Those Swift Boat Vet Ads.

There's tons of talk out there that Bush should come out and denounce the Swift Boat Vet ads. Today in a press conference, he didn't so much as say it, but he did condemn all "soft money" ads.

Since Democrats and Republicans can only spend a certain amount of money on advertisements, these affiliated-but-not-really groups purchase ad time on television in order to promote a candidate, or attack an opponent. In essence, they promote a candidate withiout costing that candidate any of their own money. There is some good information here on what candidate can and cannot do. As well, the Washington Post has a good article on soft money.
I guess the whole idea with these laws regulating Republican and Democratic spending is that it puts in place limits to what the uber-rich can do. After all, a billionaire has more resources than a millionaire, and can use those resources to buy up air time (both tv and radio), and basically drown out the competition. With these laws in place, it puts the election race on a more even keel.
This is where soft money comes in. The Swift Boat Vets are, based on the words of their own members, a non-partisan organization. By that, I assume that there are veterans of the swift boats who are republcan, and some who are democrat. They are funded by people across America, and draw their support from a variety of sources. Based on what I've seen of their first advertisement, they are not coming out again the Democratic party, nor are they demonstrating hardcore support from the Republicans. They are simply stating their dislike for the notion of John Kerry as President.
Naturally, any advertisement against the Democrat is going to be good for the Republican, and vice versa. Groups like Moveon.org have put out some of the craziest ads I've ever seen attacking Bush. When Bush condemns all soft money ads, he is denouncing the work of both the S.B.V's and Moveon.org.

For the most part, soft-money ads are indistinguishable from hard-money ads. The main difference seems to be that with hard-money ads, the candidate's voice will be heard saying "I'm *name* and I endorse this advertisement", or something to that effect. The soft-money ads do not have this first-hand endorsement. They cannot, because it would muddy the waters between what is a legitimate hard-money ad by the Republican or Democratic nominee, and what is a soft-money ad put out by an "independent" group (in quotation marks, because most independent groups that put out ads have a definite agenda). In the case of the Swift Boat ads, their agenda is to tarnish Kerry's reputation and make people see him for the phony opportunist that he is. But a side-result of this agenda is that they are promoting Bush. After all, he's the alternative to Kerry. The Democrats within the SBV are aware of this, yet their dislike of Kerry overwhelms their Democratic party loyalty.

I don't think the US could ever ban all soft-money ads, and I don't really want them too. What would the election look like without them? We'd have to rely on the candidate's themselves to give us their own pictures of themselves. As well, political junkies like me would have to trust the news networks to give us the inside scoop on each candidate. Someone once said that "The Swift Boat Vets are doing now what the mainstream media should have done a long time ago- analyze Kerry's war record". I'm not sure who originally said that, but it's so stinkin' true! Kerry has been running on his war record all along. He hasn't mentioned anything about his time in the Senate. If that is what he wants to do, then he better be prepared to answer questions about his record. He cannot just expect people to leave it alone, especially when he makes it the centrepiece of the campaign. Sorry John, you can't have your cake and eat it to.

I'm getting a little off-topic, but to conclude: who decides what a soft-money ad is? Michael Moore's Farhenheit 9/11 is set to be released on DVD in October. That is like, the biggest soft-money ad in history! In fact... people PAY to see it! But no one is seriously suggesting that it be banned during the election (although it's obvious Moore knew what he was doing when he timed the release).

There's no easy solution to that one either. I think candidates just need to be more willing to answer the tough questions. Whether it is Bush or Kerry. And the media needs to more willing to ask them, and to investigate.