Progress for the Powerful

by Laura Miller

As the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill began working its way toward its eventual passage in Congress in 2002, long-time Republican strategists were already scheming how to get around the law's ban on soft-money contributions. They found an answer in Progress for America (PFA).

PFA was registered as a 501(c)4 group in February 2001 by Tony Feather, a political director of the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and partner at DCI Group as well as at the affiliated telemarketing and fundraising firm of Feather Larson Synhorst-DCI (FLS-DCI).

Feather set up PFA as a "grassroots organization that mobilizes the public to contact their members of Congress about pending legislation and to write local newspapers to publicize the White House's agenda," the Center for Public Integrity wrote in 2002. During the first part of the George W. Bush administration, it led campaigns to support tax cuts, conservative judicial appointments and energy legislation.

Feather told the Washington Post in 2002 that PFA was simply a vehicle for building grassroots support for Bush administration policies. "Many other Republicans, however, describe it as the first organization designed to capture some of the soft money that the political parties will be barred from accepting after November 6," wrote the Post's Thomas B. Edsall.

In 2001, Democrats in Montana criticized PFA for running an astroturf campaign in support of energy deregulation. An Associated Press story reported how the campaign worked: "A pollster calls you and asks questions about energy issues. Then he asks if he can write a letter summarizing the conversation and mail it to you. A few days later, an envelope arrives containing a letter addressed to Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., on personalized stationery and prepared for your signature. The letter tells Burns you want no price controls and even fewer restrictions placed on electric power companies. You might agree with that, or you might not. . . . No two letters are identical, so there is no immediate indication of a letter campaign orchestrated by distant political operatives. It looks like a grassroots response, but it isn't." When asked in an interview, Tony Feather refused to say who was paying for the letter-writing campaign.

Several high-level Bush supporters and advisors have been associated with Progress for America. Ken Adelman, who would go on to become the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign director, spoke to the Washington Post in 2002 and identified himself as the group's chairman. However, Adelman claimed he "knows neither the organization's budget nor its sources of financial support." The address that Adelman provided to the Post for PFA's offices turned out to be in the "high-rent Lafayette Center complex in downtown Washington" - the same building where the offices of FLS-DCI are located.

After the Federal Election Commission decided in May 2004 to postpone regulating so-called 527 groups (named after the section of the tax code under which they are organized), PFA spun off a 527 committee called the Progress for America Voter Fund (PFAVF) that ended up pouring $28.8 million into supporting Bush in 2004.

In late 2003, Feather stepped away from PFA, thus complying with the letter of the law forbidding 527 organizations from coordinating their activities with election campaigns. His firm, FLS-DCI, went on to do campaign work for Bush, receiving $12.8 million from the Republican National Committee and $3.6 million from Bush-Cheney '04. Management of PFA was handed over to Chris LaCivita, an employee of FLS-DCI's sibling company DCI Group. LaCivita took over as PFA's executive director while another DCI employee, Brian McCabe, became president of the Progress for America Voter Fund.

Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity pointed out in March 2004 that election law specialist Ben Ginsberg, then counsel for PFA and a partner at the law and lobbying firm Patton Boggs, was "also the chief outside counsel to the Bush campaign." During the fall of 2003, reported Peter Stone of the National Journal, Ginsberg talked "across the country to prominent fundraisers," asking them to serve on PFA's advisory board and to rope in large soft-money contributions. In August 2004, Ginsberg chose to resign from the Bush campaign after it was revealed that he had provided counsel to another GOP-friendly 527 group - Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Progress for America and its Voter Fund reveal only as much as legally required about their leadership and membership. The group's directors, advisors and chairs are not listed on their websites. But the Washington Post has identified a few of the groups' principal figures. In addition to FLS-DCI's Tom Synhorst, who is reported to have served as a key strategic adviser to PFA, other figures include James C. Cicconi, AT&T General Counsel; C. Boyden Gray, a prominent figure in many conservative groups, including Citizens for a Sound Economy (now called Freedom Works); and Marilyn Ware, chairman of American Water in Pennsylvania and a Bush Pioneer (meaning that she personally raised at least $100,000 for his campaign).

Democratic 527s

Progress for America was by no means the only group that funneled soft money into the 2004 presidential election. Democratic 527 groups actually took off much earlier than Republican groups, due to Republican concerns about Federal Election Commission action against 527s. PFA was only the fourth largest 527 group for the 2004 election cycle, raising $37.9 million. The largest group was the Democratic Joint Victory Campaign 2004, which brought in $65.5 million from donors including George Soros, Peter Lewis of the Progressive Corporation, and Stephen Bing of Shangri-La Entertainment.

During the 2004 Democratic primary, in fact, Democratic political strategists used 527 groups to target Howard Dean within their own party. Americans for Jobs and Healthcare, a group that raised funds primarily from Gephart and Kerry supporters, began running commercials in November 2003 that "ripped Dean over his positions or past record on gun rights, trade and Medicare growth. But the most inflammatory ad used the visual image of Osama bin Laden as a way to raise questions about Dean's foreign policy credibility," CPI's Charles Lewis wrote in March 2004. At the time of the ads, Dean had been the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, but the attack helped erode his support. The source of the money behind Americans for Jobs and Healthcare was not revealed until after Dean's defeat in the January 2004 Iowa Caucus put an end to his presidential hopes.

"All of this underscores the profoundly disturbing state of our politics today," wrote Charles Lewis. "Storefront political hit squads can be created overnight, as easily as Internet investment scams, with candidates and the public victimized with nowhere to turn. Political operatives continue to effectively and virtually anonymously influence electoral outcomes." Lewis was writing about Americans for Jobs, but the same can be said for the way some Republican 527 groups operated after the May 2004 FEC ruling.

Ashley and Friends

Bush hugs the daughter of a 9-11 victim on the home page for www.ashleysstory.com

In the last three weeks leading up to the November 2 election, PFAVF outspent the next largest spending Democratic 527 group three-to-one on political ads. It bought $16.8 million worth of television and radio ad time. According to Federal Election Commission data, Swift Boat Vets/POWs for Truth came in second with $6.3 million in ad spending. In third place was Democrat Harold Ickes' Media Fund, which spent $5 million.

PFA produced two "harshly anti-Kerry ads that have become the subjects of controversy and debate, especially in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Iowa where they are running frequently," the Washington Post's Thomas Edsall wrote. Both ads closely resembled Bush-Cheney campaign ads - in one case the ads showed Kerry tacking windsurfing and alleging flip-flopping on issues. In another case, the ads showed pictures of terrorist leaders, while the announcer declared, "These people want to kill us. … Would you trust Kerry against these fanatic killers? President Bush didn't start this war, but he will finish it." The Bush ad concluded: "How can John Kerry protect us, when he doesn't even know where he stands?"

"The largest single ad buy of the campaign comes from conservative Progress for America," Time Magazine reported. "It shows Bush comforting 16-year-old Ashley Faulkner, whose mother died on 9/11. As it happens, the spot was made by Larry McCarthy, who produced the infamous Willie Horton ad that helped the first President Bush bury Michael Dukakis under charges that he was soft on crime. If that is the iconic attack ad, this is the ultimate embrace - to remind voters of the protectiveness they cherished in the President after Sept. 11. The ad has been ready since July, but sponsors waited until the end to unveil it."

PFAVF spent $14.2 million on ad time for "Ashley's Story," which ran on cable stations and in nine key states. According to USA Today, the ad was supported by a Web site, www.ashleysstory.com, as well as "e-mails, automated phone calls and 2.3 million brochures" mailed to voters.

A breakdown of PFAVF's spending shows that the vast majority of its money went to ad buys. Mentzer Media Services, Inc. received $23.2 million from the group for ad buys. But the second and third top recipients of PFAVF money were companies affilated with Tom Synhorst. FYI Messaging got $1.55 million for direct mail services, and TSE Enterprises (which hosts all these organizations' websites as well as ashleysstory.com), got $907,955 for web services. Another top recipient of PFAVF money was DCI Group, LLC, which got $156,725 for consulting.