Bradley Seeks to Halt TV Ad He Says Misstates His Record

Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley has asked a New Hampshire TV station to stop running what he says is a misleading ad by a New Jersey group.

The 30-second ad sponsored by Hands Across New Jersey first aired Tuesday; it attacks Bradley’s campaign finance reform record, which he has made a cornerstone of his campaign.

The spot is the latest of several “issue ads” this season by independent groups targeting candidates, in a year when candidates themselves have been loath to use attack ads for fear of voter backlash.

Issue ads are supposed to discuss a particular concern, such as immigration, or abortion, without engaging in electioneering. Although several genuine issue ads are airing, observers say many others are thinly disguised attack ads.

Those ads are troubling, critics say, because the groups airing them are not required to disclose their source of funding, as long as the ads avoid using words such as “elect” or “defeat.”

“This is about cheating, pure and simple. These are not issue ads, they’re campaign ads,” said Don Simon, general counsel for Common Cause, a political watchdog group.

Others said it isn’t the funding that is troubling but the fact that special interest groups are waging political battles instead of candidates.

“This is a horrible trend in American politics,” said Democratic political consultant James Carville. “We’re suppressing discussion among candidates and allowing these interest groups to come in to do the dirty work.”

But John Sheridan, head of Hands Across New Jersey, a self-described citizens action group, said the ad is a legitimate one, paid for by New Jersey residents who want tax relief, not by any political party or corporation.

“Who better to speak on Bill Bradley’s past positions . . . than his former constituents?” he said.

The ad says the former senator from New Jersey was forced to return an illegal contribution from an insurance company and that he intervened with the Commerce Department for a contributor. “Bill Clinton makes the Lincoln bedroom available to contributors, and Bill Bradley does favors for his big-money friends. It’s gotta stop,” the commercial declares, with no mention of Bradley’s foe and Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore.

Bradley’s lawyer, Robert Bauer of Perkins Coie LLP in Washington, said the ad is “utter nonsense.”

Bradley, like other lawmakers, returned a $140,000 contribution from Prudential Insurance Co. in 1990, but the FEC found no wrongdoing by him. He denied favoritism for writing a letter to the Commerce Department in 1994 on behalf of a company whose officers had contributed $1,000 to him 15 months earlier.

“It cannot be healthy for the New Hampshire electorate for attack ads built around false statements to run against a candidate one week before an election,” wrote Bauer to WMUR-TV in Manchester. The station did not return calls for comment.

Republican presidential candidates are also having problems with issue ads. Sen. John McCain of Arizona has been targeted in similar ads by Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington group with close ties to the Republican Party.

Steve Forbes filed complaints with the Federal Elections Commission charging ads by the Republican Leadership Council were coordinated by front-runner Texas Gov. George W. Bush, which would violate election law. One ad warned him not to engage in attack ads, another accused him of negative campaigning, which a frustrated Forbes says is exactly what they’re doing to him. The Sierra Club has hit Bush hard with negative ads on his Texas environmental record.

Hands Across New Jersey has a storied past as a tax revolt group that helped defeat Gov. James J. Florio. The group has endorsed Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and other officials in the past, who have run paid ads in its newsletter. Sheridan heads another group he said is related to Americans for Tax Reform, which ran the McCain ads.

Bauer, Bradley’s attorney, said: “This is the perverse politics of soft money ads used to defend soft money.”

“Oh, please, what a spoil sport,” snapped Sheridan. “This is about free speech.”