Political Hit Man Speaks at Harvard’s Kennedy School

Dave Winer and Rick Heller attended yesterday’s Institute of Politics session at the Kennedy School of Government titled “REALITY POLITICS: The 2004 Road to the White House.” Lynn Sweet, a fellow at IOP, led the discussion which included David W. Jones, the political consultant (hit man) who raised $663,000 from twenty six donors to fund three attack ads against Howard Dean leading up to the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. At the Berkman Thursday weblog writers meeting last night, Rick pointed out that the McCain-Feingold law includes a section about “527 committees” that allow this sort of thing to be orchestrated against a candidate but not for a candidate. That’s wrong on so many levels.