More swiftboating, eh? Right from Kark Rove's playbook. I can do that too.

Elect Hillary! TOTALLY OBLITERATE IRAN. WE HAVE THE NUKES, LET'S USE 'EM!

MCCAIN '08 " I really don't remember hearing about New Orleans, but 100 more years in Iraq sounds about right."

[Keith52]

The irony is that the press does not address any issues except on a very superficial level. But if you go to each candidate's web sites you will see lots of ideas and issues addressed. Ads like these are designed around focus group testing. This is where advertisers get groups of voters together to find out what they know and think. It really doesn't matter what the facts are. Just find out what is perceived. And since the press doesn't present issues and ideas the voters' perception is limited and the impression is that the candidate has no ideas about issues. What we really need is what Barack has advocated early on. We need restriction of campaign funds to government funds and debates that are organized by neutral parties with no commercial interest involved. We need to stop the Federal lobbyists in Washington. It's the only way to have somewhat fair elections.

[aj4321]

Are you kidding me? Do these people know the latest invention that have been around for some time called the "internet" and Barack Obama has a website where he lists all his policy objectives?

[Vantunow]

For Clintons, ends justify the means.

[chronic]

There is sooooo much dirt on the Clintons that Obama should be able to destroy them!!


He better stop his "passive"/"hopeful" campaign and get out there and fight like a street fighter!!!

[aquaglass]

he's a rookie. meant to get beat! (woosie)
if he can't stand the heat, like the ole saying goes..."ge­t out of the kitchen!"

[sheikwil]

Rookie, no, he just not a lyar like the Clinton's and they are so hated that all this is going to blow up in their face in the end. The Clinton's have lost the AA vote and she would need them to win and the DNC knows this and they are not going to let the Clinton's bring down the entire DNC party and lose the AA votes. The worse the ads the Clintons use against Obama is just more AA votes that they will lose, this is why some of her friends and people that were supporting them have left the campaign and are now supporting Senator Obama because Hillary and Bill both are lyars and why would people think she could control this country when she couldn't even control Bill Clinton from having sex right in the White House while she was in it.

[SCG2]

Dream on.

[ohmercy]

ummm, then why would you be supporting him?
I thought that you were supporting him because he is doing things differently, bringing back hope and change and changing the dynamics and politics of personal destruction.
It seems like a contradiction that you would want him to behave in opposition to the very reason you are supporting him.

Or are you supporting him in relation to Hillary Clinton rather than his own policies?

As a matter of fact I notice on every thread that no matter the subject no one sounds very hopeful. All comments are full of invective about Clinton and no one actually talks about Obama's policies or talks about Obama in positive terms- as something separate and aside from Clinton. Every thread seems to be an opportunity to hate Clinton rather than promote Obama?

Why is that?
sounds like more of the same to me.
Politics as usual, only worse.

[ohmercy]

BTW, the neocons tried to destroy the Clinton's with all this supposed "dirt" on them. The "dirt" you refer to was innuendo and rumor put out by the neocons with their smear campaign.

They spent millions of dollars and years of time trying to force the ouster of Bill Clinton from office. This was mostly in retaliation for Hillary Clinton's work in forcing the resignation of Dick Nixon on the Watergate committee. Neocons have very long memories and really like revenge.

In the end they had to settle on Monica garbage in an attempt to destroy Hillary and humiliate her. I must gall them to no end that they didn't fold, he didn't resign and Hillary clinton is still going strong.

If for no other reasons than finding the Nixon/Watergate info and not crumbling under the neocon attack machine she deserves some respect.

What have you done lately?

[valkyrie607]

Notice that the article "Obama Mystery" mentioned in the ad is by David Ignatius, one of the worst media hacks ever.

[ProgressiveBum]

Just when you thought the Clinton's couldn't sink any lower, somebody not associated with the (wink, wink) lowers the bar again. This gutter politics inside the Democratic party has to stop!

[SCG2]

You can only wonder what the actual goal is, she can't realistically over come the delegate count,and the superdelegate overturn is a slim dream. I think your seeing the inside Washington lobbyists try to save their "entitlements", trash Obama as much as possible to increase McCain chances.

[ohmercy]

oh shush, you are so silly.

[BradfromCO]

My friends, I am outraged at this ad! So mad I could scream at a few reporters or fellow senators! Who do these Democrats think they are?? I am running for President as the Republican nominee, not them! Why do they get to have all the fun?? --- John McCain

[suuzie]

Then why are you voting for Hillary Clinton?

[BradfromCO]

When have I ever said such a thing? Blasphemy!

[PorkBelly]

Certainly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. However, that does not seem to bother the Clintons.

[kristin]

This ad mumbles the one sentence that has the truth. Can't quite figure out what specifically he had no specific plans for. The ad implies it is in generaL EXCEPT for the one hard to understand sentence that truthfully but vaguely states the specific issue that the AP was talking about. Afraid to state the truth clearly Hillary ad making swiftboaters?

[Myshkin57]

The "specifics" debate is just nonsense. They say he has no specifics because he doesn't set them out in his stump speeches. Guess what? Almost no one does. I saw Bill Clinton in '92 and I didn't hear any specifics. I didn't even hear anything general about his vision. He just sorta told us that those folks in Washington didn't want us to hear the truth or something along those lines.

And there is no reason you should give specifics in a stump speech. No one is going to be able to evaluate a policy proposal from a stump speech. The only reason to go into great detail at a stump speech is that you want to overwhelm your audience with information so that they think you know what you're doing. That's what incompetent academics do; they speak in jargon they know their audience won't be able to grasp and intimidate them into being impressed with their intellect. This is Clinton's strategy.

[YWCYWC]

Meanwhile Hillary stumps in Indiana, telling tall tales about how Bush caused defense industry jobs to go to China by letting important companies be sold to China. What she leaves out is that BILL CLINTON is the one who rubber stamped the approval on these sales, not Bush.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/election2008/story/35337.html

The big myth - Bill Clinton was great for the economy.

[biglith]

What is unfortunate is that 527 ads and robo-calls work. The only hope is that there will be a rise in consciousness with some elements of the voting public that makes them immune from slimy election tactics. This stuff is bad karma and damages the soul of our nation.

[Biracial1]

Hillary's campaign playing by the rules, that's a new one. If that were the case she wouldn't be adding the votes from FL and MI in her popular vote total.

[dottedzebra]

...and the popular vote would be what decided the nominee.

[Myshkin57]

No... those aren't the rules. The Obama campaign set out a smart strategy of going after the most delegates because those were the rules that everyone agreed to. They also agreed not to count Michigan or Florida. If the rules had been different, they would have allocated resources much differently. That's because an intelligent leader does not allocate resources to win battles that aren't being fought.

[biglith]

Thanks a lot Clinton. You have turned a great chance in our history to overturn the Republican/Bush legacy into shit. There aren't enough words in the dictionary to express how much I loathe you and your slimy tactics.