Ben Smith devotes his debut post-Politico column to Michael Goldfarb’s new “Center for American Freedom,” a direct jab at the progressive Center for American Progress. Smith reports:
I see what Smith is getting at here, but this seems a bit over simplified. Considering their limited missions as 501c3 organizations, both AEI and The Heritage Foundation have been immensely successful online. According to IRS regulations 501c3 organizations “may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.” This severly limits what the think tanks can say and do. Despite these limitations, The Heritage Foundation boasts over 400,000 Facebook likes, AEI has 73,575, while CAP has only 22,837. On twitter, Heritage has 163,047 followers, AEI has 11,588, while CAP has 15,602.
The numbers are much better, however, for the 501c4 arm of CAP, Think Progress. They have 60,882 likes on Facebook and 89,534 twitter followers. Smith does make the 501c3/501c4 distinction later on the piece:
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“We’ve really modeled ourselves on the CAP Action Fund, which has set a rather arbitrary position, but it’s a position we’ll adhere to, which is that as long as you’re not engaged in paid media, there really shouldn’t be an issue as to transparency and who’s funding it,” he said.
But doesn’t The Heritage Foundation already have a 501c4 spin off? Yes they do, its called Heritage Action for America. But Heritage Action is not the “combative media and research arm” of The Heritage Foundation. It concentrates almost exclusively on very specific policy fights in Congress, operating more like a lobbying firm for freedom. Former Weekly Standard writer Matthew Continetti sees a very different role for CAF:
