Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

December 03, 2003

A Soft Money Lifeboat

A followup on yesterday's story about a "shadow Democratic party" emerging in the wake of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms:

Dick Morris says Democrats "have created an off-the-shelf, unregulated, uncontrolled, soft-money vehicle to run the campaign in 2004. Without the reporting obligations that the DNC has, the independent-expenditure organization can fund anything it wants -- overt or covert -- to advance the party agenda in 2004."

"The independent-expenditure effort amounts to more than just an attempt to continue to live off the soft money the Democrats had battled to ban. It is a virtual abandonment of the DNC as the central vehicle for the party’s campaign next year."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the creator of Political Wire, a political column updated around the clock with the most interesting news, buzz and commentary.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

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