Posted on 09/18/2006 11:06:29 PM PDT by quantim
WASHINGTON (AP) — Those three dollars you've set aside in your tax returns as a good deed toward clean presidential elections? Forget about it. Nobody wants them anymore.
Strategists from both parties estimate the White House race in 2008 could cost each nominee $500 million — far more than the Presidential Election Campaign Fund can afford. As a result, this next presidential campaign could mark the first time in 30 years that the Democratic and Republican nominees turn down the fund's millions in both the primary and the general elections.
"The public financing system was a great system, but it's broke," said Steve Elmendorf, the deputy campaign manager for Democrat John Kerry when the Massachusetts senator ran in 2004. "There's not enough money in it anymore. It's highly unlikely that any candidate in any party will stay in the public funding system," Elmendorf said.
The decision has precedent.
George W. Bush declined the public money in the 2000 GOP primaries, when he was a first-time candidate, and did so again in 2004, when he sought re-election. Democrats Howard Dean and John Kerry made the same choice in 2004.
Still, Bush and Kerry each accepted $74.5 million from the fund to run their general election campaigns. For 2008, the amount could reach $85 million per nominee.
If the major party candidates decline the general election funds in two years, they in effect would kill one of the chief post-Watergate overhauls in campaign law.
The fund, which is expected to have about $200 million by the end of 2007, still would help pay for party presidential nominating conventions and assist primary candidates who do not raise large amounts of money.
More than ever, the first cut in the presidential sweepstakes will not result from the early contests of 2008, but from candidates' ability to stockpile huge amounts of money the previous year. That means potential candidates will ramp up their fundraising far sooner than they ever have in the past.
"The 2008 presidential election is going to be the Wild West," said Michael Toner, the Republican chairman of the Federal Election Commission. "Upward of $500 million is the likely goal of presidential fundraising per candidate."
So far, the best test of potential candidates' fundraising is the political action committees they have formed to probe the political environment and seed the landscape with donations. That money cannot be transferred into their election accounts.
Of Republicans considering a run, the four whose PACs have raised the most money are Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Bill Frist of Tennessee, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. At the top of the Democratic money list are former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Sens. Kerry, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Barack Obama of Illinois.
Clinton stands out above the rest because as of Aug. 23, she also had $22 million in her Senate campaign fund. She can transfer this money directly into a presidential contest.
No one represents the crossroads of presidential ambition and campaign finance activism more than McCain. His name is synonymous with tough election laws that have banned parties from collecting unrestricted and unlimited amounts of money.
But McCain is among those prepared to forgo the public financing system in 2008, according to strategists working with him.
He caused a stir this summer when he did not sign on as one of the congressional supporters of legislation that would overhaul the system. The main proponents were his old allies on the campaign finance law — Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass.
The measure would triple the amount available to candidates during state primaries and eliminate the state spending limits. It also would offer more money to candidates whose opponents chose to decline the money and raise more on their own.
In an interview, McCain said he supported the measure and said that if it passed he would live by the new rules.
"We're either going to upgrade it like it's envisioned in this legislation or nobody's going to take it, or very rarely will people take it," McCain said. But he added, "If you have to play by the rules as they are, that's very different."
Under current rules, no one can take the public money without agreeing to strict spending restrictions. Had Bush or Kerry accepted the money in 2004, they would have been limited to spending less than $45 million each in the primaries. Operating outside the system, Bush raised nearly $270 million and Kerry $235 million.
What's more, not everyone assigns $3 to the presidential campaign fund in tax returns. That has left periodic shortfalls in the fund, forcing the FEC and the Treasury to lower the initial payout to primary election candidates. In every case, the government has paid the full match after April 15 with the arrival of more tax revenue. Campaign strategists and campaign finance analysts say they can imagine the new crop of presidential candidates concluding that the entire government handout is not worth the trouble.
"Anybody who takes federal funding will do so at their own peril because they will be dramatically outspent," said Tom Rath, a Republican National Committee member from New Hampshire
Rath, echoing others, believes the minimum that top tier candidates will have to have in hand at the end of 2007 will be "clearly north of $50 million."
Some people, such as the FEC's Toner, predict the number will be closer to $100 million. By comparison, Dean had $41 million at the end of 2003, double the amount Kerry had in hand.
Once the parties have their nominees, the candidates will have to decide whether to settle for the guaranteed total — estimated up to $85 million depending on inflation — or decline the money and raise more on their own. It seems inevitable, though, that if one party's nominee declines the money, the other will, too.
Under existing law, the party nominees get their general election money after their respective political conventions, typically held in August. Some strategists and analysts believe raising money for the general election will cut into valuable campaign time. And they say the public money should be more than enough for a 100-day contest.
"If you don't accept public money in the general there is a much greater chance that you will suffer from public criticism and reprobation because it'll look like you're just going to buy the election," said Don Fowler, chairman of the Democratic Party during Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election.
McCain, for one, said he has not made that decision yet. Kerry has told fundraisers he is prepared to raise his own general election money. He nearly came to that conclusion in 2004.
Elmendorf said the question Kerry faced in 2004 was whether he would be able to raise more than the $74.5 million available to him from the presidential campaign fund. "It was unknowable at the time," he said. "In hindsight, the answer was yes."
Only idiots check that box on their tax returns.
What about Sen. GOLDWATER ?
He was a senator that got creamed, hello.
But if I donate directly to my candidate, I can cause those idiots to match my contribution to my preferred candidate.
It was a disgrace that neither Kerry nor Edwards resigned from their offices while running for the top ticket in 2004.
Bob Dole had the grace to do so in 2000.
Why should office holders resign if running for another office? Neither Richard Nixon nor John Kennedy resigned his office in 1960. Nixon also didn't resign his US Senate seat from California when he ran for Vice-President in 1952. Adalai Stevenson didn't resign his senate seat from Illinois in either 1952 or 1956 when he ran for President, and neither did his running mates. Harry Truman didn't resign his senate seat from Missouri when running for Vice-President in 1944. Hubert Humprhey didn't resign as Vice-President in 1968 or senator in 1964. George McGovern didn't resign his senate seat in 1972. George H. W. Bush didn't resign as Vice-President in 1988. Bill Clinton didn't resign as Governor of Arkansas in 1992. George W. Bush didn't resign as Governor of Texas, and neither did Al Gore resign as Vice-President in 2000.
Bob Dole resigned his senate seat in 1996, because he was desperate and trailing badly in the polls.
That assumes that "free media" - aka, journalism, aka "the driveby media" are objective and that the money journalism spends publishing newspapers and broadcasting is cleaner than they money you give to the candidates of your choice.But the definition of "prejudice" - "a vagrant opinion with no visible means of support" - applies to that assumption. In truth the only "support" for the assumption that journalism publication is not political spending is the unsupported word of journalists. They say that they are objective. And on the basis alone of that fatuous, arrogant claim, candidates for office and their contributos are stripped of their First Amendment right to spend their own money publishing their own opinions up to the limits of their purses.
And if that says that George Soros can spend a billion dollars on a campaign, I'm sorry - but that is the implication of the Constitution, and journalism is already contributing that much to the Democratic Party in free advertising every two years. In fact, George Soros boasted that he had bought passage of McCain-Feingold.
It's not true that journalism is in the pocket of the Democratic Party. Actually, it's the other way around. May seem like a distinction without a difference, but IMHO that has significant implications which should be seriously considered.
The 'Media Party' is over (Howard Fineman)
It broke? I wonder why? Then give the money back. We don't want you using on nice little getaways, home repairs etc. like you do with our tax dollars. In other words, we are tired of you living the good life with free benefits such as medical etc and flaunting it in our faces and even including the government employees in on this. We are tired of supporting all of you to run around and purposely never get anything done in the true interest of the public so you can freely pursue your own private and selfish agendas instead of what you were actually elected to do. We are tired of you and yours(your family, employees and friends) getting rich off of our backs.
We hope you don't mind; but we have decided to unelect you, your family and your employees and try to get our forced investment in you back. Maybe you can start living like the rest of us. Oh, what was that? It will never happen.
YOU WANNA MAKE A BET??????
HA!
Or has Congress closed this gargantuan loophole in the last five years?
bttt
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