Conservative radio ad attacks Culver

A non-profit conservative group has attacked Gov. Chet Culver’s handling of the flood recovery effort in a new statewide radio advertisement launched this week.

Iowa Gov. Chet Culver

The organization, Iowa Progress Project (IPP), has run two previous radio ads criticizing Culver and Democratic lawmakers this year. The group’s president, David Kochel, did not respond to requests to comment for this story, but in a statement he said the group launched the new ad “to highlight the absolute absurdity of the Culver administration by committing to pay consultants $3 million while a city remains unsafe and caught in the bureaucratic inaction of Des Moines and Washington, D.C.”

The ad, called “Floods,” accuses Culver of paying consultants instead of investing money in rebuilding damaged homes in Cedar Rapids. Troy Price, Culver’s interim communications director, released a memo refuting the claims in the ad line by line, including the number of homeless and jobless the group cites as being affected by flooding.

The ad says one consultant hired by the state will be paid $6,500 per day, which Price said is “grossly misleading, if not outright false — no one, from either state government, or any consultant in this project, is getting paid $6,500 a day.”

Price said consultants were hired because no state can be expected to have the personnel necessary to manage a disaster of this size.

“The cost of doing so would be prohibitive in all times except the actual disaster period,” he said.

The ad is also critical of the Rebuild Iowa Office (RIO), established by Culver to direct the rebuilding efforts, saying it will employ 47 full-time staff but has been allocated no budget.

“RIO has no permanent staff; it has drawn on current state employees who possess specific areas of expertise who are on loan from their agencies,” Price said. “Most state employees who were working at RIO assisted the Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission in their efforts to gather information and make recommendations on Iowa’s disaster recovery. With the completion of the commission’s initial report, many have already returned to the duties they performed before their temporary assignment to the RIO. Less than one dozen remain in the RIO office.”

Iowa Progress Project is linked to the American Future Fund (AFF), another conservative non-profit group which has run advertisements supporting Republican candidates in competitive Senate races around the country. An Iowa Independent investigation found that the group’s leaders include two media consultants who played key roles in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads in 2004 and the Willie Horton ad in 1988, both of which helped defeat Democratic presidential candidates.

Both organizations essentially were spawned from the Iowa Future Fund (IFF), which came to fame during the 2008 state legislative session when it ran a series of television and radio ads criticizing Culver.

The Iowa Democratic Party filed a complaint with the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board (IECDB) in March to determine whether the IFF ads constituted political advertising, which would require disclosure of the group’s donors. The complaint has not been fully settled. Charlie Smithson, executive director of the IECDB, said at the board’s most recent meeting last week the matter was deferred pending further investigation.

“There are a couple of other questions/areas of concern that [the Ethics Board Chair] wants addressed,” he said.

Many believe IPP was started out of fear that IFF would be forced to reveal its donors if the IECDB ruled it violated campaign law.

Before becoming president of IPP, Kochel served as spokesman for IFF and AFF. Earlier this year, Kochel and Nicole Schlinger, president of AFF, registered Mission Control Partners Inc., a political consulting firm,with the Iowa secretary of state. Both are also former executive directors of the Republican Party of Iowa.

Price said that while Iowa Progress Project says it is an issues advocacy organization, the only work the group has done is attack Culver and other state Democrats.

“Though the group has been in existence under various names for several months, the group refuses to release their list of donors, denying Iowans an opportunity to see who is behind this shadowy organization,” he said. “Iowans deserve openness and full disclosure in politics, so they are able to make a fair and informed decision on who is trying to influence state policy which can directly affect their lives.”