Federal election rules require that the parties pay for "issue advertising" with a complicated mixture of hard and soft money.
In a March 14 e-mail to Mr. Bush, the vice president had proposed that both campaigns renounce the use of soft money to pay for issue advertisements.
The checks, written to the political parties by individuals, unions, corporations and others, are frequently used to pay for issue advertisements attacking candidates from the opposing party.
Under Federal Election Commission rules, the national parties pay for issue advertisements with 65percentt hard, or federal, money and 35percentt soft money.
In a March 14 e-mail message, Mr. Gore had challenged Gov. George W. Bush to a bilateral ban on the use of soft money to pay for issue commercials.
Instead, the Wisconsin Club for Growth paid for "issue ads", which are not bound by the same federal campaign-finance laws (even if they are plainly in support of a candidate).
The 2002 McCain-Feingold law put an end to the unlimited "soft money" donations by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to party committees, which used it to pay for "issue" ads that often attacked or supported candidates.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has agreed to pay a $280,000 fine for illegally funneling soft money to other groups to pay for issue advertisements during the 2000 elections, the Federal Election Commission said.
The Court ruled that wealthy individuals could spend unlimited amounts of their own fortunes to get themselves elected to office, and that anyone could pour dollars by the hundreds of thousands into the war chests of political action committees to pay for "issue ads," clearly favoring one side in a political race, so long as a specific candidate or party was not named.
Participant, meanwhile, is eager to help pay for issues-oriented films like "The Help," which it backed in part.
