One notable achievement of the Democratic Party in this election cycle is its mastery of well-coordinated legal challenges to ballot accesses, excluding a left-wing candidate from ballots, and focus-group tested propaganda, portraying a left-wing candidate as a tool of the Republican Party financed by Republican donors. These two tactics are not new, but the Democratic Party has developed and exploited them much more intensively and extensively than it did in the recent past. The Democratic Party will employ exactly the same tactics, as well as invent new ones, in 2007-8, against whoever will have the principles and wherewithal to run a strong anti-war presidential campaign on the left (with or without the Green Party).
<blockquote>. . . After months of fund raising, research and development of a detailed attack plan, anti-Nader Democrats hatched a much publicized two pronged attack on the Nader campaign in meetings with party leaders from Washington, New Mexico and elsewhere during the Democratic Convention (David Postman, "Nader foes seek funding from Democratic donors," Seattle Times. July 28, 2004).
The first prong was a nationwide preemptive attack on voters who might choose Nader. The Democratic Party would field law firms to challenge Nader's access to state ballots with ubiquitous lawsuits to deplete his resources and limit his candidacy. Nader's grassroots campaign would be sued to death. The second prong was a campaign to insinuate and perpetuate a lie found effective by polling and focus groups, that Ralph Nader was a tool of right wing Republicans.
The Ballot Project Inc. was funded initially by former Monsanto CEO and genetic farming proponent Robert Shapiro, with another $25,000 (an amount far in excess of legislated campaign finance limits) from West Coast Democratic moneyman Max Palevsky. This 527 group, officially called, "Focus on Ballot Qualifications, Inc.," was founded in July by candidate Wesley Clark's former counsel-now-Kerry supporter, William C. Oldaker, the first FEC General Counsel, an elections law strategist and longtime Democratic insider. Oldaker is a partner in the Democratic law firm Oldaker, Biden and Belair (www.obblaw.com) and founding principal of the newly formed National Group (www.thenationalgroup.net). Its clients, including the Bituminous Coal Association, Delta Air, Corning Glass, Equifax and Neuralstem Biopharmaceuticals (which Oldaker co-founded) regularly seek largess and other special favors from government of the kind Nader has long denounced. The Ballot Project Inc. coordinates the anti-Nader ballot access project with hundreds of lawyers throughout the country, including the banking, drug and advertising industries' favorite, Republican law firm Reed Smith (Reed Smith.com) in Pennsylvania and GM's and tobacco giant Brown and Williamson's defense attorneys, Kirkland and Ellis (Kirkland.com), in Ohio.
Partners in both the aforementioned firms have fought Nader's ballot access tooth and nail, expending hundreds of thousands of dollars in partner hours in their efforts without a single question from main stream reporters as to how corporate attorneys of such prominence could justify their pro bono efforts to restive, paying corporate clients around the world.
Partners in both Reed Smith and Kirkland and Ellis have been quoted extensively and favorably in the New York Times and elsewhere as they portray themselves as self-appointed guardians of the ballot against the likes of Ralph Nader and his ilk. Reed Smith, a major corporate law firm from Pennsylvania that has battled Nader over advertising to children has provided 12 attorneys including 7 partners billed 1,300 hours to keeping Nader off the ballot. Kirkland and Ellis, Ken Starr's law firm, which represents GM and other major corporate efforts is leading the anti-Nader effort in Ohio. . . .
The second prong, aimed at voters in states where Nader could not be forced off the ballot or where he is a still viable write-in candidate, force feeds voters with the most effective lies discovered in extensive research by Bill Clinton pollster, Stanley Greenberg, that Nader is "in bed with," funded and controlled by Right Wing Republicans. For this agitprop campaign to spread the lies, a Kerry PAC called United Progressives for Victory was set up in June by Oldaker, housed in the DC offices of Robert Brandon and Associates, 1730 Rhode Island Ave. suite 712, the same office which houses the Ballot Project.
Robert Brandon is a typical Washington public relations flack who sings whatever song is placed in his mouth with a check. He had already made more campaign donations to anti-choice and anti-Kerry Senator Orrin Hatch than to John Kerry, according to Center for Responsive Politics' FEC data. This is the same Orrin Hatch who recently said terrorists "are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry," and on Fox News, that Democrats are "consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there." (Dana Milbank, "Tying Kerry to Terror Tests Rhetorical Limits," Washington Post, Sept.27, 2004, p1)
In "open letters," full of what lawyers term "boilerplate" focus group language circulated to national and state progressives and in press releases, Robert Brandon portrays Nader as a figure head of the Republican right and as a "divider" of the progressive moment. Unquestioning anti-war activists and progressives across the country joined United Progressives for Victory (www.upforvictory.com) without a second thought as to the veracity of Brandon's claims, ever available as cannon fodder for Kerry's unacknowledged Weapon of Mass Deception. The Center for Responsive Politics had long concluded that no more than 4% of Nader funds came from Republicans. But in campaigns, as in war, truth was indeed the first victim.
Media spokesmen for both the Ballot Project and United Progressives for Victory are Brandon and Toby Moffett. Moffett is a former Monsanto official, now lobbyist for foreign countries, the Cayman Islands, Turkey (at $1.8 million a year) and the Kingdom of Morocco, defense contractors like Raytheon and Northup Grumman, and McDermott International, a Houston oil drilling firm interested in asbestos liability immunity. Moffett is a partner in the Republican (Bob) Livingston Group (www.livingstongroupdc.com) and its Livingston-Moffett International Group Practice.
Moffett makes big money for his clients from the war and occupation of Iraq. One Moffett client is British firm, De La Rue. It secured contracts to print new Iraqi money and travel documents through Moffett's efforts. The Livingston group guided Turkey to its lucrative billion dollar plus foreign aid alliance with the Bush administration.
Nader cites Moffett for turning the Democratic Leadership Council into a corporate bag man for the party. Corporate donations have strings. Ralph Nader contends these compromises are part of the reason Kerry doesn't take a firmer position on Iraq or promote health care for all. . . .
Stephen Conn is a retired Professor of Justice at the University of Alaska.
(Stephen Conn, "Progressive as Pawns: Cannon Fodder for Kerry's War on Nader," <a href="http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/Conn1012.htm";>October 12, 2004</a>)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
