Republicans Profit From Red Scare Campaign

In a highly successful direct-mail letter that plays on old fears about communist influence, a Republican Party committee is breaking fund-raising records by exploiting the Democrats’ troubles over campaign financing.

The letter - by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the main fund-raising body for Senate Republicans - says the White House was “sold for ILLEGAL FOREIGN CASH” including money from “Red China, which still considers itself a Communist country!”

The letter accuses President Clinton’s fund-raising committee of accepting illegal donations from a “Communist regime.” It was signed by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is the chairman of the committee, and was mailed in mid-March to 240,000 potential donors.

So far this year, the committee has broken fund-raising records, generating about $4 million, has reduced a post-election debt of $7 million to $5 million and has around $2 million in cash, said Michael Russell, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Amy Weiss Tobe, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, criticized the letter, saying, “It’s disappointing that Senator McConnell would stoop to this level to raise money.”

Referring to China, the letter says: “Thousands of American soldiers have lost their lives in the fight against the evil system of Communism. And now the FBI is investigating a sitting U.S. president’s National Party Committee for accepting ILLEGAL FOREIGN CASH from the world’s strongest remaining Communist regime!”