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Bert Lance

Bert Lance was a top adviser in Jimmy Carter’s successful 1976 presidential campaign. A state highway director during Carter’s time as governor of Georgia, Lance was president of the National Bank of Georgia and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the first year of the Carter administration. After resigning the position because of allegations of irregular banking practices, he was acquitted on all counts by a federal jury. He later was chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia.

John W. Mashek interviewed Lance on March 30, 2007.

The latest estimation is that a serious presidential candidate may have to raise upwards of $75 million to even play in the game, and about six candidates, three on either side, might be fairly close to that. And the rest of them will be playing catch-up. Can you remember an estimate, or even close to the figure, of what you raised for Jimmy Carter back before the primaries started?

I don’t remember precisely, because it was hard to come by in those days and times. And it was something new because of the federal funding.

You took the federal funding, which, of course, came after the Watergate scandals.

That was the beginning of the federal funding process.

For some reason I want to say that it was less than $5 million. I am not totally sure about that, but I think that’s fairly close.

Now the matching funds that Carter qualified for, it took quite a recruiting job, didn’t it? Even though he didn’t have to have too many, he had to raise money in less than $250 denominations.

Well, that’s in $250. And you had to have 250 [contributors], as I recall, in order to qualify for matching.

So was it difficult getting those people together?

Well, you just did it one-on-one back in that period in time. Because — a little bit of historical reference — as I recall Governor Carter had been at the forefront of full-disclosure legislation in Georgia. And that was one of the first states to have disclosure of people who gave money, givers, whatever you want to refer to them as. And so he was used to that sort of requirement. And then, when the federal came along, it imposed the requirement that you have certain matching numbers to qualify, and so it was a small amount of money relative to anything that you hear today required.

Bert, is it possible that we have probably seen the end of public financing, at least from candidates who feel with the front-end loading, as we have this year, the big front-end loading with as many as 20 states voting in February, that it might be impossible for public financing?

It looks to me like we have. And it’s one of those circumstances, that old adage, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The candidate who is out front for whatever reason in the ability to raise money has a decided advantage, I would think, now.

Senator [Barack] Obama has called for public financing in the general [election], and [suggested] that all candidates should agree to do that. I have a feeling that’s going to be a tough sell with candidates of both parties once they are nominated. Because we are going to know in February who the candidates are, and thus there is going to be a vacuum, then, until the conventions. And if you are going to take the public financing, you sort of put your campaign on hold.

There is no question about that. And again, you remember [that] the Carter campaign in ’76 was the first one to receive the huge amount of money at that point in time, as I recall. I remember getting a check at the National Bank of Georgia. And I think it was $18 million.

I am laughing because your colleague in the effort, Frank Moore, said that in the days when the money was hard to come by, they would wait for that federal check to come in so they could get paid.

Oh, I am sure of that, there is no doubt about that. And, of course, again, as you recall, what was done in the Carter campaign — and that’s the reason he was so successful, I think, for one reason — was that you went from primary to primary raising money. And you don’t have time to do that now. And, for example, I remember well the morning of the Pennsylvania primary having a breakfast at the Commerce Club in Atlanta to raise money to pay for the television ads that day.

Oh, boy. Is Jimmy Carter going to be the last of the presidential candidates that virtually came out of nowhere — 1 percent, 2 percent, 3 percent in the polls — to grab the presidential nomination? Or is it [still] possible, given that some candidates could use free money by getting on television a lot in the various jurisdictions and big media areas?

Well, I expect he probably is the last one to be able to do that. It was an entirely different circumstance then. And one thing we have lost sight of in the process, that as big as the country is and diverse as it is, it was still a lot of individual campaigning going on by Carter. He spent two years from leaving the governorship in ’74, through to the election in ’76, doing nothing but being on the road. And it didn’t make any kind of difference what kind of crowds they had or anything of that type. He was just out campaigning.

Well, he was in living rooms in Iowa with five, six people.

That’s right.

And the national press, so to speak, generally overlooked [him]. I know there are several reporters who claim credit for picking him up. But I believe my friend [veteran political reporter and pundit]
Jack Germond may have been one who said, “Watch Jimmy Carter.”

He was probably the first one.

And then Johnny Apple [of The New York Times], too.

Right.

Well Bert, refresh my memory. In that race, Mo Udall was probably the best-known of the candidates, don’t you think, or was it [Henry] “Scoop” Jackson?

Scoop Jackson was in there. Yeah, and I would think Jackson may have been a little bit better-known than Udall. Fred Harris was in it.

So they were all Washington-type figures. And I think Carter snuck up on them, all except Udall, and then Udall finished second in too many races so he eventually had to bow out.

And, of course, you had the George Wallace factor that was involved.

In those days a lot of money was raised, more by Republicans or right-wing causes, by direct mail. And I am told by people who know better than I that it is very expensive, the return you get depending on how attractive the direct-mail appeal you send out. But is that getting to be a mastodon, too? That it’s too expensive and you can do so much more online?

Wouldn’t you think, because in 1976 the best-known name in that area probably was Richard Viguerie.

I have interviewed Richard — not for this project — and his cost was pretty steep.

Well, and I think that was the case. It was very steep. But it was effective at that point in time.

Of course, there was no fundraising by Internet then. Do you recall, because you were probably with him some of the time — I know President Carter made most of his appeals direct. Did candidates complain now that they spend, even the ones not running for president, those running for Senate in big states, say they have to spend so much time on the telephone appealing to the big-buck boys and girls to get on board? Did President Carter have to do much telephoning to former governors, or the current governors? I think Frank Moore suggested that he did have some important governors in his corner.

Well, I think he did. But I think all of that was more for the basis of support than it was for raising money. I don’t recall Carter spending an inordinate amount of time trying to raise money. That was distasteful to him, to start with. And so I don’t think he spent a lot of time doing that. And in regard to circumstances, he had a cadre of people that were trying to raise money in small increments because that was what was required.

Morris Dees did a lot of fundraising.

Morris Dees and Millard Fuller. And then they split off.

Right. So when the Carter campaign sent Carter supporters out of Atlanta by bus to New Hampshire, say, and other places, when they went around knocking on doors and . . .

That was not fundraising, per se.

That was not. But that’s my question. You predicted my question. When they knocked on the door, was it strictly to pass out literature? They didn’t ask for donations?

Right. And say that they were neighbors of Jimmy Carter and that was where they came from. But there was no obvious fundraising effort in that regard. As I recall, it was strictly, “We are here to tell you that he is the kind of person that ought to be president.”

And the Carter-Ford campaign, it’s my recollection, was also before the absolute mushrooming of political action committees. If there were any, I don’t remember.

I don’t remember any.

No. That was an outgrowth, again, of changes in election laws. And it actually amounted to almost a loophole for both business and unions to raise money.

That’s what it was. And it gave candidates, ultimately, the opportunity to raise money not for themselves, but to use for other people, to gather more influence.

One fundraiser told me that he went to a Hillary Clinton fundraiser here in Washington not too long ago. And just the ballroom was just filled with people, including many who probably were going to give to more than one candidate. But I think they were exhorting people, and the figure that sticks in my mind is $2,300.

That’s the limit, I think.

Well, that’s a nice little sum to pay, even for a Washington lobbyist who is probably looking at a crowded hors d’oeuvres line and cheap wine or beer.

Well, and all of that has changed so dramatically — what is now, 31 years [later], the way that these campaigns are run. And obviously today there couldn’t be a Jimmy Carter, I don’t think.

Because of just the changes in rules and the changes?

Well, and the method of campaigning. Everything is generic, almost. And they all show up at the same place at the same time.

Well, the closest — and he, of course, raised a lot of money — may be former Senator [John] Edwards, because he, like Jimmy Carter, has been practically living in Iowa. I think he has been out there 27 times. I think his popularity out there has already been eclipsed, to some extent, by Mrs. Clinton and perhaps Obama. But it is amazing to me, having watched presidential races this long, that a candidate may hold as many as 20 fundraisers a day in one city. Just go from a breakfast, to a coffee, to a lunch — an all-day affair, particularly in the profitable places like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston. I mean that’s where the dough is.

Well, I’m sure. Obama had a fundraiser in Atlanta this week. He raised over $500,000.

Right. Also, refresh my memory on this. Did both President Carter and President Ford accept public financing for the general that year?

Yes. As I remember it, they did, because it was a first time. And that was the first time that the conventions were paid for by federal funding, was it not?

Right. I believe that’s correct. And then in 1980, I don’t believe Reagan took public financing in either race. I could be wrong. I will check that.

I think that may be correct.

And, of course, we have seen since then the onrush of millions. There is a counterargument to this. And I would be interested to hear your feelings on it. When you say this is easily going to be the first billion-dollar election that sounds astounding, except the counterargument for democracy is that the money is spent on advertising. For commercial products, [spending] goes far beyond that. And is that too big a price to pay? Where do you land [on that question]?

Well, I think you have to ask a question, generally, of whether or not the changes have been beneficial in voter turnout. Supposedly, with all of this financing, you have higher voter turnout because of the general interest that it’s creating. But I don’t think that’s the case. I expect in ’76, you had a higher turnout than you did in 2004.

I will check those figures. But I think, by percentage, I believe you are right.

And if that is the case — and you’ll have to check it because I really don’t know, that’s just a feeling I have — that means that it hadn’t been the success that people think it ought to be.

Right. And, of course, the box that people check on their income tax return, polls have shown that many people say no because they think they are adding a couple of bucks to their tax returns.
Hold on. I just don’t believe that voter turnout has been increased as it ought to be if you are spending all of that money.

Well, you would think that good citizens on their tax returns would check off the money. But that figure or percentage keeps going down every tax year to where it’s not very much.

Yeah. I think that’s right.

And so with the six candidates — three in each party — at the top raising tens of millions, it puts the so-called second tier, and I must say the press has pretty much decided who is first tier and who is second tier, maybe unfairly. You wonder whether candidates on the Republican side, like [Sam] Brownback, like Duncan Hunter, and on the Democratic side like Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson, can they play against the big-money crowd?

Well, I guess this is the kind of campaign that you will at least have an answer to that, going forward. Because this is the first time you have an open presidency. And therefore it will be interesting to see if anybody catches on. And if you caught on, as you know, Carter’s ascent was ultimately shortened by Jerry Brown in the West. And he wasn’t staggering to get to the convention. You would have the “ABC” movement, you recall: Anybody But Carter. And tried to talk Humphrey in and so on and so on.

Well, but by the same token, Reagan was considered, literally, out of the race until the Panama Canal issue and North Carolina. And he chased Ford all of the way to the convention. And Ford was having to invite Mississippi delegates up here, and it made Ford look like he was desperate in the end. And yet he was the sitting president. So both Carter and Ford had their difficulties going into the convention. But I dare guess, I think, that Ford had even more, because he really didn’t have the number of delegates yet to cinch his nomination.

I think that’s right. I think that it was a different situation with Carter. But I guess my point is that this election, with a huge amount of money that is being expended, that if a Richardson took off, or even an Edwards, from the standpoint of competition on the Democratic side, then you would see a difference in the future, more than likely.

Do many candidates — in either party, but probably more on the Republican side, since Georgia in recent elections has shown a more Republican tendency — see Atlanta as a mecca for people coming through for money? Or is it sort of a secondary city compared to the so-called glamour?

On the Republican side, I think the only one that’s really made any impact is [Mitt] Romney. He’s spent a lot of time with the so-called Republican leadership and the money side of things.

Just today, on March 30, [Rudy] Giuliani has scheduled a fundraiser in Salt Lake City, right in the capital of Mormonism and right in Mitt Romney’s home territory. So nobody seems scared off by intruding on somebody’s land to pick up a few more bucks.

Oh, and it’s bucks instead of votes.

The one area that we haven’t discussed is the cost of television advertising, which the percentage of money in campaigns, particularly in general elections, goes up to 60 and to 70 percent spent on ads, many of them negative, and local stations. And then, of course, some in national affiliates. Is that where most of the money is going to go, even in the primaries, this time?

I wonder about that, because you have so many independent efforts about television advertising. I guess so. But it appears to be an inordinate amount of money, doesn’t it?

We are already hearing rumbles — using the name Ross Perot, who, of course, won 19 percent of the vote but didn’t carry a single state — that there is a group that is using the Internet to try to interest voters who aren’t happy with either party. And there is Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg of New York, a former Democrat and certainly, by today’s standards, a liberal Republican. Today, can an independent candidate get anywhere? I am thinking in terms of Ross Perot.

I think so, I believe that that’s the case. I mean, if I were the folks who were talking about opportunity to do it on the Internet and everything, I wouldn’t refer to it as independent. I would refer to it as an alternative.

Well, it would be interesting if Mayor Bloomberg, who by all accounts has been able to appeal to Republicans and Democrats even though he ran as a Republican, [entered the race]. And yet the feeling persists that given our country’s refusal to turn to back to John Anderson in 1980 . . .

Well, in ’76, too.

That’s right. And Anderson was certainly popular in his way. And Perot, while we later found that he was rather an irascible candidate, certainly had the money right in his own billfold. And I daresay Bloomberg does, too.

Oh, I’m sure he does, I’m sure he does. And I’m sure he’d be attractive.

But it’s risky, isn’t it?

Oh, it is risky. There is no doubt about that. I think the likelihood with an open situation is greater that you may have no winner totally and completely by the time of the convention.

We have figured that by convention time — long before convention time, because 20 states may vote in February — that it’s all over but the shouting.

Well, it will be interesting to see.

Editor’s note:

Ronald Reagan did accept federal funds in his 1980 and 1984 presidential campaigns.

Voter turnout in the 1976 election was 53.6 percent, compared with 55.3 percent in 2004.