'General Betray Us' Ad Violated Election Law, Group Says
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com
September 20, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - A conservative group has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against MoveOn.org Political Action and the New York Times Company regarding last week's "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" full-page advertisement.

The formal complaint charges that the organizations responsible for the full-page ad that ran in the Sept. 10 New York Times violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 as amended, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002.

As Cybercast News Service previously reported, the open rate for a full-page black-and-white advertisement in the New York Times has been listed as at least $167,000. However, MoveOn claims it paid only $65,000 for the ad.

The American Conservative Union (ACU) complaint filed last Friday noted that "MoveOn's acceptance of the discount constitutes acceptance of a soft money contribution from a prohibited source ... in excess of federal contribution limits."

Contributions to political committees are restricted by federal law to $5,000 a year, and corporations are prohibited from making any contributions to a federal political committee, said ACU Chairman David Keene in the document.

Keene added that his group "demands a full and thorough investigation of the cost of the ad and the discount given by the New York Times Company to MoveOn.org Political Action, for payment by MoveOn of the usual and normal charge for the costs of the ad and the requisite civil money penalty for violation of federal law by each of the respondents."

On Tuesday, the posted a transcript of a telephone interview with Steph Jespersen, director of advertising-acceptability at the newspaper, who said that accepting an ad "does not in any way reflect the official position of the New York Times, nor do we need to agree or endorse our advertiser's message or opinion."

Jespersen indicated that the advertising department accepted the MoveOn ad because it met the department's standards, and the group was charged the paper's normal rate for full-page, black-and-white "advocacy" ads that run on a seven-day "standby" basis.

"That means that while the client can express a preference that the ad run on a certain day, there is no guarantee that it will," he said. "If a client specifies the day, the cost is higher: $181,000 with an 8 percent discount for a full-page ad, or about $167,000."

"The lower cost of such ads reflects the flexibility that gives us," Jespersen said of the seven-day window. "Any political or advocacy group calling up today to request a standby ad would be quoted the same rate that MoveOn.org paid."

Cybercast News Service previously reported that the original ad accused the four-star general of "cooking the books" in favor of the Bush administration when preparing the report on the war in Iraq he gave to both houses of Congress last week.

One day later, the conservative non-profit group Freedom's Watch paid full price to run a full-page, full-color ad declaring that "Victory is America's only choice" in the war on terror.

"There are no 'standby' rates for color ads because the presses cannot accommodate color on short notice," Jespersen stated in response to the group's request to pay the same rate as the liberal organization did.

But, last Friday, the campaign of GOP frontrunner Rudy Giuliani ran an ad at the same rate the newspaper gave MoveOn.org in its advertisement days earlier.

That development led Bradley Smith, chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics and a former FEC chairman, to speculate in a column co-written with John Lott, Jr., a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, that Giuliani received the same preferential treatment only "because MoveOn's preferential rate was discovered."

"MoveOn clearly thought it was running a political message that might influence the '08 elections - paying for the ad via its Political Action Committee and even including a disclaimer like those mandated by federal campaign-finance law that the ad was 'not authorized by any candidate,'" the authors stated.

Still, "even if the Times did give MoveOn a $100,000 discount out of a desire to promote the group's anti-war views (which the Times broadly shares) and help MoveOn influence the 2008 election, any Federal Election Commission investigation would fail to prove it," they added.

"The Times' flexibility in pricing allows it to argue that the transaction was simply a normal business deal that might at some point be available to others, even if not to Freedom's Watch earlier this month," Smith and Lott continued.

"In short, there's little to stop the Times, or other newspapers, from discriminating on the basis of political viewpoint when charging for ads," they said, "all of which demonstrates the foolishness of our campaign-finance laws."

Regardless of the outcome of the ACU's complaint to the FEC, the controversy generated by the MoveOn ad is likely to continue, as evidenced by the call by Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to hold hearings on the matter.

"The discount for political advertising could constitute an unlawful campaign contribution," Davis wrote in a letter to the committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Calls seeking comment from MoveOn regarding the FEC complaint were not returned by press time.