It's a hard-core group of long-time Bush supporters, masquerading as an "independent" 527.
This from the WaPo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52857-2004May24.html...
James Francis Jr., who put together the 1999 to 2000 Bush Pioneers, one of the most successful fundraising operations in U.S. history, has been asked to chair the lead GOP organization, called Progress for America (PFA), Francis and other Republican activists said yesterday.
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Tom Synhorst, a direct-mail and phone-bank specialist, is a key strategic adviser to PFA. He is a partner in a direct mail and voter contact firm that has major contracts with both the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign and the Republican National Committee. Brian McCabe is the executive director....Synhorst's company, Feather, Larson & Synhorst, has already been paid at least $1.6 million by the Bush-Cheney campaign. Tony Feather, the lead partner, was political director of the 2000 Bush campaign.
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Francis said he raised some money for Bush early in the current campaign but has not been active since then because he knew that he might be needed in helping out a separate, "independent" campaign and it was important to keep his distance from Bush-Cheney '04.
McCabe said Francis and Cicconi are both PFA board members, along with C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel in the administration of George H.W. Bush, and Marilyn Ware, chairman of American Water in Pennsylvania. Ware has raised at least $100,000 for the current Bush-Chaney campaign and has qualified as a Pioneer. Francis said he has agreed to help but has not yet agreed to an official role.
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