The Best Elections Money Can Buy

The old fashioned retail politics just meeting the people. Ask any political expert and they'll tell you this is the kind of one on one contact brief as it may be. That's absolutely the best way to get votes and an added bonus. It's cheap. You don't have to be rich or have big money contributors behind you to go out and get a campaign started shaking hands. The problem is if you're running for any kind of statewide national or even most local offices there simply isn't time enough of the voters this

way to get your message across. So you need to advertise and suddenly. Need money lots of money. I'm Jim Madigan. In years past back when the handshake was the coin of the political realm political campaigns were generally planned in smoke filled back rooms. Today the most important decisions in most campaigns are made in a room like this one. A television editing suite mass media is the major weapon in modern politics and it's very expensive. In this program we're going to look at why it's become so expensive to run for public office in this country. We'll look at the ways money flows to political campaigns. And we'll also show you some of the ideas put forward to control campaign costs. And finally we're going to show you the very simple reason that chances are no legislative body in this country is ever going to vote for a real fundamental change of the current campaign finance system. The best election's money.

Running for public office still isn't an incredibly attractive thing for a lot of people in our society and in a lot of ways it's romanticized and made to be you know seen as something that a lot of people would you know would appeal to a lot of people. There's a lot of baggage that goes with it in terms of the intrusion intrusiveness into one's life and the amount of money that one has to raise public relations executive and former political consultant Paul Robbins says the money question has to be at the top of the list whenever anyone considers a political run today. Well in the old days used to somebody what they why they wanted to be in public life and what were the issues and what was it about public service that interested them and kind of you know get into that the meat of what they're why they're running nowadays by yourself asking people can you raise the money. Do you know how much this is going to cost you. It really creates a chilling effect around the conversation of why do you want to run for office.

So you becomes almost a screening process. Someone is kind of a newcomer and they haven't run for political office and they're running in Springfield say for city council. I suppose I would tell them they have to be prepared to spend somewhere between 20 and 30 thousand is kind of the baseline because you get any kind of repetition on television broadcast television you're going to have to spend about 15 just as a you know the last week of the campaign that doesn't include buttons or badges or the phone calling which is much more sophisticated now than it used to be. People didn't do that kind of stuff from the local level and they do know one of the nice things about state representatives is a smaller area and you can literally knock on all the doors. However you know to run successfully you still have to be on radio perhaps TV. You do all these other things that you know we're talking about that support a campaign that like ways can cost 30000 or more. And the biggest single cost factor for virtually all campaigns at any level is broadcast advertising.

And the experts say you simply have to use radio and TV at a bar as a political consultant and professor in the Media Studies Department at Westfield State College. Even if you're running unopposed you have to use TV to be legitimate. If you don't keep your face in front of the public they forget you. And this is a tremendous advantage that incumbents have. They're in the news daily. They're covered because of their position and they control the news that goes into the paper they send out the news releases they stage the media events. If a scholarship is given by the state legislature you know the local rep has got a little article in the paper saying look what I've brought back a state scholarship. It's hard to compete against that in if you're running against an incumbent. You have to spend a lot more money than the incumbent does just to get your name recognized radio which is considered probably the most economical place to advertise in Springfield. You can get a nice 60 second spot in drive time which is morning in afternoon for about $60. But in Boston it's up with thousand dollars for that same amount of

time. And if you go to television it's a whole new ballgame in Springfield area Seinfeld is the number one rated show and it cost about oh five thousand dollars for a 30 second spot on Seinfeld in Springfield market in the Boston Markets. Thirty thousand dollars. That's for 30 seconds. If you're going statewide. You've got to have the money and you've got to have it before you run. There are a lot of people with double mortgages and you know loans that are losers and even the winners are still running fundraisers after the campaign is over because there's so much of it that you can't be poor in run for office in America anymore. But obviously there are lots of people of modest means from working class backgrounds in public life. How do they do it. How do they raise the money they need to run. Soon as they got elected in November 95 I started raising money right away to pay off some debt and also to get ready for 1907 in these two year cycles are just incredible.

In his first run for mayor of Springfield in 1905 microbiota found he needed to raise a quarter of a million dollars. It's an awful lot of money and people forget that my opponent raised more than I did so to run for mayor in 1995 it was well over half a million dollars and it hasn't become cheaper to do it since that time I didn't have a race in 1970. Expecting a race in 1900 cost upwards of three hundred thousand dollars to run a credible campaign to get one's message across from the electronic media to the print media so it becomes very expensive. If you don't go out and you are not raising money constantly then you become very vulnerable and you're not competitive and that can change the dynamics of what a policymaking does. So it's very important to stay competitive and unfortunately this is the way we have to do it. And all this leads to the question of who gives money to political candidates and why people involved in politics tell us it's not the way most of us perceive it. It's not just the big money special interest contributors.

I've probably have over twelve hundred people who have contributed to my campaign for mayor. Some of them are from outside of the city. People I've known in public life family you do have people that have an interest in a particular matter that they some how would like to influence and some and certainly I'm not going to sit here and deny that that is a motivation for some people to give politically. So you really reach out to the $25 person to the $500 person and for whatever reason there are different reasons for contributing. And the really is no average contributor of your family or friends you have corporate interest you have political interest your political action committees you have unions that want to strong union candidate. So there really is no rhyme or reason to it you just reach out you send a message out and you hope the response is favorable. It's really a variety of things you know. For instance when Linda M. Kony and ran for Congress the Armenian community across the country came to the fore because she was one of theirs. And it's really an amalgamation of different people. They get involved a quarter of a million dollars to run for mayor of a medium sized city like

Springfield. Thirty thousand dollars for a local legislative race. So that's what it's like at relatively low level local races. What is it like to run nationwide. Well we asked Frank Fitzgerald he's a Springfield attorney who was a major fundraiser for the Dukakis presidential campaign in 1988 and the Dukakis presidential campaign followed very strict guidelines on how money was to be raised. But even so Franken still told us they still run into the occasional contributor who had their own ideas about what their money was going for. Our approach is it's pretty simple in raising money. Up for a political candidate we've got three principles that we follow. Number one is the person we're talking to for that's money. Number two we should be referred to that person by someone who they respect and care about. And number three when they give they should be made be feel made to feel it important and that's the way we approached the whole presidential campaign in 1907 in 88

if they came to us with an agenda. Frankly we didn't pay any attention to him and most of the time turned him away. The reason you're here and that's the reason you want to contribute we would suggest is that you don't. And in fact if they still want to go forward we'll reject it. And we've done that on a number of occasions because it doesn't make any sense for the candidate to have that baggage looming over him with someone coming up afterwards saying look I made this contribution and expect this in return. And I was with some people once where an individual was making $100000 contribution and as he had that check as he handed the check over. He said Is this hello or goodbye. And we said whatever you wanted to be. But that's the way it is it's not it's not a matter of making any kind of commitment to someone even at the minute when they can contribute as a fundraiser. And even as a candidate you can't commit to do something that you can't control. And most of the time the things that people would come to you looking

for are things that have other elements of control in them such as a legislature or whatever. And so in any given situation where someone would walk up to you looking for a direct payback for their contribution you can't commit to it. What's mind boggling is basically what motivates people to gifts. And the thing that I found. Most interesting was that most people gave because they wanted to be part of the process. They wanted to be able to say I'm close to Mike because they didn't specifically want anything other than to say I was there. And believe me there's people with lots of money that are capable of making significant contributions just to say I was there. Whatever the reason individual people give money to a political candidate there's another whole subset of political fundraising specifically tied to issues and interest groups. Those are the

PACs political action committees. Groups of like minded people who put their small amounts of money so that they can make big contributions to candidates in there maybe some PACs where you have people who legitimately give as part as a worker member of a union feeling that this is you know one way to influence things in you know in terms of getting the point of view that the union or the workers have into the political process. The problem is that that's the small minority. Political Action Committee giving most of it is done by big corporations you know big people with deep pockets and I think that's where the quid pro quo comes into play. You know we're giving millions to Clinton let's say. And when the industry comes before the White House they expect a not an issue. And that's that's where it gets corrupted. But others like Congressman Richard Neal point out that in spite of all the criticism of PAC contributions that are often aimed at influencing an official's position on some issue the PACs

do have a way of leveling the fundraising playing field. It allows 100 firemen to contribute $10 while the bank president can write a check for a thousand dollars. It allows the teachers to participate. It allows the ten doctors to participate. It allows people of similar mind. To pool their resources and while those individuals cannot hope to contribute five hundred or thousand dollars to a campaign it does allow them a direct notion of participation. Whether it's PACs or personal contributions Congressman Neal says that because campaigns have become so expensive fundraising has become a regular part of the job for many of his colleagues in Washington. There are members of the Congress who dutifully go to the Democratic campaign headquarters or to the Republican headquarters. Virtually every day and set aside time for calling prospective donors all the time that is subtracted from legislative work is substantial. But what's even more disturbing about it is they're using

that time to pay off the debt from the previous campaign while simultaneously asking for a contribution for the next campaign. There are limits on PAC dollars and personal contributions to candidates in federal elections the limit is a thousand dollars in Massachusetts. Five hundred dollars per candidate. But you can give virtually unlimited amounts of money to political parties and that's soft money as it's called is often then funneled into candidate's campaigns thus neatly circumventing the law. The Massachusetts State Senate minority leader Brian Lees is typical of most elected officials in his feelings about soft money. That is disgusting where corporations can give money to the National Committee and then they can funnel it back into your state. Or you can end up giving a candidate $500 and give a max of 5000 here in the state to the State Committee and somehow they can help you with that. It's it's wrong. We should outlaw soft money not at this only at the state level at the federal level. Congressman shares Brian Lee's concerns but also sees another side to soft money and

I think that soft money has had a negative impact on party message. Now let me put on my academic hat for one second and point out something that I think it's very intriguing in many low income neighborhoods across the country. That's how it's done. It's used for voter registration purposes. It's used for Get Out the Vote efforts on Election Day. It's used in some cases to be the magnet that lures candidates. To pick up nomination papers and go out and to run. So we've seen a lot of money is raised to learn that a great deal of it is going to have to be spent on television advertising. But how do you make sure that all that TV money is spent effectively or a great many campaigns go on the offensive especially if they're running behind using a negative ad. You try to present your opponent in the worst possible light distort the truth but never really telling a lie. And probably the best example of a successful negative ad came in the 1988 presidential race between George Bush and Michael Dukakis supporters of George Bush put together an

ad that painted Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. To do that they used the story of Willie Horton a convicted murderer out on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison who then went on a violent rampage despite a life sentence or received 10 weekend passes from prison or fled kidnapped a young couple stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes Dukakis on crime. Dukakis was known in Massachusetts in New England but not known throughout the country. After he won the primary in he won this convention. Bush engaged in a series of attacks to identify Dukakis to the people that didn't know him and all the sudden Dukakis was presented as this evil person and the polls just started to fall the other way. So is long is I think this model holes you're going to see big money you're going to see negative advertising as long as it works the Horten literally took what some

folks maybe thought about Michael Dukakis even if they didn't know if you were down in South Carolina and you didn't know who Mike Dukakis was. You did know he was from Massachusetts liberal Massachusetts. You didn't know he was a Democrat and as for the philosophical ban was more so liberal in here. What that did is it corroborated for that electorate what they maybe thought what they made you perceive about this Massachusetts liberal fella and the Dukakis campaign wasn't innocent either. Earlier in the Democratic primaries aides portrayed Congressman Dick Gephardt as a circus acrobat because over the years he changed some of his positions. Or as the ad portrayed it flip flopped on a number of issues. Political consultant Anthony signally says despite all the complaints after every election cycle about how they poison the political process and turn the voters off negative ads are here to stay. And there's a definite science that goes into producing the negative that really nothing most of us look at as more of the attack type that. And it's amazing to me the so many scientific polls have been done to this point that basically make it very clear that the electorate doesn't like

negative campaigns for campaign ads. Yet these are the ads that are still the most effective the actual content of the negative attack may not be reality it's perception. It's done quite often how a consultant will put together such an ad so that perhaps you're not telling a lie but the reality is you coming pretty darn close. You do look for the worst possible photograph the worst picture perhaps the worst portrayal of a candidate and we've seen this in so many negative campaigns. You obviously if you're attacking an opponent you're not going to show them any kind of the good light you're not going to use their standard 8 by 10 glossy campaign photo. You're not going to get shots of them in public speaking forms. You're looking for the attire when they're Haggard the native that has so many impacts. It can turn folks right after the election overall it can then polarize the election. Normally 35 percent of the overall about with a state election or national There's staunch Democrat staunch Republican partisan. The negative that keeps the nonpartisans away it.

Will upset or frankly sometimes discussed aspects of the electorate that are independent in their thinking. But it also does something else for the electorate. It confirms what they believe about party she confirms their worst possible. Oh there they go again look at this is horrible the campaign attacks. Just when we thought of how dirty politics is how bad it is etc.. We can hear it is the campaign itself coming out with this negative that the corroborates that feeling of the electorate that's that's what's unfortunate people like to feel that they're right. And that's where they think the negative campaigning. It's quick it's fast it's hard hitting. Folks love it there's the gossip aspect of what we all hate the negative that but that's the that folks will talk about in coffee shops the next morning. So how do people in television feel about all the controversy over their industry broadcasting those negative ads and driving up the cost of political campaigns is political advertising financially important to broadcasters or is it more trouble than it's worth. I have always looked at political as a very volatile area. I don't plan on it. If it

comes down. Close to the election and people are spending money and we can accommodate them. We sell them the air time. But when we do the business plan I don't bank on that money. It's too volatile. You could say gee I think we're going to have a million dollars in advertising this year and in fifty thousand. Or vice versa. It's just an unpredictable kind of kind of thing. Beyond that Bill pep and general manager of WWLP TV Springfields NBC affiliate says broadcasters lives are greatly complicated by federal rules impacting what they can charge political advertisers. Basically you have to offer a political advertiser the lowest rate that you would offer your most valued and favored regular client or advertiser. So if you negotiate a very very attractive commercial rate for a large 52 week advertiser that's with you every year you have to offer that same rate or to a political advertising.

So you want to be very careful that it lowers unit rate doesn't become ridiculous. Where you're almost not giving it away because you have to offer it to the political advertisers. Well one idea to cut campaign costs would have broadcasters give candidates free time perhaps a total of two hours a candidate could then break up in any way they choose for commercials or speeches or discussion programs and feels that's not necessary. And he and others say it's not very likely to happen. Politicians are afforded airtime within our news product on an ongoing basis and the closer you get to an election date the more predominant they are as part of our newscast. We also do a lot of things outside of the newscast political debates in most cases the incumbent is the candidate with the war chest. They have the most money to spend. They challenger the newcomer is usually cash poor or doesn't have the resources the financial resources the incumbent has. So by virtue of the fact that they've got the war chest they had a leg up on the Challenger

so why would you want to pass legislation that guarantees that only yourself for your time but your potential opponent for your time you're doing them a favor. Better not to give them any freer time. I don't think that's going to happen especially in the near future as you know President Clinton is trying to put through with his new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. But the biggest opposition comes from the National Association of Broadcasters the owners of stations and that's a strong lobby and they don't want to give up the revenue although only 1 percent of their yearly advertising revenue. They don't want to give it up. And I don't see Congress changing the rules. The rules benefit them right now so why change a good thing. Another idea for containing campaign costs was tried in Massachusetts and the 1906 U.S. Senate race has two very wealthy candidates John Kerry and William Weld agreed to voluntarily put a cap on how much they'd spend about 7 million dollars each. The captain holder but Senator Bryan Lees who chaired that well the

campaign sees other possibilities along that same line. I think when you have two wealthy people and you win and one is an incumbent. And and not going to lose that seat if he's running for it or he or she is running for that if it doesn't work. The only way I really think caps overall can work that you can have total say is public financing of elections and then the only money going in is you can't put any other money in so there's never any question how much is coming to you. You get a check for X amount of dollars. That's what it is. You have to spend it you can't spend one other dime of any money you can't raise any other money and then you're really sure. So could that be the answer strict public financing of political campaigns. No money from any other source seems simple fair and clean. But there's a very big obstacle in the way. It's the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which reads in part Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech in the case of Buckley vs. Vallejo the United States Supreme Court found that

if you're running for public office and you have millions of dollars of your own money and want to spend it on your campaign nobody can stop you that's your first amendment right. The only real restriction is that if you do this you can accept any public financing. Obviously there aren't all that many people willing to spend millions of their own dollars this way. But there are some like Ross Perot. And if you're an elected official of modest means are you going to pass a law that really restriction your fundraising ability when you know that someday some mega rich opponent could come along and just blow you right out of the water. Not likely. Why would any candidate who holds public office universally disarm under the current system. Number one the First Amendment is the cornerstone of our constitutional system it guarantees expression. I think secondly and almost as important to this debate is that we are in the know more and more with millionaires running for office everywhere across the nation. And I

think that's equally dangerous to the democratic system in terms of independent expenditures. I don't see that given the current bit of the United States Supreme Court for the forseeable future that they are going to reverse this ruling in Buckley vs. Vallejo. I'm reminded of the quote from Tip O'Neill who said we were headed down the road to the moronic sons of millionaires running our government. It is a problem and wealthy people have a lot of advantages that working men and women don't have. And I did no question about that is that right. In politics the Constitution says people have a right to spend their money for freedom of speech in any way they want whether it's getting elected is one of them. It does concern me in politics today that that well you can just in many cases get their message out so much quicker and so much easier than working men and women. And I want to make sure this like this is an opportunity for everyone that wants to run for office to be able to do that.

So the prospects for moving big money from our political system aren't very encouraging. But we did hear one intriguing and rather surprising suggestion. But the real solution is rebuild the political parties. If you want to buttress the notion of participation take it out of the hands of the special interest groups take it out of the hands of those who only supply money to the system and put it back in the hands of the political parties. The truth is that we've spent two decades rewarding the notion of what we call political independents in Washington. But as the individual candidates became more in independent of the political structure the truth is they became more reliant on special interest money. And secondly they became less beholden to the notion of getting something done. If we had binding convention nominating systems that would go a bit of the way. If you have requirements for campaign contributions go directly to the party apparatus that would support the candidate that prevailed at the convention and the candidates would buy into that

notion. I think that what we've attempted to do with America is to take the politics out of politics. There's a heck of a lot less citizen participation today than there were when we had at least marginally strong political parties. And so as it always will in a democratic society the issue comes back to the people. When citizens are willing caring and concerned enough to get involved in the political process determines the course of that process. Ignore the political process and you leave it to the special interests something Adley Stevenson said in the Democratic presidential campaign. 952 still rings true. In the final analysis he told us your public servants serve you right. Madigan Thanks for watching.