Non-party election communications like the Chamber's Al Franken ad were generally exempt from regulation for decades, from 2002 back to 1976, when the court created the distinction between "issue" and "express" advocacy in its Buckley v. Valeo decision.
"You win an election through communications and through organization, and no party besides the PRI has such strong organization".
This week marks the 5th anniversary of the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal and yet John Sununu has done little to acknowledge this scheme to disrupt Election Day communications to help him defeat then-Governor Jeanne Shaheen for Senate.
After last year's election, the communications director of the anti-abortion group Personhood USA held up U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) as a candidate who "maintained his 100% pro-life position (without compromising or denying the personhood of children) and won".
"The Iowa Jefferson Jackson Dinner ended up being a tipping point in the election," Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's communications director, said.
"We anticipate and always hope that Wisconsin will always have its say in the election," explained Rick Baas, communications director for the Republican party of Milwaukee County.
Lord Bell, who helped the former Prime Minister win three successful general election campaigns as communications adviser, also said the party should have deployed Boris Johnson earlier on in the campaign.
In interviews, Republican politicians and their aides said they agreed with the strategist, Frank Luntz, that it was important to pay attention to what his memorandum, written before the November elections, called "the environmental communications battle".
As the New York Times reported, nine days before the election Barack Obama used his communications system to tell Russian leader Vladimir Putin to stop meddling in the US election.
He worked for the former leader in the year before the general election on strategy and communications, but clashed with a number of party officials.
