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Dal LaMagna

Dal LaMagna, a Democrat, was a candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. LaMagna, a two-time congressional candidate in New York, is best known as the founder of Tweezerman International, Inc., a personal care tool company. (The company was acquired in 2004 by Zwilling J.A. Henckels, a manufacturer of stainless steel cutlery and implements, based in Solingen, Germany.) LaMagna is a founding partner of, and blogger at, The Huffington Post, and the founder of Progressive Government, a nonpartisan organization that supports executive-branch accountability and transparency.

Josh Israel interviewed LaMagna on May 31, 2007.

The election in 2008 has, by some estimates, been put at the first $1 billion presidential campaign. We have seen, so far, a number of the candidates who have raised tens of millions of dollars already. Do you think a less-well-funded candidate can compete at this point? And if so, how?

Well, I’ll look at this 2008 election to be like the [1960] Nixon–Kennedy election, which was determined by television, to the surprise of everybody back then. And this election, I think, is going to be determined by the Internet. And one could run an Internet strategy that doesn’t cost nearly as much as it would cost to use the traditional TV, radio, mailing strategies that the candidates use. So to answer your question, I think candidates that aren’t well-funded, or funded to the extent that the top-tier will be, can be competitive. In fact, I am hoping to qualify for public financing of campaigns and do not want to disqualify myself by spending more than $50,000 on my own campaign, even though I could.

And [with respect to] the matching-fund system, which a number of candidates seem to be opting out of, do you think a candidate can viably run with the amounts that are currently limited by that? As I understand it, the public grant for the general would be something in the vicinity of $50 million to $70 million, something like that.

If you can’t win an election with 50 million bucks, then you don’t deserve to win. That proves that you are incapable of organizing support, organizing volunteers. I have run twice for office. And in that sprint, when you get down to that last — well, it will probably be the summer of 2008 when it’s the sprint rather than Labor Day, which is the traditional time when people start getting serious — I have always been confronted with two choices. So right there they know who the candidates are. Now in the primary, that might be a different story because you continue with 10 choices. And how do you get yourself seen and known without tons of money? Well, if you are creative enough to do it with $10 [million], $20 [million], $30 million, then you deserve to be president.

How much do you think it would take to run a viable primary campaign for someone who doesn’t necessarily have the immediate name recognition of a Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Clinton?

So you are out there. What you have to do is place in New Hampshire. How much would you need to be seen in New Hampshire? You can probably do it with a million bucks, maybe even less, if you are willing to get out there. People advising me about New Hampshire say, “Well, a lot of these people want to meet you, shake your hand.” So, it’s my plan that I am going to go to New Hampshire and shake 20,000 hands besides doing my media. So that gets into the game. Say you place in New Hampshire, say you are number three in New Hampshire; you are in it. Then you get all of this press, you get all of this media coverage, and then people see you. They like you. In the rest of the country, you start raising money. But you do have the problem that all of the primaries are on the same day [February 5]

They are pretty closely bunched after the New Hampshire [primary] and Iowa caucus.

Let me try talk about this a different way. I have spent my life marketing product, and quite successfully. And what I learned is that there are really two dimensions to an effective campaign. One is that you do have to be noticed. You do have to place the ads or get the PR going. You do have to do that. But the other part is: What it is it that you are saying? What’s your message? What’s your ad? A great example of a really effective marketer is this guy Kenneth Cole. I don’t know if you know who he is. He sells shoes. He runs these very clever ads, which are progressive.

Well, let’s talk about myself. When I ran for Congress in 1996, I had zero name recognition. Even as Tweezerman, I had no name recognition. I mean, back then I was in business for 16 years. And right now I have, with women, enormous name recognition. But even back then, in my district, Tweezerman was maybe, if they asked what Tweezerman is, well, we get 2 percent or 3 percent name recognition.

I ran this campaign. And just by chance, I was at a Veterans of Foreign Wars event in Massapequa, [New York,] which is an event very densely populated by Italians. They were all Italians. I am Italian. So the guy introduces me as Dal “La-MAG-na.” It’s La-MAHN-ya, not La-MAG-na. So I said: “Well, I just want you to know it’s not La-MAG-na, it’s La-MAHN-yA. It rhymes with lasagna.” And the place just went crazy. So I thought to myself, maybe I should use that as my slogan. So we did that. We launched our ad campaign in which I established myself as a decent human being. And the ad was a guy I had hired who had lost his job because his company moved to North Carolina and laid him off. He was 55. I hired him and gave him a second chance. And that was the ad. And he said, “You know, Dal’s a decent guy, and remember him on Election Day. And remember, LaMagna rhymes with lasagna.” So my name recognition went like from zip to 26 percent in three weeks. People talked about it.

So the point I am making here is that if what you are saying inspires America, you can run on $10 million, $5 million. The reason why I hesitate is because if you are inspiring people, and people are sophisticated in this country, they know you need money to run. They’ll vote for you in advance by writing you a check. “I want to support this guy. I am going to give him some money.” People know that. So you’ll get the money. But how much do you really need? If you are flying all over the country, you need enormous amounts of money to do the kinds of campaigns that the front-runners and even the second-tier people are doing right now in both parties. They have entire staffs. And they move from place to place. And it’s just enormous amount of burn. My strategy is all going to be Internet, radio, national stuff, working as if I am president, not campaigning. That’s why I’m going to Iraq to try to make something happen on the Iraq War, rather than going to, say, New Hampshire and shaking hands next week. I am going to Iraq first to establish myself as somebody who is a different kind of candidate. One who is actually going to say, “All right, I am going to act as if I am president,” rather than making these declarative statements, “I am going to win,” which many of them do. “I am going to be the next president.” The consciousness of the American population breaks through as a person who is actually going to do something rather than talk about it.

I am kind of drifting here off the question. But the point is that the right person, who has the right vision, who can prove to be capable at following through and solving problems doesn’t need $100 [million], $200 million to be competitive. Now if the mainstream media completely chooses to ignore you, that’s a big handicap. But it’s not 2000. It’s not 1995. It’s 2008. And I would say half or more of how people find their information about their presidential candidates is going to happen online. And online is pretty cheap compared to buying spots in the metropolitan New York market.

That said, obviously some campaigns will be raising a lot more money than others. To run a viable and less expensive campaign, you still need to raise a decent amount, right?

Yes.

How do you plan to go about doing that beyond the matching-fund portion that the federal government will give you?

Well, I am not going to have “Rangers for LaMagna.” I wish I could think of something different to say that is even funnier. But I am not going to be looking for people doing these parties where you get crowds of people maxing out just to see you. I am not going to do that. I am not going to do that because it’s not going to happen for me. I am literally an unknown.

How am I going to raise money? My strategy is I am really running a campaign that’s not about raising money. It’s about getting people to vote with a small donation to establish me as a serious candidate so I can make it to the debates. And the media will start paying attention to me. I did a soft announcement to my private list, which has about 3,000 people on it, last week. Somehow or other it got out. And now I am doing interviews. And people know about it. So my official announcement is going to happen in Iraq next week or the following when I am over there.

I suspect you will be the first candidate to ever have done that.

Yes, without 1,000 troops protecting me and standing there in a bulletproof vest. That’s the way I am going to do it. And I am going to remind all of the other candidates that the road to the White House is through Iraq. So, I am asking people to give me 25 bucks. And if they can afford more to give it, and if they can’t afford $25, $10 is our break-even to process a contribution, give us $10. And if you are a married couple, take the check and write two checks, one for each person. Because what I think will count more is how many people actually vote with their checks to support you. And I am hoping to get 100,000 people donating to my campaign from across the country, which will establish my credentials as a candidate that needs to be taken seriously. I am not just a rich guy who wants to have some fun, so he’s running for president. That’s not my definition of fun, by the way.

I saw on your website you have a link to ActBlue. Is that going to be a major part of your fundraising strategy?

Yes. Basically what ActBlue does is give you the facility to have people raise money for you. So I have a friend who’ll say, “You know, I would like to help you raise money.” I say: “Well, look, just 25 bucks, if that’s what you want to do. Get me 100 people who will give me 25 bucks. Get your friends. Do it.” And we use ActBlue so we can keep track of how people are doing. They can keep track of how we are doing. And we turn it into a game. People like to keep score; it’s fun, and we can have awards. So we are going to do that kind of stuff. But you don’t get 100,000 people to write a check; that’s not easy to do. I mean, even your best friends don’t get around to going online or writing a check. You have to call them. You have to prod them. I was thinking of selling tweezers, I mean, because that’s what I am famous for. And I said no. You have to get a tweezers if you make a donation, because I can buy the tweezers pretty cheaply. No, I didn’t want to do that. Plus, I didn’t want to fulfill it. Because then you have to ship tweezers everywhere, and then people don’t get them. I didn’t want to be in business.

I am really busy with spending all of my time trying to end the violence in Iraq. That’s what I am doing. And if that happens soon, well, then, my next plan is to try to create a competent government. It’s the incompetent government that got us there in the first place. They will all have a campaign; it will be run well. But I am going to be working. I am going to be out there trying to solve problems as I am running. And then if I am elected, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I am not going to be elected president the way we are used to since Ronald Reagan. Most of the time the president is making speeches and pitching whatever it is they are pitching. I’ll have my vice president do that. My vice president will go to the funerals and make the speeches, while I am trying to unravel this incredible mess that eight years of George [W.] Bush has created for us. And I am serious, particularly in the executive branch. If you go to my site, you will see a 21st century executive branch is half of it; the other half is Iraq. Those are the two big things.

The major frame of my candidacy is that we have an incompetent government. We deserve better. It’s incompetent. It’s political. It’s ideological. It’s time that America votes for an administration, not just for some guy they think is going to solve all of their problems, the president. So I am creating, in advance, with my candidacy, the government that I am going to bring in. And I am hoping that this will be my contribution to the Democrat who actually becomes the eventual candidate, that they will pick up on this idea. The Democrats will organize themselves and say, all right, this is who we intend to have in our cabinet. And we are going to have a call to public service from the best and the brightest to take a lot of these jobs that nobody really wants because they don’t pay very well. These are the appointee jobs. We will have 2,500 of 5,000 or 6,000 appointed jobs profiled up on my website where you will be able to search and see who is there now and what they do, right down to the person who is in charge of meat inspection or something like that.

Your website notes that, I think, the theory you have on there is that 40 percent of President Bush’s “Pioneer-level” donors have been appointed to government positions.

Yes.

And I gather that that’s not your philosophy?

No, that’s not. This is not quid pro quo. This is not buy yourself an ambassadorship in raising $100,000 or a quarter of a million. No way.

Do you think money buys access?

I am a very trusting soul. I mean, I usually think people tell the truth. I trust people, their intentions. And I can’t imagine that taking a $5,000 check from a pharmaceutical PAC [political action committee] is going to affect the way you vote or affect anything. And I am wrong; it does. Just take this: If I bought access by making contributions, I know that if I write a big check I am going to get to talk to the person. And I can’t get to talk to everybody. I mean, I had a member of the Iraqi parliament here for three weeks, somebody who had a solution for our problem, and somebody who made the trip over here the first time in his life. I had a full-time translator with him. I could only get 19 members of Congress to meet with him. I couldn’t get one senator to meet with him. Three weeks. Now if this guy were a multimillionaire who was going to be giving you 5,000 bucks, how many do you think that I would get to meet with him? And that’s the ugly reality. And that’s the problem with the way our campaigns are financed. And you and I know that and so does anybody who is going to listen to this.

Campaign-finance reform is certainly an important dimension of reclaiming our republic. I never really understood what fascism was; I remembered it was something that had to do with the Italians and [Benito] Mussolini. But what is fascism? Someone recently described it to me: corporatism and the government getting together. The governments support the corporations, the corporations support the government. And that’s what fascism is. Corporations pay for the campaigns. The government makes sure the corporations are taken care of. And the American public is left no health insurance, no security for their pensions, an educational system that’s not equal to what it should be for a superpower, and so on and so forth, and a war in Iraq.

And the other beef I have about why candidates need so much money to run their campaigns is because where does the money go? It goes to the corporation. It goes to the media conglomerates. These billion dollars are going to be spent on television. It’s going to be spent on radio. It’s going to go to the corporations, which are the public airways. The collective marketplace, the 235 million Americans together, construct the media marketplace. And then government represents us. So the right to exploit that marketplace through the airways, through TV or radio, is a common ground’s right. They should pay for it. And part of what they pay should be a certain amount of airtime allocated for our elections. But that’s not going to happen, it probably won’t happen. So, that’s one reason why we are in this jam.

And then the other side of it is, of course, they are coming down around overturning Buckley v. Valeo. So everybody has the right to spend every nickel they own on running for office. So that kind of raises the bar for everybody else. And then the next thing you know is either it’s people who have a lot of access to money because they have been around. It’s like the incumbents — they get all the PAC money and all that kind of money. Or it’s rich people who run. How many millionaires ran for Congress last cycle? Most of them who ran were millionaires. And I ran because I was a millionaire. I mean, when I was recruited in 1996, I got to be the candidate for Congress in Nassau County because I was willing to spend a quarter of a million dollars. I ended up spending $1.3 million — a million of it my own money, every nickel I had, literally. And I all of the time thought to myself, “Damn, I wish this wasn’t the case.” First of all, I wish it wasn’t the case because then I wouldn’t have spent it. And second, I just didn’t feel honored. I felt used. I wasn’t selected because I was running a successful company and I had a vision for America, or I wanted to represent my people. No. I was picked because I could write a check. And that’s kind of an outrage, and we are all outraged about it. We seem incapable of changing it.

I really respect the work that you guys are doing. I hope that the day comes when Buckley v. Valeo is overturned so it’s a level playing field. And that media is responsible to carry the ball so that you don’t have to buy the ad time. And the cost of communicating a message to people dramatically drops. And the amount of money that one has to raise dramatically drops. And our representatives aren’t spending, what, 15 percent — I don’t know what percentage of the time they spend trying to raise money. All I know is that it’s really a shame that they have to work over at the DNC [Democratic National Committee], or the DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee], or the DSCC [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee], and sit in a room and get on the phone and make phone calls to raise money for somebody or some cause. Instead of working on laws, drafting legislation, reading the laws that are being proposed. These omnibus bills they don’t even have time to read because they are so busy.

What do you think of the job the media in this country — and I am talking about TV, and radio, and print, not necessarily The Huffington Post or some of the newer media outlets that you have been involved with — does as far as covering presidential campaigns?

Well, right now I think they are doing a damn good job. They are giving an awful lot of coverage to everybody. I was surprised to see Mike Gravel in the debate. I think the guy had $8,000 in the bank. I mean, he’s all alone. I thought that was terrific that he was there. And I don’t follow it that much, so it’s hard for me to say. And I am not complaining yet. I have gotten some coverage. It’s mostly been people who are just interested in a cute story. But yeah, it’s a hard question to answer. Let me just stop and give you my thoughts about the media and in fact why I am running. I am running to end the violence in Iraq. Let’s be clear on that. I don’t know if I told you early on in this conversation. When someone asks me the difference between me and the other Democratic candidates, I usually say, “Well, one of them is going to be the next president.”

That was until the last vote to give Bush funding for his war with no strings attached. Now I am not sure. Now the question is, What’s the difference between me and all of the other presidential candidates? It’s the same answer. However, if the media falls in love with you, you are in the top tier. I was at a briefing at the DNC about a month ago. And they track these things. As of that point, Barack [Obama] had had 7,500 stories written about him in newspapers across the country; Hillary [Clinton] had 5,000; [John] Edwards had 3,500. The media fell in love with Barack, and for good reason. And they made Barack what he is today. They made it possible for, what, 19,000 people to show up for his announcement. I don’t know what it was, 36,000 people show up for an event. The media can decide they love me and that I am the dark horse they want to ride. And I am in.
And I don’t need millions and millions of dollars then, because I get all of this coverage.

It’s kind of like what happened with my company, Tweezerman. I started with 500 bucks. I didn’t have any money to do any advertising. So the first thing I did is I pulled off some stunts. I got some press. And then that was the beginning of just endless press about Tweezerman, all free stuff. I never spent more than 10 percent of my gross sales on media. And I ended up with a profitable company. Ask any woman you know who cares about grooming, and she knows who Tweezerman is. And it’s just an incredibly strong brand. It wasn’t the result of me spending the kind of money that Coca-Cola spends on building their brand. I mean, it was just PR. It was just free media. And that’s the kind of thing the media can do for a candidate. And the blogosphere could do it also, which is what happened with Ned Lamont. They made Ned Lamont. The main media followed. So it’s all possible. I am going back to the big question. I am just overwhelmed by how much money these people are raising, $25 million in the first [quarter]. And in Barack’s case, he had 100,000 individual people give it to him, which was just mind-boggling. I can’t imagine how that guy can lose. There is so much support for him.

Well, the other question I am curious about is your thoughts on the role of professional consultants in presidential campaigns. I am guessing that probably you are not going to be bringing the number of consultants as Senator [John] McCain, for instance.

I can’t tell you how pissed off I was with consultants during the [2004 John] Kerry campaign. I mean, we had a world crisis here. We had a war that we were stuck in and an intransigent administration. And anybody working on that campaign, I was working on it full time and spending my money. We were in a war. We were in a war to take our country back. And to have Bob Shrum take five million bucks to consult Kerry, I was pissed. I was pissed at Kerry. He almost lost my vote on that. And believe me, if it wasn’t Bush, he would have lost my vote on that, to pay that guy that much. Or even Joe Trippi; I think he pulled five million out of the [Howard] Dean campaign. I mean, is he serving himself or is he serving his country? I hate to name names, and correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that Trippi made about $5 million on that. And you know what that is? You know what they do? They are consultants. They advise you. They shoot your commercials. And then they place them. Then they take a 15 percent commission.

No way am I doing that. I am building my own in-house advertising. I am taking the 15 percent commission. And I am not paying anybody anything anywhere near that kind of money. People I am hiring are going to be working with me. I am going to pay them. I am not going to exploit them. I mean, there are a lot of volunteers who I will certainly use. But the people have to show up for work every day. They will get paid. But my campaign manager, I was told, gets $20,000 a month. It’s not going to happen. I am not going to pay $20,000 a month for a campaign manager. I want a campaign manager who is going to work for a living wage and do it because he wants to push the agenda forward, and he wants to be involved in changing America, which is why I am doing it.

The best estimate I was able to find here was that the matching-funds grant for the general election for the nominee, if they choose to accept it, would be about $83 million. And that is basically a two-month period. Do I take it that if you were the Democratic nominee you will accept the FEC funds, the public grant for the general election?

Yes, and make a point of it, because the Republican won’t. The Republican will be operating with his $300 million. And I will be operating with, what, $83 [million]? That means I will have $160 million?

Well, I think it’s $83 [million] for the general, total.

Which means you can still have $160 million on the general on the matching?

Well, the general election is just a grant. You don’t raise anything. You agree just to take the $83 million for the general.

Oh. Well, that’s interesting. So that means I don’t have to raise anything?

For the general.

That’s terrific.

And you’d be comfortable that you could run a competitive campaign as the nominee?

Yes. I would feel very comfortable. And I would be proving to America that I could run an efficient government, too, by showing them how I can run an effective campaign with $83 million or less.

My last question for you is sort of the obstacles that a candidate who doesn’t have the widespread name identification starts with. You talked about the difficulty of getting covered in the media at this stage. Do you think the playing field is sort of stacked against someone such as yourself as far as access to debates, as far as the amount of free media coverage, things along those lines?

Well, that’s the reality. And I can’t criticize it. And maybe there are 50 people who are going to be running for president, 50 people who are deciding to run. And they go file. And that’s it. There has to be some kind of measure of whether or not you are a serious candidate. You have to have support. You have to show support. And how do you show support? You show support by people willing to invest in you, write you a check. Or you have to show that you have the ability to get your message out. And how do you show that? You’re Michael Bloomberg, and everybody knows if you have several billion dollars and you can spend $200 million in the campaign if you choose to. Or you are somebody who has done something really terrific. And everybody comes to know who you are as a result of it. And yeah, you have to kind of say that’s how Giuliani started with his performance after 9/11.

So in my case, the media look at it and say, “Well, wait a minute.” I am just going to remind you that I have been working on ending the violence in Iraq pretty much full-time. I am spending a lot of money doing it — money I earned myself, with sale of my company, since I sold my company in 2004, since the Kerry elections. And I went down many roads, as many of us did who are progressives; we worked to grab the agenda in Congress away from the Republicans. And so while the dream came true, we did. I did a lot of work politically to put the Democrats in control of the agenda and to slow this president down. So there wasn’t just no oversight and all of that stuff.

I’ve been to Oman. I have interviewed Iraqis. I have produced things. I have produced war movies. I do all of this stuff. And you do things you think are going to make a difference, and it hardly does. So I have finally come to the conclusion that Dal LaMagna really isn’t going to move Congress. I mean, I can’t even get meetings with them. I meet with a bunch of good guys, a bunch of the usuals. You can get a meeting with Lynn Woolsey. You can get a meeting with [Maxine] Waters. You can work with Jim McDermott and people who are already against the war. But I couldn’t get meetings with anyone else.

I had a member of the Iraqi parliament in town, the last thing I did, and I could only get meetings with 19 of them. So I just said, “I have to take this now to America.” And what better way to bring a message to America but on the back of a presidential campaign? And I can do it. I want to do it. I can do it. I am healthy. I have enough funds to launch it. And I am healthy enough. And I don’t have any responsibilities. So I am going to do it. And that’s what I’m doing. I am, as you see on my website. I am running to work to end violence in Iraq. However, I know that if by some miracle, either a miracle of chance or on right place at the right time, for instance the resistance decides to stop shooting at American soldiers, that I am the one making it happen. I am in the race.

Because I will have done something substantive that everyone is going to report on. And every American is going to be interested in seeing who I am. And many are going to come to my site. They are going to see who I am. They are going to see what I have done. And then they are going to want me to be their president. But I have to do something. And if I don’t do it, I haven’t changed my life’s meaning. I am still working on ending the violence. And I will come up with something else to try to end violence until I do, until it’s over. I mean, I can’t wait until we are leaving that country so that I can escape my obsession. And so that’s my answer there.