"Bush '04 Slams Donor Story"

Roll Call offers this report (paid subscription required), which begins:

President Bush’s re-election campaign Wednesday dismissed as “completely inaccurate” a report that it has mounted an effort to steer soft-money contributions to state GOP parties in order to counter Democratic-leaning “527” groups.

Bush-Cheney campaign officials confirmed they are encouraging their donors to support get-out-the-vote efforts by contributing hard money directly to the Republican National Committee and state GOP parties. The RNC hopes to raise roughly $50 million in hard money for GOTV activities at the state level this cycle, according to GOP sources.

But the Bush-Cheney campaign said the assertion that anyone with direct ties to the campaign was involved in any activities relating to soft money, including soliciting, steering, directing or encouraging such contributions to state GOP parties, was “totally false.”

“The factual representations in the article, the basic premise of the article, are flawed beyond comprehension and dead wrong,” said Ben Ginsberg, counsel to the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign. Ginsberg was referring to a story in Wednesday’s edition of Roll Call. That article said Bush Cheney ’04 officials — through outside fundraisers — had asked wealthy Republicans to give soft money to state GOP parties.

“As a matter of law, people on the campaign or associated with the campaign or agents of the campaign can’t raise [soft] money for state parties, so we don’t,” Ginsberg said.

Posted by Rick Hasen at June 24, 2004 07:16 AM