Bush to Pursue Legal Challenge to 527 Groups
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

President Bush and Senator Kerry bowed to the wishes of popular maverick John McCain yesterday, as the president embraced the Republican senator’s legal fight against big-money special interest groups airing negative ads and the Democratic nominee scrapped a commercial that featured Mr. McCain.
Their bitter fight over Vietnam-era military service took a compelling new twist as Mr. Kerry stood by the central charge in his ad – that Mr. Bush has used smear tactics to undercut the Democrat’s valorous combat record. “I am absolutely telling you the God’s honest truth about what happened and what took place over there,” Mr. Kerry told supporters in Minnesota.
He has been on the defensive since a group financed by Bush supporters, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, aired a television commercial early this month accusing Mr. Kerry of exaggerating his wartime experience. Calling the group a front for the Bush campaign, Mr. Kerry unveiled an ad this week that features four-year-old footage of Mr. Mc-Cain accusing Mr. Bush of smear tactics in their bitterly contested 2000 GOP primary race.
The fierce response reflects concerns inside the Kerry camp that the debate could undercut his signature political theme – as a decorated Vietnam veteran, Mr. Kerry argues, he is capable of replacing the incumbent Republican while the nation is at war. It is too early to tell by polls whether the debate has hurt Mr. Kerry. Or whether it has exposed Mr. Bush, who served stateside in the Texas Air National Guard during the war, to voter backlash.
The only obvious winner is Mr. Mc-Cain, a former Vietnam War hero who emerged from his 2000 defeat as one of the nation’s most popular politicians, beloved by independent voters and courted by both presidential candidates. He has welcomed the attention, often instigating it, with an eye toward a possible run for the presidency in 2008.
Three weeks ago, the Arizona senator asked Mr. Bush to condemn the anti-Kerry ad. This week, he asked Mr. Kerry to withdraw the anti-Bush ad.
With their actions yesterday, Messrs. Bush and Kerry satisfied Mr. McCain’s demands.
Announcing that Mr. Kerry had yanked his ad, a spokesman, David Wade,said,”It’s long past time that Bush also take McCain’s advice and do the right thing by putting an end to the smears and lies on John Kerry’s service.”
Mr. Bush has criticized all outside group attack ads, including the Swift boat veterans group’s first commercial, but has not denounced the ad specifically. Mr. Kerry’s campaign insisted that by failing to condemn the group’s claims, the Republican was tacitly embracing them.
Mr. McCain sought to take Mr. Bush off the hook, suggesting that the president had gone far enough in condemning the accusations. The political reprieve came only after the White House announced that Mr. Bush will join forces with Mr. McCain in legal action to crack down on political ads aired by outside groups, dubbed “527s” because of the section of the tax code that covers them.
“The president said if the court action doesn’t work, that he would be willing to pursue legislative action with Senator McCain on that,” a White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said after Mr. Bush called Mr. McCain with the news.
Mr. McClellan did not indicate how quickly Mr. Bush would act. Election Day is November 2.
Mr. McCain, an advocate of campaign finance reform, welcomed the White House embrace and said he would soon press forward with efforts to force Democratic and Republican groups to live within fund-raising limits. Currently, the 527s raise money with few limits under “soft money” rules.
Mr. McCain suggested, and associates privately confirmed, that he had accepted Mr. Bush’s statements as proper condemnations of the anti-Kerry ad.
“I’ve said before I would like for the president to specifically condemn that ad, but the president has said John Kerry served honorably and also the president is now committed to acting to try to bring 527s into regulation,” Mr. Mc-Cain told the Associated Press. He said the lawsuit will likely have no impact on the election.
Mr. Kerry’s advisers belittled the White House action, calling it a ploy to gloss over the attacks against their boss.
“It’s a little ironic that George Bush is now trying to assume the mantle of campaign finance reformer given the fact that he worked so hard to block the McCain-Feingold bill when it came up for a vote,” Mr. Kerry’s spokesman, Phil Singer, said, referring to campaign finance legislation sponsored by Mr. Mc-Cain and Democratic Senator Feingold of Wisconsin.
Mr. Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards, took a glancing jab at Mr. Bush while campaigning in New Mexico, denouncing “the same old false, negative attacks.”