Americans Coming Together
are now the central actors in the campaign. For better or worse, the
campaign is being fought on TV now. The good news is that
MoveOn.org, ACT, and the Kerry campaign are investing in heavily.
Note the Republican National Committee is threatening the managers of television stations
in order to get stations to refuse to run the ads. The RNC is
doing this by writing to stations claiming that what MoveOn.org
is doing is illegal–and that the stations risk penalties.
Here is an exerpt of the Republican National Committee letter
sent to 250 stations around the nation, from the above link,
“As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you
have a responsibility to the viewing public and to your licensing
agency to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity, specifically
in this case, violations of our nation’s Federal Election Laws. Since
this is a third party political advertisement and not a candidate
sponsored message, your station is under no obligation to broadcast
this advertisement.”
Station managers and owners understand that the FCC is in the executive
branch of the goverment, and thus under the direct influence of the
Bush whitehouse.
This letter, of course, also puts the station owners–many of whom are
Bush donors–on notice that the president is very very concerned about
these ads..and that station owners have a perfectly valid pretext for
pulling the offending ads off the air.
