Best ad of the year

via Mark Kleiman, I came across this amazing ad, about the most powerful anti-Bush ad I've ever seen. If you wanted to find a place to send some money, I think the group that made this ad, a veterans' group called Operation Truth, would be a good candidate.

A couple of related points: First, this is a good example of a point I've made often about campaign finance reform. This is an ad that does not say one word about the election, does not mention a candidate by name, a party, does not mention the administration or Congress. Nothing. It's entirely a statement of facts about the speakers experience in Iraq. And yet, it is a profoundly effective political ad. It's pretty hard to imagine watching it and then going out and voting for Bush. The big regulation in the McCain-Feingold law is the requirement to use hard money for any ad that mentions a candidate in the sixty days before a general election. But, as this ad shows, there are plenty of circumstances under which a pure issue ad can have an electoral impact. That probably becomes even more true as more and more effective ads work by indirection and allusion rather than the hit-you-on-the-head approach of old-fashioned advertising.

Should such ads be regulated? I can't imagine that they could be or should be. It would require some outside party to make a very subjective judgment that one ad is intended to influence the election while another was simply trying to make a point about the war. This ad is sponsored by a c(4) non-profit -- that is, contributions to it are not tax deductible but are not limited either, and the group can engage in a limited amount of electioneering if that's not it's primary purpose. This ad could almost have been run by a 501(c)3 non-profit (which is to say, tax-deductible contributions), although that would be legally daring. The 30-day/60-day rule is important and it can limit many of the extremely vicious soft-money attack ads that came up in the past few cycles. But there are still many other things that will influence an election outcome.

The other thing about this group is that they have former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura as an advisory board member, and also an ad featuring Ventura, which mostly criticizes the media. It seems Ventura has been very critical of the use of National Guard in Iraq and other aspects. Could he be used more? Wouldn't that have a huge impact in Minnesota, which I think is considered the state most at risk of going blue-to-red this year?