Swiftboating MoveOn

In 2004, Houston multimillionaire Bob Perry was the largest donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. In 2006, he's using his money to "swift boat" MoveOn.org.

Perry's given $1 million this cycle to the Free Enterprise Fund's "Stop MoveOn.org" campaign, which is running television ads attacking the online organization. Both ads try to link MoveOn to "radical billionaire George Soros," who appears in the spots looking like a crazed burglar.

"MoveOn.org has a radical agenda of tax increases, expanding the welfare state, global governance and socialized government run healthcare," reads a Free Enterprise Fund fundraising pitch. "And since they already own the Democrat [sic] Party, they now want to buy Congress and put their puppets in power."

(Like the Swift Boat Vets, accuracy has never been a strong point of the Free Enterprise Fund. An ad they ran about the estate tax was called "blatantly false" by FactCheck.org.)

MoveOn has become a convenient scapegoat for desperate right-wingers. If only the group had as much clout as conservatives imagine. "They present us as the all-powerful puppeteer of the Democratic Party," jokes MoveOn Executive Director Eli Pariser. "We wish."

But MoveOn has been effective, which is the real reason it is attracting so much scorn from the right. The Free Enterprise Fund admits as much. "Before MoveOn.org's ads [Congresswoman] Thelma Drake in Virginia had a 9% point lead," the fundraising letter states. "This race is now dead even."

In April MoveOn began running a series of ads tying four vulnerable GOP Representatives--Drake, Chris Chocola, Deborah Pryce and Nancy Johnson--to corporate welfare and Republican corruption. The negative ratings of the Republicans rose and their leads began to vanish. Even Majority Leader John Boehner admitted that the ads "certainly have had some impact." The group recently targeted three more GOP Congressmen: Charlie Bass, Randy Kuhl and John Sweeney.

And MoveOn's going beyond the ad market to try and get-out-the-vote for progressive Democratic candidates in the final weeks before the midterms. The group hopes its 3.2 million members will make 5 million phone calls to prospective Democratic voters in 30+ targeted House and Senate races. They've dumped $4 million into the "Call for Change" program, making it one of their most ambitious projects yet.

If MoveOn's successful this November, expect the Right to pay even closer attention.

Comments (17)

1. So a 527 advocacy group is attacking another 527 advocacy group?

   And wasn't Move On created to fight against the effectiveness of Right Wing Radio?

   What's the problem, Mr Berman? It's called free speech!

   Posted by Mask at 10/20/2006 @ 2:12pm

2. MASK

   And it's also free speech to point out that StopMoveOn is full of it. No one disputed the Swift Boat group's right to speak, but one is just as permitted to point out that they distorted the truth.

   That's the problem and that's the point of this post!

   Posted by brunowe at 10/20/2006 @ 3:06pm

3. Desperate people take desperate measures. Lies were effective against John Kerry because the voters were striken with fear and anger in 2004. This time in 2006 the voters are sick and tired of the lies from the White House, the GOP, and the few corrupt Democrats. On November 7 we will see that these tactics stopped being effective, and we will have both houses of congress in favor of peace and prosperity.

   Posted by Edmundo Cav at 10/20/2006 @ 3:19pm

4. If that fundraising pitch by the Free Enterprise Fund is indicative of their campaign skills, we have nothing to worry about. To everybody but the stinking rich, that priveleged 1%of us, what the Dems will do if they take Congress sounds pretty good.

   By now most people realize that the Rethug tax cut was a joke to everybody but the stinking rich. Global governance? What the hell does that mean? Government funded health-care system? It's better than no health care for me and mine. Expanding the welfare-state? WE could use a little of that welfare granted to the rich by the Rethugs. Buy Congress? Is it for sale? You bet it is - the Rethugs bought it, didn't they.

   Posted by felicity at 10/20/2006 @ 3:30pm

5. It's not just the cluster of yahoos around Perry that's engaged in this anti-MoveOn rhetoric. The NRCC [democracyforberks.com] has been in on the act too, and they've been caught lying just as shamelessly. I've been subjected to the latest NRCC anti-Lois Murphy ads that are running in the Philly market (it's the PA-06 race.) The content takes the standard anti-MoveOn line of Murphy having the support of "the radical anti-war group MoveOn.org" with a picture of Murphy looking helpless and disheveled over a faded MoveOn logo and images of combat. That's just typical hype though, compared with what they claim next; they try to link MoveOn and Murphy to opposing body armor for U.S. troops, citing a Congressional vote on the matter just below Murphy's picture. Sounds like they're using her voting record against her, right? Only she doesn't have one since she's never served in Congress. The whole contention is not only wrong (Murphy doesn't oppose body armor for the troops any more than any other American does) but based on outright lies. The ad is so demonstrably false that Comcast (though not the local broadcast stations) has pulled it. Swiftboating is alive and well, filtering down into the core of our political system even as we write.

   By the way, these aren't the only NRCC ads we're having to wade through. Given that the Philly TV market covers PA-07 and PA-08 too, we're also getting the anti-Sestak and anti-Patrick Murphy ads. They're no more truthful (accusing Sestak, for instance, of wanting to eliminate tax cuts for middle class families, which only works if you think someone making over $300k a year is middle class) and just as desperate-sounding. Hopefully, some kind of basic truth-in-advertising idea will eventually be applied to political ads, to keep at least outright lies from being aired as fact. But given the lack of any other reforms of campaign laws, I'm not holding my breath.

   Posted by Stwriley at 10/20/2006 @ 5:17pm

6. Posted by BRUNOWE 10/20/2006 @ 3:06pm

   Fine...I'm sure Move On and their tactics are pure and decent and honest.

   Posted by Mask at 10/20/2006 @ 7:47pm

7. MASK

   Yet another straw man from you. If you have something substantive on MoveOn, feel free to enlighten us.

   STWRILEY

   Normally, I agree with your well-considered posts. The problem with applying a truth-in-advertsing idea to political speech (because that's what it is) is that the former applies to commercial speech which has a lower level of First Amendment protection. Political speech is a much chancier thing to subject to government regulation on whether or not it's true, especially post-NYTimes v. Sullivan. In a case like this, exposing a lie as such is the best weapon as it will explode in the face of the perpetrator. I just wish that the Kerry campaign had been suitably agressive in the face of that.

   Posted by brunowe at 10/20/2006 @ 8:58pm

8. Nobody with an ounce of intelligence (or integrity) who has actually spent time perusing moveon.org and the drivel penned by the Swift Boat liars, could possibly come to the conclusion that they are equivelant in any way.

   Wes Boyd, Eli Pariser, et al are certainly passionate and caring people. Their movement was motivated by the desire to 'move on' from the endless Clinton witchhunt, to the business of addressing more pressing issues facing this country.

   The Swift Boat liars was born of a motivation that was EXACTLY the opposite. These people stated an organization with the SOLE PURPOSE of smearing a rival politician and war hero.

   That they've now turned their slime machine toward moveon.org should disgust anyone with a soul.

   Posted by Lillian at 10/21/2006 @ 02:27am

9. Posted by BRUNOWE 10/20/2006 @ 8:58pm

   Normally, I agree with your well-considered posts. The problem with applying a truth-in-advertsing idea to political speech (because that's what it is) is that the former applies to commercial speech which has a lower level of First Amendment protection. Political speech is a much chancier thing to subject to government regulation on whether or not it's true, especially post-NYTimes v. Sullivan. In a case like this, exposing a lie as such is the best weapon as it will explode in the face of the perpetrator. I just wish that the Kerry campaign had been suitably agressive in the face of that.

   Brunowe,

   I agree that it's a problematic proposal, written mostly out of frustration. Still, I think that there might be some Constitutional room there, though admittedly not much. NYTimes v. Sullivan presents the obvious problem that even false statements are protected in political speech with the (very difficult to prove) caveat that they are not protected if made with actual malice (defined as knowingly false or in reckless disregard for the truth.) So even under the Sullivan standard you can't lie on purpose. What I was envisioning is some sort of penalty system for those who recklessly disregard the truth, i.e., don't fact check in even the most basic sense. There cannot, of course, be any prior restraint, but that doesn't preclude trying to actually enforce the Sullivan standard after the fact, especially by a retraction requirement (and if it were written so that the retraction had to appear in the same situations and concentrations as the false statement, that would be enough to keep most organizations from reckless behavior with the truth.) I know this wouldn't be easy to implement, but it would return our political system to something a little closer to being about actual ideas rather than smear and fear.

   Update: The NRCC has changed the anti-Lois Murphy ad from their previous obvious lies. It now uses the same graphics throughout except that the MoveOn logo has been replaced with one for The Council for a Livable World (billed as a "radical group who supported cutting the defense budget by $133 billion") and now saying that she criticized Gerlach for voting for a defense bill that included body armor. In other words, the criticism of the ad and Comcast's pulling of it seem to have had an effect. So your point about exposure is well taken, Brunowe, I just don't think it's usually enough and it depends on the activism of the candidate rather than the public good to clear up false claims.

   Posted by Stwriley at 10/21/2006 @ 09:28am

10. Posted by BRUNOWE 10/20/2006 @ 8:58pm

    How about their "accidental" "Bush=Hitler" ad on the website?

    Or their "accidental" acceptance of foreign money?

    Or the anti-Semite posts by their supporters?

    Posted by Mask at 10/21/2006 @ 10:22am

11. How about their "accidental" "Bush=Hitler" ad on the website?

    Or their "accidental" acceptance of foreign money?

    Or the anti-Semite posts by their supporters?

    Posted by MASK 10/21/2006 @ 10:22am | ignore this person

    Quite an interesting coincidence that all three of these false accusations have been promoted extensively by Rush Limbaugh.

    Closet dittohead? Is that why the Mask?

    Posted by Lillian at 10/21/2006 @ 4:41pm

12. Hang on. Lemme see if I really give a crap about the quibbling jellyfish do-nothing democratic party apologists at MoveOn.Org...Nope, seems I don't. Well fancy that.

    Posted by AlanSmithee at 10/22/2006 @ 11:23am

13. Posted by LILLIAN 10/21/2006 @ 4:41pm

    Careful, LILLIAN...some liberal writer (maybe for "The Nation") might agree those accusations have merit...

    and you'd have to stay off the "Nation" blog for a week...like last time!

    Posted by Mask at 10/22/2006 @ 7:57pm

14. "Swift boating" MoveOn isn't going to work. This isn't prey - it's hunter. Far from running from a fight, this beast has teeth and fangs, and is lean, mean and very hungry.

    Actual political animals get this, and know that their only option is not get into MoveOn's sights in the first place. Ask Ashcroft, ask Liebermann, ask Michael Powell. And shortly, you'll be able to ask Santorum, Burns, Weldon, Katharine Harris and maybe forty or fifty of their colleagues.

    It's also a genetically-engineered creature of 21st century politics, with a well-educated base constituting between 5 and 6% of active U.S. voters and the proven capability to take up a theme, raise cash (e.g up to $0.5 Million in two days), develop, test and execute an action in less than 72 hours. They have done this again and again, and have built up a impressive trophy case of political victories. In short, Perry and co. are way out of their league.

    More likely, their money and efforts spent will backfire on them by drawing the public's attention to MoveOn (or - worse - to them), to MoveOne's positions, and to the effectiveness of MoveOn's campaigns. With the administration polling in the low 30s, and Congress in the 20s, one side is going from to profit from this way more than the other.

    So, boys, "Bring it 'on."

    Posted by TENNISON at 10/22/2006 @ 8:14pm

15. and you'd have to stay off the "Nation" blog for a week...like last time!

    Posted by MASK 10/22/2006 @ 7:57pm | ignore this person

    I realize that, after I laughed hysterically at some of your self-absorbed posts, you've developed quite an obsession with me lately, but really…

    …I have a life…

    …and,, unfortunately, I don't get paid to post at The Nation

    Posted by Lillian at 10/22/2006 @ 10:09pm

16. The desperate attacks just prove Move On is on the right track. I feel like the money I donate gets used effectively and know that it is the small donations that are doing big things. Finally there is a defence against the Republican attack machines.

    Posted by discoverer at 10/22/2006 @ 11:07pm

17. Careful, LILLIAN...some liberal writer (maybe for "The Nation") might agree those accusations have merit...

    Posted by MASK 10/22/2006 @ 7:57pm | ignore this person

    Just curious Mask, are you talking about the Rush Limbaugh acusations you repeatedor are you thinking the writers at The Nation (snicker) are going to respond directly (snort)...to you (gufaw)...again!?!?..........HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

    Posted by Lillian at 10/23/2006 @ 12:13am