Links

Yes there are links between 527 advocacy groups and presidential campaigns. They form quite a web within the Kerry campaign.

Jim Jordan, Mr. Kerry's former campaign manager, is the chief spokesman for both the Media Fund and American Coming Together (ACT), two pro-Kerry 527s that have a combined total receipt of $54.1 million. Moreover, the Media Fund is run by Harold Ickes, former Clinton deputy chief of staff, who also sits on the Democratic National Committee's executive board and was in attendance at the Democratic Convention last month. ACT's CEO, Steve Rosenthal, spent three years in the Clinton administration as an associate deputy secretary of the Department of Labor and before that was deputy political director for the DNC. And, finally, Sam Kaplan, an honorary co-chairman of the Minnesota branch of the Kerry-Edwards campaign, is a fund-raiser for ACT.
What does any of this prove? Just this: If the Kerry campaign would like to make an issue of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's "connections" to the Bush campaign, perhaps they should reconsider their own ranks.


John Ashcroft should take John Kerry's demand for an investigation of such links seriously, and investigate both campaigns.