Just in case you had any doubt, the McCain campaign adamantly maintains it will not bring up Jeremiah Wright on the orders of John McCain. But is there any chance that a well-funded outside group will unleash a torrent of Jeremiah Wright ads in the next three weeks? Mike Allen reports
With McCain unlikely to budge, GOP officials are hoping groups outside of the campaign will finance an ad attack on Obama-Wright ties. It is unclear if any conservative group has the cash to bankroll a serious effort, however.
Just about the only significant independent conservative organization (that isn't a single-issue group) to throw itself into the presidential campaign is American Issues Project. The group has already spent millions on ads involving hot button topics, such as Bill Ayers and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If there is a significant effort to make Wright an issue, they seem to be just about the only group with the means to wage a serious campaign.
AIP's president Ed Martin told me in a phone interview that fundraising has gone so well that AIP is "going to be around for the long haul." I asked Martin if he thinks, like the McCain campaign, that bringing up Obama's pastor of 20 years is out of bounds. "No," he replied. "We don't take any of our cues from any campaign." He said that AIP won't "show its cards" and say what new ads the group plans to roll out. But it seems Rev. Wright could be in the mix. "We have some ideas, and we have had significant success with donors, so we have some things that we are not telegraphing at this point," he said. "I don't really care what the McCain campaign says is off limits. ... We are looking at a couple different avenues on new ads."
