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Friday, October 15, 2010

DNC Spokesman’s Former Group Didn’t Disclose Donors Either

Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, is the latest ally of President Obama to go after the dangers of undisclosed money in the political process.

In a letter sent yesterday to editorial board members at news organizations across the country, Mr. Woodhouse excoriated the collection and use of the money in the current elections.

“Anonymous special interests and unnamed corporations are pouring tens of millions of dollars into electoral politics this fall, money that has the potential to tip the scales in close races across the country,” Mr. Woodhouse wrote in the letter. He lamented the “pernicious effects of secret, special interest money.”

But just a couple of years back, Mr. Woodhouse was the president of a political organization that took donations without disclosing the identities of the donors.

Mr. Woodhouse was president of Americans United for Change, a liberal group that says its mission has been to challenge “the far-right conservative voices and ideas that for too long have been mistaken for mainstream American values.”

Americans United for Change is organized under the same section of the Internal Revenue code that covers Crossroads GPS, one of the newly formed conservative organizations that have been pumping money into Republican races this fall.

“Rather than focus on jobs and the economy and real issues that voters care about, the White House and D.N.C continue to push a phony issue flacked by a cadre of brazen hypocrites,” said Jonathan Collegio, communications director for American Crossroads, which does disclose donors but, like Crossroads GPS, was also set up by Republican strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie. (Continues here at NYT)

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