Groups ponder ruling on political ads

Advocacy groups consulted with their lawyers this week to determine how to take advantage of a Supreme Court ruling that opened the spigot on political advertising.

While the ruling means ads paid by unions and corporations may now run right up to the elections, not all pressure groups are ready, able or willing to weigh in early in the presidential campaign.

"There's no doubt that for our group _ or groups like ours _ that it will allow for a greater dialogue about issues in the election season," said Brad Woodhouse, President of Americans United for Change, which is partially financed by labor money.

But Woodhouse, like others, is still trying to decipher what the court has now permitted such advocacy groups to say _ and to whom.

On Monday, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that advocacy groups financed by labor or corporate money could not be barred from running issue ads in the month before a primary and the two months preceding a general election. And while such groups would still be blocked from airing commercials that call for the election or defeat of a specific candidate, the court gave greater latitude to what an issue ad could say.

The ruling, which unraveled a key provision in 2002 campaign finance law, could mean a surge in advertising money spent in the weeks before the 2008 primaries and the general election.

"You've heard a lot since the 2004 election of Swift Boating and 'being Swift boated," Evan Tracey, a political media analyst, said of the independent ads that questioned Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam service. "If anything, I think the Supreme Court ruling means that instead of just one boat, there may be an armada out there."

The question facing strategists and lawyers for these independent groups is how to make maximum use of the door the court opened for them.

A crowded presidential field and massive ad spending by the candidates in early contests might keep union- or corporate-backed groups from buying TV time in the final weeks before the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary.

"They don't want to get lost in the clutter of all the campaigns running at the same time," said Mark Dion of Revolution Media Group, which has made ads for the Chamber of Commerce and the fiscally conservative Club for Growth.

Instead, advocacy ads could emerge as a factor in primaries scheduled for Feb. 5. More than 20 states could hold nominating contests that day, including California, New York and Illinois. No candidate will likely have the money at that point to run ads in all the states.

"What this Supreme Court ruling potentially does is it allows a group that might be opposed to or in support of one of the candidates...to go out and buy ad time in expensive media markets where the candidates themselves just won't be able to play," said Tracey, who is chief operating officer for TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Potential players in the issue ad wars are groups such as Woodhouse's Americans United for Change, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood or the National Right to Life Committee. But new ones could easily spring up.

Some might find it more convenient to run their ads in the midst of a House or Senate race than in the presidential contest. The chamber last fall spent $10 million on an issue ad campaign in targeted congressional districts that stopped on Sept. 7 to abide by the two-month pre-election prohibition.

Because the ads must be framed as issue oriented ads, typically tied to action in Congress, ad makers will have to be creative if they want to aim the message at a presidential candidate who is not a member of the House or the Senate. Those include Republicans Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani and Democrat John Edwards.

But campaign finance experts predict some groups will push the court's decision as far as they can.

"I would say they will want to run ads to influence elections and may be willing to risk being taken to court," said Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center.

How far advocacy groups can now go could be up to the Federal Election Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws.

The FEC may be under pressure to act quickly to set new advertising rules that meet the guidelines set by the court. Commissioners last year declined to take such a step, noting that the case was then before the court. The commissioners could decide to take a pass again, and simply review each ad campaign on a case-by-case basis.

"It's going to wind up taking a few more cases before the fog clears and people decide what they can do and can't do," predicted David Keating, executive director of the Club for Growth.

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Associated Press Writer Joan Lowy contributed to this article.