By Mark Rhoads -
There are Political Action Committees (PACs) that are only designed to back a candidate instead of a union, association, or industry. This group often uses nearly anonymous names such as Right to Rise PAC (pro-Bush), Courageous Conservatives PAC (pro-Cruz), Conservative Solutions PAC (pro-Rubio), America Leads PAC (pro-Christie), and Pursuing America's Greatness PAC (pro-Huckabee).
The purpose of the candidate PACs is to do the dirty work of negative attack ads so that a candidate does not have to put his own name on the attack.
But while the political pundits know who is who among the candidate PACs the general public does not. So when a PAC airs a negative attack ad, the name of the sponsoring group and its purpose is not so obvious to the casual voter watching TV. For example, the pro-Huckabee PAC spends its money on attacking the birth of Ted Cruz in Canada. The pro-Bush PAC attacks all other candidates but especially Marco Rubio. The pro-Rubio PAC also attacks Cruz. The pro-Christie PAC runs ads attacking others in New Hampshire.
We are not going to see the elimination of negative ads any time soon. But it is time for full disclosure by Super PACs on TV advertising. Instead of just saying the name of the PAC, state and federal laws and FEC regulations should require that a PAC also disclose the candidate they support on the ad so that negative attack ads are no longer anonymous.
