American Leadership Project

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American Leadership Project
Type	527 group
Founded	2008
Headquarters
Key people	Jason Kinney
Website	leadership-project.org

The American Leadership Project (ALP') is an unincorporated association organized under section 527 of the IRS code formed in February 2008 in order highlight issues of importance to the American middle class, such the economy, jobs, the rising cost of health care, and the mortgage crisis. The ALP intends to communicate issue-specific messages during the Presidential primary election in states where these issues have maximum resonance. The ALP does not coordinate with a candidate or a candidate’s committee. The ALP's message focus in the state of Indiana has been anti-Barack Obama without mention of any other Presidential candidate.

As of March 5, the group had raised US$1.2 million, including a one million dollar contribution from AFSCME, a labor union backing Clinton.^[1]

Their first television advertisement stated, "If speeches could create jobs, we wouldn't be facing a recession," mirroring Clinton, who has argued that Obama's eloquence would not lead to real policy change.^[2]^[3]^[4]

1 Controversy
2 Leadership and donors
3 See also
4 External links
5 References

[edit] Controversy

[edit] Spending

The group had been rumored to plan to spend around $10 million on ads in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania in the lead up to those U.S. state's 2008 Democratic primaries.^[5] The group actually aired $833,000 worth of pro-Clinton television ads in Texas and Ohio and had $300,000 left in the bank according to FEC filings on March 5.^[6]

As a 527, ALP is required to disclose their donors quarterly to the IRS and have done so. ^[7] Because they engage in electioneering communications, they are also required to disclose their donors and expenditures to the FEC within 24 hours of new communications. ^[8]

[edit] Questions of legality

Jason Kinney, a California political consultant that helped develop the group, said it relies on "a new and developing area of the law, but we've taken every step and are as confident as we can be that we are adhering to all of the regulations." Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a campaign finance reform group, said of ALP, "This pop-up 527 group clearly has been created to spend unlimited soft money to influence the presidential election. As far as the duck test goes: It looks like a campaign ad; it sounds like a campaign ad; it's a campaign ad."^[2]

Subodh Chandra, a lawyer in Ohio and Obama supporter filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, calling on the them to open an investigation, shut down the organization and seek criminal penalties against its directors and donors.^[9] He said the new organization allows Mrs. Clinton's backers to "cheat the system" by paying for their own ads for Mrs. Clinton even through they have already donated the maximum $2,300 allowed by law to her campaign.^[9] It took three years for the FEC to settle similar complaints lodged against independent political entities operating in the 2004 election.^[9]

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Mike Gravel filed his own lawsuit against the ALP in Ohio federal court, requesting that the organization be barred from airing a television ad in Ohio before the Ohio primary.^[10]

[edit] Ads during Texas primary

The group premiered two ads during the Texas Democratic primary comparing the opposing candidate's health care plans. Factcheck.org, who was quoted in the first ad, claimed it misrepresented what they had said about Clinton's plan. The group also criticized the second ad for selectively quoting an editorial from the Washington Post authored by Steven Pearlstein in a way that made the quote appear to be the paper's own editorial opinion.^[11]

[edit] Leadership and donors

The American Leadership Project is operated by:

Jason Kinney, a former senior communications advisor and the chief speechwriter to former California Governor Gray Davis
Erick Mullen, a political consultant who has worked for the presidential campaigns of retired General Wesley Clark, former Senator Bill Bradley, and the 1998 Senate run of Chuck Schumer
Mattis Goldman, a former ad maker for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland
Paul Rivera, a senior political adviser for the 2004 Kerry-Edwards campaign, and a former Clinton/Gore White House staffer
Roger Salazar, who worked as assistant press secretary in the Clinton/Gore White House, a national spokesman for Senator John Edwards’ during the 2004 presidential race, a national spokesman and the deputy press secretary of the 2000 presidential campaign of Al Gore, and as the press secretary for former California Governor Gray Davis

The law firm representing the group is Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, LLC. Accounting and bookkeeping is being handled by Nancy Warren of the San Francisco-based Warren & Associates LLC.