Obama attempts to criminalize speech of oppositon groups

Politico:

Sen. Barack Obama has launched an all-out effort to block a Republican billionaire’s efforts to tie him to domestic and foreign terrorists in a wave of negative television ads.

Obama’s campaign has written the Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of the “American Issues Project,” the vehicle through which Dallas investor Harold Simmons is financing the advertisements. The Obama campaign — and tens of thousands of supporters — also is pressuring television networks and affiliates to reject the ads. The effort has met with some success: CNN and Fox News are not airing the attacks.

Obama has also launched his own response ad, directly addressing Simmons' attempt to link him to domestic terror.

The project is “a knowing and willful attempt to violate the strictures of federal election law,” Obama general counsel Bob Bauer wrote to Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Keeney last week in a letter provided to Politico. Bauer argued that by advocating Obama’s defeat, the ad should be subject to the contribution limits of federal campaign law, not the anything-goes regime of issue advocacy.

Bauer’s letter called on the Justice Department to open “an investigation of the American Issues Project; its officers and directors; and its anonymous donors, whoever they may be.”

“This is a sad ploy to circumvent the First Amendment by a campaign who has no arguments with the merits of our ad. It’s the classic maneuver: If you can’t win on the merits, file a lawsuit,” said a spokesman for the American Issues Project, Christian Pinkston, who said his group's non-profit status allowed it to participate in elections as long as it does a majority of policy work, which it plans to do.

A spokeswoman for Keeney, Laura Sweeney, declined to comment on Bauer’s letter.

The Obama campaign plans to punish the stations that air the ad financially, an Obama aide said, organizing his supporters to target the stations that air it and their advertisers.

But the ad continues to air widely. Evan Tracey, who tracks campaign advertising at TNS Media Intelligence, said it has been broadcast 150 times in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Michigan. Federal Election Commission reports indicate that Simmons has spent more than $2.8 million buying ads.

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The reaction of the Obama campaign suggest the ad is really hurting their candidate. The objection does not seem to be to the truthfulness of the ad, but to the financing of it. This appears to be a direct attack on free speech.

I think this aggressive attack will only draw more attention to the ad. The Obama response ad appears to be weak an misleading. It uses a straw horse argument which suggest that McCain is concerned about something that happened in the 1960's. McCain is not responsible for the ad to begin with. The real issue with Ayers is Obama's association with him since the 1990s. While Obama claims to have condemned Ayer's conduct, it did not stop him from being a close associate on projects in the Chicago area.

Other Chicago politicians including Mayor Daily have come to Ayer's defense, but Ayer's defense of his previous conduct is indefensible and that is why Obama will not address the question.