The American Issues Project is an American political action group organized as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, so that it can engage in limited amounts of civic campaigning, but cannot legally advocate for or against candidates. During the

2008 United States presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John Mc ...

, it became known for commercials linking

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

to former

Weather Underground The Weather Underground was a far-left Marxist militant organization first active in 1969, founded on the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan. Originally known as the Weathermen, or simply Weatherman, the group was organized as a f ...

founder William Ayers. The group has received substantial media attention. After Obama came into office, the group concentrated on the

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (), nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a Stimulus (economics), stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed ...

. The AIP was co-founded by conservative political activists Tony Feather (also a co-founder of the conservative 527 group

Progress for America Progress for America (PFA) (a 501(c)#501(c)(4), 501(c)(4)) and its affiliate Progress for America Voter Fund (PFA-VF) (a 527 committee) are national tax-exempt organizations in the United States. PFA was established in 2001 to support George W. Bush ...

) and

Chris LaCivita Christopher Joseph LaCivita (born 1966) is an American political consultant and former partner in FP1 Strategies, a national public affairs and campaign firm. He most recently served as senior adviser to Donald Trump's successful 2024 presidenti ...

.Washington Post (September 14, 2008) "Group With Swift Boat Alumni Readies Ads Attacking Obama"
/ref> Funding for AIP, which spent close to $3 million for the Ayers ads, is provided by

Harold Simmons Harold Clark Simmons (May 13, 1931 – December 29, 2013) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist whose banking expertise helped him develop the acquisition concept known as the leveraged buyout (LBO) to acquire various corpora ...

, who previously gave $3 million to fund

Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, formerly known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT), was a political group ( 527 group) of United States Swift boat veterans; former prisoners of war of the Vietnam War, formed during the 2004 president ...

and another $500,000 to

References

{{authority control Political advocacy groups in the United States 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations

See also

References