Moveon Again

Well, you knew it was coming: Sen. Collins is now using the Petraeus ad flap as part of a fundraising pitch.

It's entirely fair game, although one of the Collins camp's central charges is misleading: That "MoveOn.org has contributed more money to her opponent than all of the presidential candidates combined, $250,000 already."

Phrasing it that way conjures up images of a (nefarious) left-wing behemoth dumping a giant check on Rep. Allen.

But that hasn't happened--at least as far as I know. Instead, hundreds (thousands?) of individuals have responded to Moveon.org solicitations by making mostly small dollar donations to Allen's campaign.

So they're the ones doing the giving. Moveon is just using their megaphone--and their web platform--to draw attention to the race.

It's a subtle distinction, especially if you don't follow these types of things closely. But it's an important one. And it's why the National Republican Senatorial Committee, for example, has been careful to characterize the donations as "conduit donations" and to describe them as having been given "through"--rather than "by"--Moveon.org.

In any case, Lance Dutson and the Collins camp are making no such distinctions.

Speaking of Dutson, he's shocked and scandalized about Google's rejection of a few keyword ads that he tried to buy for Sen. Collins.

The story has been bouncing around the right-wing blogs all day, often with intimations that it amounts to some kind of conspiracy. (Paranoid, anyone?)

But as someone extremely familiar with Google AdWords from my real job, I think I can safely say that what Dutson encountered is pretty typical: Google rejects ads all the time, for a host of reasons--and often without the kind of consistency you might expect.

It's an inevitable upshot of managing a giant advertising platform in a litigious society.

In any case, the idea that a huge corporation--with hundreds of thousands of advertisers and billions in revenue--has singled out Dutson or Sen. Collins for unfavorable treatment isn't just silly. It's bonkers.