GOP officials acknowledge they were caught off guard by the Gore offensive. At first, they planned to stick to a “high road” strategy: attack the veep for breaking his pledge not to initiate a run of soft-money spots. But that plan was quickly overruled by senior GOP strategists. “We’ve got to send a signal,” said one GOP official. “We can’t let them put a plane up in the air without having our own right next to theirs.”
The escalating ad war is putting increased pressure on both parties to rake in more soft dollars–and they’re responding with novel ways of enticing wealthy contributors. The GOP, for example, is offering high rollers the “option” of stock transfers instead of cash donations. “This was designed for the dot-com crowd,” says a lawyer familiar with the plan. To make it easy for the new millionaires, the RNC will sell the donated stock and pick up the brokerage fees, but contributors must pay capital-gains tax on the sale.
