I got interested in election law and process not because I’m a lawyer, but because I was a poll worker. I went from reading the rules that are handed out to poll workers to reading the Ohio statutes that the rules are based on. From there it was sort of a slippery slope to reading Supreme Court opinions on election issues. Election law and campaign finance are often grouped together in the election law sources I read, but I always avoided campaign finance, because it looked complex and dull and like something I would never get involved in. Until this year, when I took a (volunteer) job as the treasurer for a local candidate. We have to file reports with the Ohio Secretary of State, and in order to do that properly we have to look at the Ohio Campaign Finance Handbook, which is a big book that the treasurer gets (free!) when the candidate qualifies to be placed on the ballot.
In the same way I started to read about election process and then law and then theory when I became a poll worker, I’m now starting to read and think more about campaign finance because I’m a treasurer. Unless I am actually involved, these “issues” are far too abstract for me, apparently.
This is from a much larger piece on campaign finance by Walter Shapiro in the Washington Monthly. The piece begins as a book review and is focused mostly on criticism of Obama’s fundraising and how that influences his policy choices. It’s about direct campaign funding, not PAC’s, but I thought of this part of the piece yesterday when I saw the professionally produced proposal that was pitched to the billionaire:
The larger point is that the fee structure of any campaign dictates how much of the money from donors ends up paying for prep schools for the media consultant’s children and an addition to the strategist’s beach house. In traditional political campaigns, the media consultant corrals as much as 15 percent of the overall television ad buy as his fee. And that is in addition to production costs and a possible victory bonus. The frequent result: out of every $1,000 donated to a candidate, less than $850 is spent on campaigning. Often general strategists and pollsters are brought in to share the media fee so that no one on the campaign team has economic incentive to complain at meetings with the candidate that so much money is going for TV advertising. Given how much compensation is wrapped up in the campaign’s media budget, it probably is not surprising that political candidates remain the ultimate true believers in the power of television ads in an era of social media and YouTube. But there is no way for a donor or a reporter to know whether the Obama reelection campaign will be more frugal in its payments to consultants than, say, the Romney campaign.
Over the years, I have written several indignant articles about the ways that campaign consultants prosper from the largesse of candidates and major donors. Much to my surprise in our politics-obsessed culture, these pieces garnered all the reaction of a threepart series on the proper use of the adverb in contemporary Urdu.
From the NYTimes piece on Ricketts, yesterday:
The 54-page proposal was professionally bound and illustrated with color photographs, indicating that it is far beyond a mere discussion.
It was also designed to flatter and stroke the billionaire. The plan is titled “The Ricketts Plan To End His Spending For Good”. The billionaire’s name is on it. He’d be forever credited with “bringing down Obama”, and while being a kingmaker is profitable in terms of access and raw lobbying clout, it’s also probably very ego-gratifying. Remember how excited Sean Hanitty was when Wright surfaced? Wright was good for Hanitty’s career, no doubt, but bringing down Obama over Wright would have been much, much better. I think the reason (paid) conservative activists obsess over Wright is because they thought the non-stop Wright coverage meant Obama was done, and then.. he wasn’t. Done. He went on to win. They believed they were this close.
The planning document is emblazoned with the logo of Strategic Perception, the political advertising firm of Mr. Davis, the colorful Republican operative who last worked on the Republican presidential campaign of former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman of Utah. Included on his “Recommended Team of Pirates” are the former Huntsman pollster Whit Ayres and the McCain campaign Internet strategist Becki Donatelli.
As unlimited money pours in, and the “campaign industrial complex” of lawyers, consultants and pollsters gets larger and larger and more and more entrenched, how likely is it that we’re ever going to get any campaign finance reform? What happens to this industry if we go to public financing of campaigns, or even limit or regulate PACS? What was the cut that was to go to the consultants and the pollsters and the rest who were involved in the proposal for the Obama smear? 15% of 10 million? Where is all this money going? Who (else) benefits from the piles of unregulated and unlimited cash that are pouring in, other than the millionaire and billionaire donors, I mean?
Maude
McCain is back on campaign reform. It will be fixed in a couple of days, I’m sure.
Xecky Gilchrist
That’s an angle I hadn’t considered – a whole corruption industry based on Citizens United, complete with lobbyists and all the kinds of stuff that have made for-profit prisons and other atrocities mainstays of U.S. life.
I did foresee the whole thing about how a large chunk of the money was going to line the pockets of unscrupulous consultants.
bemused
Rightwingers thought Rev Wright would turn off non-rightwingers. Like Biden said, they just don’t get liberals or non-wingnuts for that matter.
Seanly
It’s all just a big game. The real winners are the consultants and the real losers are the constiuents stuck with politicians cleverly foisted on us. I wouldn’t be so scared about the outcome if the Republican party leadership wasn’t full of insane people led by grifter consultants (and if the Democratic party would act like Democrats).
elmo
I’m congenitally inclined to look for silver linings in every dark cloud that blows over me. About the only good I can see is that at least this opportunity will shake a few billionaires loose of some of the money they’ve been hoarding in offshore accounts, and pour into the pockets of the merely rich. From there at least some of it will go to middle-class producers, voice actors, scriptwriters and ad consultants and go back into the economy.
Stimulus!
Stuck in the Funhouse
One of the best and smartest and healthiest things given to us by recent DNC leadership, in conjunction with the Obama folks doing the same, was pulling the plug on the scourge of the DC dem consultant industry. It was begun by Howard Dean, who will always be my hero for this action, and also by Obama. That largely ended the DLC phenom-annon of bloodsuckers like Mark Penn, Pat Caddell, and their buds, siphoning off whatever they could for themselves, while pushing for GOP lite corporatist policies. And why they have now turned into Fox News democrats, republican light grifters, with a case of the vapors for that spicket of dem campaign cash getting turned off. I just hope that that holds true with all the Super Pac nonsense, and suspect it will. At least while Obama is leading the party.
Yutsano
Waitaminute…does Shapiro expect all these campaign staffers and consultants to just donate their time and their labour just out of the goodness of their hearts? Some of these people surrender their entire lives on this endeavour. Of all the money to be criticised in politics today, the fact that someone shoild be compensated for their work on a campaign is a bizarre one. Mmaybe that’s why no one is listening Walt.
Kay
@elmo:
I think about that, too. In the local campaign, we have had to buy actual tangible things, signage, etc. He’s a Democrat, so he needs the union bug on everything, and I feel better putting money toward someone who actually makes a living wage making something.
We don’t have the money for such things, but I think I’d rather pay a door to door canvasser than a consultant :)
CVS
If you think the revolving door between banking and government is bad, it’s like a sliding door compared to lobbying. This only further entrenches the #1 problem facing our society: namely, nearly complete control by a very powerful minority whose interests are counter to the vast majority. If we can’t solve that problem, then the solutions to all the other problems we face are merely academic.
This is why we’re doomed.
Kay
@Yutsano:
No, he’s saying campaigns and candidates don’t look at value enough. He says “consultants” have a sort of built-in bias and inherent conflict (money towards tv ads, because they’re all “media consultants, for example) that goes unrecognized.
feebog
What really stands out here is consulting firm, Stratigic Perception. These are the guys who produced the wildly sucessful “Demon Sheep” ad here in California. And by sucessful I mean the most widely mocked ad evah. These guys apparently circulate from candidate to candidate each election cycle, sometimes simply jumping ship to a winner when a losing candidate goes down.
But Citizens United gives these vampires a whole new set of necks to feed on; cranky old billionaires who are scared to death they may have to pay a couple million more a year in taxes, or that their plant may have to do something about the sluge they are pouring in the river.
These guys may have a lot of money, but that does not necessarily translate to political acumen (Foster Frieze for examle). Also, they are used to having their egos stroked, and these consultants are masters at that game. One answer to this is transparancy. Most of these old geezers don’t like the attention. Just as in this case, a little sunshine is a powerful disinfectant.
patrick II
This also is an illustration that SuperPacs are not as free from collaboration (as if we didn’t know) as is pretended. Romney doesn’t want the “Rickets Plan” (even though he likes the publicity of being so noble that he doesn’t want the “Rickets Plan”) and the Rickets plan goes away.
Romney isn’t supposed to be able to do that, and it should be remembered the next time he says he has no control over what a SuperPacs says.
Kay
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Recognizing it changes how I look at things. I read the TPM piece this morning on how Romney is a formidable opponent and the source is 1. the candidate who lost to Romney and 2. her consultants/advisors
TPM thought they would say “Romney’s an idiot yet he beat us“? :)
Fat chance, right?
Yutsano
@Kay: I thought I might be mmisinterpreting here. :) But Buddha on a bicycle he sounds like a sniveling git whose brilliance goes unrecognized in the world. Consultants add whatever value the campaign decides they add really. If Walt’s concerned because the consultants are just making their living the best way how his criticism is misguided. But I’m also on drugs right now so I could be missing his point.
Kay
@Yutsano:
I don’t have any problem paying people for the work that they do. I am FOR that :)
I just think it’s sort of silly for all of us to complain/worry (which I do worry about) about buying politicians while at the same time listening to people who are dependent on that remaining a growing sector. There’s a conflict there.
Hunter Gathers
Media outlets. They are dying to air these 3rd party ads. When you have SuperPACS like Rove’s pledging to spend hundreds of millions in ads, they are going to ensure that they receive as much as that money as possible.
Kay
@Hunter Gathers:
I agree. I read it in the comments here first and I think it’s a great point.
patrick II
@Xecky Gilchrist:
With so much money in the business of politics it becomes like any other American business, it will lobby for laws in favor of more money for its own business. In some sense this is like any other business in our country where little or no public campaign funding makes politicians available for bribes — err campaign contributions for favorable laws. But in another way it is unique because it is such a small distance for the feedback loop to be closed. More money to campaigns who campaign are driven to campaign for more money for campaigns. That is a feedback loop that could spiral up in a big hurry.
ant
Why can’t we have campaign finance reform that takes the form of individual tax refundable contributions. That way individuals could give money without it costing any money.
It could be a small amount, a few hundred every year or something. Not everyone would participate, but it would add up to be quite a bit.
I don’t think it would really benefit one party over another, and lawmakers would like it, cause it would mean less time they have to spend on the phone asking rich people for money.
Try to level the playing field a little bit.
Could that be done?
lamh35
@Kay:
I was just coming here to see if anyone else had seen TPM “concern-trolling headline”. It reminded me of the same headlines being written about Rick Perry. Now I know that according to Josh Marshall, TPM is not meant to be a progressive site (although, before Josh made is to the big league of Hardball with Tweety, he certainly seemed to tout TPM progressive bonafides).
TPM’s total embrace of the Drudge/HuffPo headline distortions of their articles is just sad.
Chyron HR
@Kay:
You can tell how formidable a campaigner Romney is by looking at the elections he didn’t lose embarassingly. It’s like jazz… or zen. One of those, I’m sure.
Kay
@lamh35:
I am still loyal to TPM because, unlike Huffington, TPM pays people, it’s a real job, not just a device to funnel money to a pundit at the top, and they are obsessive on voting rights, and so am I.
They followed the Bush US Attorney scandal when traditional media completely dismissed it, and the Attorney General of the United States ended up resigning. That’s pretty impressive journalism. That scandal was about voter suppression. That’s what they were doing. They were removing those lawyers who wouldn’t trump up voter fraud charges.
Elizabelle
Follow the (campaign) money.
And watch a lot of it flood to corporate media outlets, too. The networks get to raise their advertising rates for political speech. That shouldn’t happen.
This system of 3-year presidential campaigns and constant fundraising is killing us.
It’s separated congresscritters’ funding sources (corporations and interests) from their constituents (people, the flesh and blood ones).
Hunter Gathers
OT – Arizona Secretary of State Goes Birther
Punchy
Need a thread about TPM report (cant link) that AZ secstate seriously considering keeping Obama off the ballot. Can we please give AZ back to Mexico now?
Edit: looks like HG has the link and faster fingers
amk
@Kay: Just like stocks – past performances are not indicative of present or future trends.
smintheus
@Kay: I stopped reading TPM when I realized that Marshall swiped material from others without attribution or acknowledgement.
smintheus
The rich-as-Croesus media consultancy surrounding campaigns is also part of the reason why the US does not have mandated free air time before elections for political parties/candidates, as many countries do.
Redleg
This PAC’s plan to slander and unseat Obama is longer and more detailed than Paul Ryan’s (and his fanboy Mitt’s) budget proposal.
Kay
@Redleg:
:)
I read Ryan’s proposal. Apparently, no one in media read it. It wasn’t at all serious. It was entirely political. The vast majority of it was Obama attacks. Every third line was pure wingnut.
smintheus
@Redleg: And it’s a lot longer than the GOP healthcare reform plan that they’ve promised to replace ACA with. Way, way longer than that.
Redleg
@smintheus: According to Alan Grayson, the GOP-Tea Party healthcare plan is to “not get sick.”
LOL. To the these wingnuts, politics is simply about winning the game, not actually governing.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Oh, and would like to add
DELETED, WRONG THREAD
arguingwithsignposts
Someone posted about MediaGeneral selling newspapers to Berkshire Hathaway yesterday. Buried in the PR piece was this little nugget:
There’s your answer.
rikyrah
@Kay:
he won one election.
how about talk to those who beat Willard.
I thought the TPM article was full of it.
RalfW
“The Ricketts Plan To End His Spending For Good”
Oh, how irony is never really understood on the right. I guess the plan is to only allow spending for Bad? I mean really, it’s right there in the title, no spending on what has been thought of as social good, ie: alleviation of the worst privations of poverty, illness, etc.
That must END. No spending on good things for people.
I can’t quite believe they dared to admit this in the title!
PaminBB
Good points, Kay. I like the phrase “campaign industrial complex” as it emphasizes that there is a permanent campaign, only the names on the signs and in the ads change.
Like others, I have had a sneaking suspicion that one consequence of Citizen’s United will be a steadily improving economy as the year progresses, and more and more money is spent. Presumably that particular consequence is unintended.
lol
“Consultants” is a rather broad brush since the term includes everyone from targeting analysts to field campaign experts to pollsters to mail vendors to the media consultants that the piece was actually about.
Also, Republican media consultants typically work for flat fees in contrast to Dem media consultants who typically work for a percentage of the ad buy, so it doesn’t even make any sense in this context.
Consultants are pretty necessary for campaigns if you want access to specialized skills and knowledge. You wouldn’t be able to afford them as full-time staffers. (Unless you’re like the Obama campaign and can afford to bring loads of those types in house.)
Jado
I agree that confusion is good for business. After all, if you are able to sell uncertainty to the public, then you will also need to hire someone to reassure the public, and the other side will need to hire someone to beat the drum of illegitimacy. CONTRACTS FOR EVERYBODY!!
And all it takes is for someone to squint and say, “How do we know he is NOT Mel Torme?”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088286/quotes?qt=qt0358658
Cain
It looks like in this kind of thing trickle down economics works. We steal from the billionaires to give to the media companies who.. uh.. get rich?