Anti-Scott Brown group that agreed to third-party ad ban expands its website

By Glen Johnson, Globe Staff

A third-party group that agreed last week to abide by Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren’s ban on outside advertising in their much-anticipated US Senate race is today expanding its website focused on the Republican incumbent’s record.

It is the first effort by an outside group to take advantage of gaps in an agreement that was something of coup for Brown, and which both candidates hailed as revolutionary when they signed the so-called “People’s Pledge.”

It expressly bans broadcast and online advertising by outside groups seeking to influence the outcome of this fall’s election, but it is silent on information posted on a website.

The ban also does not cover printed ads that might appear in a newspaper or magazine.

Elizabeth Warren

A pro-Warren group, RethinkBrown, is today unveiling the first two online chapters in what it pledges will be an ongoing recitation of Brown’s votes and public statements since he stunned the Democratic establishment in January 2010 by winning the special election to replace the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Brown is now seeking his first, full six-year term, and Warren has emerged as the leading Democrat for her party’s US Senate nomination.

The first chapter, titled, “Wrong on What Matters to Massachusetts,” details Brown votes the Democratic group says cut job creation and unemployment compensation for Bay State residents.

The second chapter, titled, “Deliberately Foggy on the Issues,” pivots off criticism using those words once lodged against Brown by the conservative editorial page of The Sun of Lowell.

That chapter chronicles the senator’s admitted practice of withholding his view on key issues until just before final action is taken in Congress.

A Brown spokeswoman once argued the tactic preserved his negotiating leverage, but Democrats charge the senator has taken multiple sides on issues - or hedged at taking any side at all - to gauge the political fallout from his ultimate vote.

“Senator Brown has repeatedly voted for legislation in Washington that supports corporate interests at the expense of Massachusetts families,” Liz Morningstar, executive director of the RethinkBrown political action committee, said in a statement. “Through extensive documentation of his votes, our report exposes Scott Brown’s congressional record, which strongly conflicts with his misleading rhetoric.”

A Brown spokesman accused RethinkBrown of circumventing the agreement’s goal.

“This tactic of peddling lies and misinformation over the Internet by Professor Warren’s left-wing supporters certainly violates the spirit of the agreement, and we hope she would at least speak out against it. The voters of Massachusetts deserve better,” said Brown Communications Director Colin Reed.

The ban that Warren signed Jan. 22 and Brown co-signed the following morning explicitly states that the candidates “agree that they do not approve of such independent expenditure advertisements, and want those advertisements to immediately cease and desist for the duration of the 2012 election cycle.”

Brown and Warren agreed that if such ads are aired, the candidate benefitting from them must tap their own campaign account to donate 50 percent of the ads’ value to a charity chosen by the candidate targeted with the attack.

Furthermore, the candidates agreed “to continue to work together to limit the influence of third-party advertisements, and to close any loopholes (including coverage of sham ads) that arise in this agreement during the course of the campaign.”

Two of those apparent loopholes are material posted on a third-party group’s own website, and any print ads such groups may sponsor.

Brown seemed to acknowledge the potency of such web information when an aide linked to his campaign bought a domain name last summer for sites that could be used to attack Warren.

On Aug. 27, Brown adviser Robert Willington - now working for the Massachusetts Republican Party - registered the “QueenElizabethWarren.com” domain name.

The registration came the same day Brown declared he would not tolerate any further such activity by his staff after another adviser, Eric Fehrnstrom, was unmasked as the author of a Twitter feed that mocked a then-election opponent of the senator’s, Alan Khazei.

In a statement last week, RethinkBrown pledged to honor the broadcast ad ban - but expressly retained the option of using other avenues of expression, including the website it had then and is expanding today.

“Through our website, www.rethinkbrown.com, the news media, social media, and other means of modern campaigning, we will provide factual analysis of the record that Brown is afraid to have exposed,” RethinkBrown said in the aftermath of the People’s Pledge.

The group added: “The voters of Massachusetts are seeking independent, verifiable analysis of the senator’s record. We will continue to provide it.

RethinkBrown.com is hardly an independent organization, funded by unions such as the Service Employees International Union and the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and run by Morningstar and other former aides to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat like Warren.

But it has taken to compiling media reports and outside analyses of Brown’s Senate votes and public statements as it attempts to serve as a clearinghouse of information about his political record.

Its writings are filled with hyperlinks to online stories about the senator, or footnotes for printed stories and reports on government business.

In her statement today, Morningstar said: “Rethink will continue to educate the voters about the real Scott Brown record of working against Massachusetts’ values. We will comply with the agreement between the two candidates to minimize the power of big money and negative advertisements.”