Raising Money on the Campaign Trail Now Defining the Best Presidential Candidate
As more states schedule their primaries and caucuses earlier, the American presidential nomination process makes decisions on which presidential candidate will represent the party too quickly. Presidential candidates must announce their candidacy the winter or spring of the year before the election before voters are paying attention (Bush and Mayer, 2004). The invisible primary season starts the last presidential election day and concludes on the first statewide vote (Cornfield and Seiger, 2004).
CBS News and New York Times conducted an opinion poll on presidential candidates in October 1991. Registered voters were asked whether they had a favorable, unfavorable, or undecided opinion about Bill Clinton, Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey, or Tom Harkin, the four Democratic presidential candidates for the 1992 election. More than 75% of voters admitted that they were “undecided” due to a lack of knowledge about the candidates. Polls conducted several months later showed that less people answered “undecided” but not by a large margin. Voters start paying attention to the campaign as states start have their primaries and caucuses in particular the New Hampshire and Iowa events. When asked about candidates who dropped out of the race in March 50% of voters still answered “undecided”. It is important to note that even though some voters had a favorable or an unfavorable opinion about candidates, many of these opinions were established because of superficial reasons and not because of the candidate’s abilities or policies. Our front-loaded systems forces voters to make decisions about the presidential nominee very quickly without knowing the facts (Bush and Mayer, 2004).
Pious explains that today’s primary and caucus system “detracts from the power of incumbent presidents” because they must gain financial support from special interests and large campaign contributors. The nominating process attracts people who usually have little government experience on the national level but have held state offices and have accumulated large amounts of money. The primary and caucus systems require participants to run an aggressive and expensive media campaign (Pious, 2003).
Cornfield and Seiger argue that the Internet has lead to making the “invisible primary” into something visible through more media coverage of campaigns. In the past, the media was unable to cover the various dinners and meetings in Iowa and New Hampshire. Today, comprehensive news about the campaigns is available to such a degree that some websites keep track of which states the president, vice president, and possible presidential candidates have visited (Cornfield and Seiger, 2004).
The existence of the Internet and the interest of how much money is in politics have lead to campaign finance disclosure. Disclosure reports are filed by the campaigns and attract political journalists’ attention to provide horse-race coverage to the campaign. Horse-race coverage is the information journalists report which indicates who is ahead and who is behind in the polls and how much money each candidate has made so far in fundraising. This coverage discourages underdog candidates from running because they know they cannot financially compete especially if an incumbent is in the race. The starting line for the presidential race has changed and has become a “money primary”. In July 1999, Bush won this primary through his record-setting $37 million stomping out two potential Democratic presidential candidates: Vice President Al Gore with $18 million and former New Jersey Governor Bill Bradley with only $11 million. (Cornfield and Seiger, 212, 2004).
Recent elections have depended on political party soft money and candidate-specific issue advertising, both will now be restricted starting with the 2004 presidential election under the new Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). Corrado and Gouvea say that this law “may have the unintended consequence of diminishing the role of public funding in presidential elections.” (Corrado and Gouvea, 46, 2004).
Soft money, the unregulated money parties raised from individuals, corporations, and labor unions in unlimited amounts is now banned at the national level. Party committees and non-party groups who used to finance issue advertising must follow new federal contribution limits and disclosure requirements. BCRA doubles the amount that an individual may give to a candidate from $1,000 to $2,000. This encourages established candidates to get a larger share of their funds from large donors and shy away from small donor fundraising. The law changes the amount an individual can give to a national party committee from $20,000 a year to $25,000. It also increases the amount an individual can contribute to all candidates, parties and PACs from $25,000 to $95,000 per two-year election cycle (Corrado and Gouvea, 2004).
Table 2.3 shows Early Fundraising for the 2000 Prenomination Campaign where 67% of donors donated the maximum amount – $1,000 for Gore, the leading Democratic candidate while 74% of donors donated the maximum amount for Bush, the leading Republican Candidate. Gore earned $19.3 million from $1,000 donors while Bush earned $59.3 million. Neither candidate had an incumbent advantage. If what happened in the year 2000 happens in future years, Republicans will benefit from the BECA change more than Democrats (Corrado and Gouvea, 61 and 64, 2004).
BECA fails to adjust the ceiling for matching contributions and does not increase the expenditure limit or provide financial relief to candidates. Those who choose to accept public funds and rely on party support after they meet the spending limits will be severely restrained since party committees will no longer be able to use unregulated money to finance issue ads. BECA requires party committees at the time of nomination to decide whether they will support nominees with coordinated expenditures or independent expenditures. Coordinated expenditures are monies spent by party committees who work with candidates to determine how to spend the money while independent expenditures allow the party to spend money on the candidate without having to obtain input from the candidate. The limit for either coordinated expenditures or independent expenditures per political party will be $15 million in 2004. (Corrado and Gouvea, 2004).
These new regulations will be an advantage to incumbent presidents and established politicians who will opt out of the public funds and raise their own money. Candidates who decide to run without public funds would have to earn at least 5,000 additional $2,000 contributions for their fundraising efforts to beat the amount of money they would earn through public funds. To do this they would have to raise enough money the year before the election to finance campaign operations in the early caucus and primary states – an estimated $30 million to $40 million. After the nomination race is over, the nominee would have to appeal to party supporters and those who supported other candidates to raise funds to carry them from the end of the nomination process to the convention – at least another $20 million. Candidates who have millions of dollars would be at an advantage because he could use this to supplement money earned through fundraising. Corrado and Gouvea predict that the candidates who must rely on public funds will lag far behind and find it even more difficult to win the election resulting in BECA making the election even more money-driven (Corrado and Gouvea, 2004).
Mayer performed a study on Presidential Nominations from 1980-2000 comparing a candidates’ standing in polls and their success in raising money. His results show that the candidate who raised the most amount of money on December 31 the year before the election won the proceeding Presidential nomination in six of seven cases (Mayer, 2004). “The contemporary presidential nomination process has gradually evolved into a system that is highly favorable to front-runners” (Mayer, 88, 2004).
A strong correlation between poll results and total net receipts is shown in Table 3.2 Presidential Nomination Predictors in the 1996 and 2000 Nomination Races (Mayer, 86, 2004). In 1996, Bob Dole received a 47% poll rating with $24 million in total net receipts at the end of 1995. In contrast, the second runner up, Steve Forbes received a 16% poll rating with only $17 million in net receipts (Mayer, 86, 2004). Bob Dole lost the election to incumbent Bill Clinton who raised much more in fundraising.
In 2000, George W. Bush received a 63% poll rating with $67 million in net receipts. The second runner up, John McCain received a 19% poll rating with $15 million in net receipts. In the Democratic race, Al Gore received a 60% poll rating with $27.8 million in net receipts. The second runner up, Bill Bradley received a 27% poll rating with $27.4 million in net receipts (Mayer, 86, 2004).
The change of advertisement tracking has revamped the invisible primary by allowing candidates to get information on ad contents, cost, placement, and type of viewing audience immediately after the ad is aired. Early television strategy is a key component for any presidential campaign. The emphasis on television advertising has dramatically increased the level of funding a candidate needs to be viable (Cornfield and Seiger, 2004).
As the Internet becomes an archive of information, more are researching the likely field of candidates and reporting telling details about the candidates. Information that was not covered in a financial disclosure, information not reported on in an advertising buy data, or information on the political and private life of the candidate is now available. Twenty years ago, the press could find out such information but today researchers and insiders are able to bring it to the attention of both the media and the public. The authors fail to mention that the disadvantage of this is that it provides a distraction to the media to focus on a candidate’s past rather than inform the public of the positions of the candidate (Cornfield and Seiger, 2004).
The importance of developing a website, a leadership PAC, a volunteer website, and an e-mail alert list are growing, as technology becomes a crucial part to a successful campaign. E-mail, telephone, and face-to-face contact are also vital as early supporters want personal attention from the campaign team and campaigns that meet these expectations can count on supporters to do favors for the campaign. The campaign will want to use these supporters as a base to elicit their opinions on polls and ads. The authors explain that campaigns need to keep data about supporters private and to not fall into the wrong hands (Cornfield and Seiger, 2004).
The authors admit that the Internet does not take the place for large fundraising events. Candidates should still use the traditional fundraising events because even though the process of contributing online is simple, the simplicity is not leading them to donate more online than in a traditional format. Contributors often want something in return for giving money to the campaign such as a thank you note, a souvenir item, access to a special newsletter or event, a personal phone call, or a letter from the campaign manager (Cornefield and Seiger, 2004).
The importance of getting support from the AFL-CIO can greatly affect the results of a presidential election. The AFL-CIO either contributes money to campaigns in a united front format, in a free-for-all format, or decides to have collective neutrality (Dark, 2004). The effect of BECA will prompt lesser-known candidates to try to get the weight of the AFL-CIO behind them to some degree.
Before the candidate selection process ends, the AFL-CIO often throws its weight behind a single candidate in a united front. A united front allows the winner to have ties to the federation, enhances unions as a whole, and shows other politicians the power of the federation (Dark, 2004).
Sometimes the AFL-CIO allows each national union to decide which candidate to endorse, also known as a free-for-all. The benefits of a free-for-all format is that each union has autonomy and one or more unions will be at the convention with the candidate (Dark, 2004).
Collective neutrality occurs when the union secures the agreement of all affiliated unions to endorse no candidate in the nominating process. The benefit of this is that it reduces union rivalries and prevents the unions from making enemies that would otherwise happen if they either supported a candidate as a federation or unions within the federation supports a candidate. This format saves the federation’s energy for the general election (Dark, 2004).
Campaigns not only focus on money but also are often manipulative and use political reporters to create stories about phenomenon such as communities that immerse in political literature and coffee shops where there are spontaneous debates about taxes or war. The Committee for the Study of the American Electorate report a steep drop in voter participation, contrary to these perceived phenomenon. This drop in voter participation can be attributed to the decline in the public’s view of the principles in politics that includes both politicians and political writers (Shribman, 2004).
The journalists’ focus on how the world today is different from yesterday leads to its bias toward change. This bias toward change is created by the distrust journalists have of established authority which creates another bias. Shribman argues that journalists socialize with politicians too much, identify with their interests too closely, and are unable to see politics like an average American. Political journalists and politicians often share some of the same assumptions about life such as the importance of politics in the nation and the importance of public opinion research (Shribman, 2004).
Often journalists come into presidential campaigns with prejudices that they seek to prove true through the way they slant the news. Supporters of Al Gore believed that reporters in the 2000 President Election approached Gore with the idea that he was prone to exaggeration while supporters of George W. Bush believed that reporters were convinced that he was careless with language (Shribman, 2004).
Shribman argues, “There is no proof either way in this longstanding dispute. But this theory of bias – that journalists prefer change more than they prefer the ideology of either party – is buttressed by the impatience that presidents of both parties have with reporters” (Shribman, 241, 2004). He goes on to say that both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush share a deep distrust of journalists (Shribman, 2004).
As our country continues to concentrate on money in politics, public opinion about politicians will continue to decline. In order to restore public opinion in government, substantive changes need to occur such as more reforms to BECA and for journalists to cover politics in a way so that voters can make their choices based on the issues involved and not for superficial reasons.
References
Busch & Mayer; Andrew E. & William G. The Front-Loading Problem. In The Making of The Presidential Candidates 2004. (2004). (Chapter 1). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Cornfield & Seiger; Michael & Jonah. The Net and the Nomination. In The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2004. (2004). (Chapter 6). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Corrado & Gouvea; Anthony & Heitor. Financing Presidential Nominations under the BCRA. In The Making of The Presidential Candidates 2004. (2004). (Chapter 2). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Dark, Taylor E. III. From Resistance to Adaption: Organized Labor Reacts to a Changing Nominating Process. In The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2004. (2004). (Chapter 5). Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield.
Mayer, William G. The Basic Dynamics of the Contemporary Nomination Process. In The Making of The Presidential Candidates 2004. (2004). (Chapter 3). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Pious, Richard. The Presidency and the Nominating Process: Politics and Power. In The Presidency and the Political System. (2003). (Chapter 8). Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.
Shribman, David M. Only a Lunatic Would Do This Kind of Work: A Journalist’s Perspective on the Perspective of Journalists. In The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2004. (2004). (Chapter 7). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
