Daschle Campaign Breaks Law

KELO-Land TV is reporting that the Daschle campaign has been making illegal calls stating that Thune is promoting negative advertising and also running TV ads to that effect. The report says "The ad itself accuses Thune of encouraging negative campaigning." Thune, in fact, hasn't run an ad and has no control over third-party ads. So the Daschle campaign has made an derogatory accusation which isn't true and which is also illegal. Here's more from the story:

Senator Tom Daschle's re-election campaign paid for an undisclosed number of telephone ads blaming John Thune's campaign for an increase in negative advertising.

But that's only part of the story. It turns out Daschle's ads violate a new federal election law.

Campaign finance laws require political commercials to tell you who's paying for them. You see those disclaimers at the end of any campaign ad. And new guidelines mean you should also hear them over the phone.

The phone call begins, "Hello this is Pam Dorneman. I wanted to give you a quick call because this week I have seen a number of negative television ads..."

Political persuasion over the phone is nothing new to KELOLAND campaigns. But it's how this ad ends that breaks a new federal election law. There's no disclaimer saying who paid for it.

Thune campaign manager Dick Wadhams: "I can only assume this is gross incompetence by the Daschle folks or this is a flagrant, intentional violation of federal election law."

Daschle campaign spokesman Dan Pfeiffer: "It was inadvertent. This is a very detailed point of law. Having said that, we take it very seriously and are grateful to the Thune campaign for pointing it out to us."

SDP wonders how the Argus Leader will cover this.