Boston Globe (10/13/08) P. A12; Mooney, Brian

After playing large roles in the 2004 presidential election, independent political groups are having a reduced impact in this year's presidential campaign. There is less money going into negative television advertising from outside groups than in 2004. Groups making so-called independent expenditures that specifically advocate for the election of Obama or the defeat of McCain had spent $37.6 million through early October, compared with $27.5 million urging a vote for McCain or against Obama, according to the FEC. In 2004, there was a total of $192.4 million in independent expenditures, mostly by the national parties. The other major source of outside expenditures are the politically active 527 organizations that can raise unlimited sums from individuals, businesses or labor unions. 527 groups spent a combined $434 million on federal campaigns in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, while as of July 2008, 527s had spent about $156 million. With more than three weeks left in the campaign and disclosure reports still incomplete, it's probably too soon to conclude that outside groups are playing a downsized role in the presidential race, says Stephen Weissman, associate director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan research organization. "You can't compare this year directly to the last election yet because corporations and unions can spend more now at the last minute in a campaign," he notes, due to a 2007 Supreme Court decision that struck down sections of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that prohibited so-called issue ads that mentioned a federal candidate within 60 days of an election. After McCain-Feingold banned unlimited large donations, or soft money, by corporations and labor unions, multimillionaire activists stepped in and underwrote most of the independent groups that were active in 2004. That was also the year the Internet began to transform political fund-raising, which Obama has taken to new levels of success. "In the soft-money years, a lot of big checks written by corporations weren't given particularly willingly," says Democratic political consultant Jim Jordan. "McCain-Feingold didn't take money out of politics but it got powerful politicians out of the loop of raising big checks," Jordan says. (www.boston.com/news)

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