Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America started by swiftboater Rick Reed to help McCain

A New Channel for Soft Money Starts Flowing
By JIM RUTENBERG and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: November 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/us/politics/12spend.html?ex=1352610000&en=3f1a1d0d798b3bf4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

The so-called Wounded Warriors Act, legislation intended to improve health care for veterans, has attracted nearly unanimous, bipartisan support in Congress. So why would the newly formed Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America begin running a television commercial urging the citizens of South Carolina to tell Congress to pass it?

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The group running the commercial in South Carolina is registered as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation. As such, it is allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts from individuals without any disclosure, as long as it can argue that it is more concerned with the promotion of an issue — like the final passage of the Wounded Warriors bill — than the election of a candidate.

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The group was started by Rick Reed, whose firm helped produce the 2004 Swift Boat advertisements that questioned Senator John Kerry’s war record in a way that Democrats, and even Mr. McCain, said was unfair — but, also, in a way that both sides agree did great damage to Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign. Mr. Reed is also a long-time strategist for Mr. McCain, working for his 2000 presidential campaign and briefly for his 2008 campaign, before it ran short on money and trimmed its operations.

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Mr. McCain’s opponents have called his condemnation disingenuous. Referring to the 2002 campaign finance law that Mr. McCain sponsored with Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, a spokesman for Mitt Romney, Kevin Madden, said, “Isn’t it ironic that the author and champion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill now has a soft-money effort created on his behalf?”

Mr. Reed said in an interview that his group was indeed financed largely by supporters of Mr. McCain, but that it was not expressly put together to help his former client. Mr. Reed declined to name the group’s backers, and said he was duty bound to ignore Mr. McCain’s request to stop running the commercial.

now has a soft-money effort created on his behalf?”

My first thought, too. This, on behalf of a co-writer of McCain/Feingold?