See all Swift Boat Watch entries
here
.
Who They Are:
The
American Issues Project
Purpose:
Promoting conservative values
Founder:
Ed Martin, former chief of staff to Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt
Funding:
The organization recently
named
Dallas billionaire
Harold Simmons
as its sole funder, to the tune of $2.87 million.
IRS reports
show that Simmons gave $3 million to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in 2004.
Cost:
$2.87 million
Where It Ran:
Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia for eight days.
Claims:
The spot attacks Barack Obama for his connections to William Ayers, a former member of the
Weather Underground
, which carried out bombings at the Capitol and other federal buildings in the 1970s. The ad says Obama’s “political career was launched in [Ayers’] home” and that they “served on a left-wing board in Chicago.”
Accuracy:
While it’s true that Obama served with Ayers on a nonprofit board, it was the board of the
Woods Fund of Chicago
, a venerable anti-poverty organization in Chicago. Obama did
visit Ayers’s home in 1995
,
where his State Senate predecessor Alice Palmer introduced him as her chosen replacement. By this time, Ayers was somewhat more mainstream than he was in his Capitol-bombing days. The
Washington Post
describes
him as a “respected member of the Chicago intelligentsia,”—an adviser to Mayor Richard Daley and an
education professor
at the University of Illinois at Chicago.*
Background:
The Obama campaign has claimed that because the group is a
501(c)4 nonprofit organization
, the ad’s direct reference to a candidate for office
may have violated election law
.
Swift Boat Rating:
Obama has interacted on multiple occasions with Ayers and the ad refers to true events. The spot exaggerates the closeness of the relationship, however, and the association between the Obama campaign and the Capitol bombings is a big stretch. (Obama was eight when the Weather Underground carried out its attacks.)
*Correction, Sept. 25, 2008:
This piece originally stated that Ayers is a professor at the University of Chicago. In fact, he is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
