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Charles T. Manatt

Charles T. Manatt was the chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1981 to 1985. He is a founding partner of the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips and is the chairman of the board of trustees of The George Washington University. Manatt was co-chairman of the 1992 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign and was U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic from 1999 through 2001.

Jules Witcover interviewed Manatt on April 26, 2007.

I would like you to start, if you would, by talking about what you think is the fate of the federal subsidy program for supporting presidential candidates, whether it can survive or not.

At the present moment, for those of us who have been lifelong supporters of the program, it’s obviously in difficulty for a number of reasons that you are well aware of, including the rules and the amounts that can come out of the financing. And now the top-tier candidates believe they can raise more money without the shackles or the regulations on them just from private sources. So, they are going that way instead.

Do you think so-called second-, third-tier candidates will still try to use that process, at least to get into Iowa or New Hampshire?

Oh, I think so. Yeah, I think so. And I hope they do. And I hope it continues, because you and I remember when it was very, very difficult and a different context than what we have today. And we thought we were very much opening up the opportunities for candidates’ support without necessarily having the heaviest financial support going into the presidential process.

Do you see any way now to put a lid on the whole thing?

No.

Having the Supreme Court review Buckley [v. Valeo] at all — is that a possibility?

It may, but I don’t see this. Whereas putting a lid on the very creative ways in which campaign finance, now, has evolved, even with the more recent campaign-finance law and members of Congress and different things, there won’t be new independent-expenditure committees. There will be new ways that people will come up with to exercise their right of free speech. And you have more money.

What about those independent-expenditure groups and 527s? Do you see any way to get a handle on that?

As you know, the FEC has tightened up on certain other things. But so long as they are legal, which they currently are, and so long as [they] properly report — which is the one requirement they have that some other groups don’t have — their sources of funding, I think they will continue.

If you could go back to the drawing board and create a campaign-finance reform package that would keep the system open more for candidates who can’t raise a lot of money, what would that include?

The main thing would be the adjustment long ago to have the amount that you can contribute and qualify for, for the federal financing, raised substantially over the period of time. It was the ’75 law that then went on for 30 years. So a dollar was worth 37 cents of what it was in the Watergate times in ’75 when we put it on. And that lid was kept on there for so long, you just had your sources of money going out around those limits and doing other things. So, to do over again, I would certainly at least have an inflation kicker or every four or five years double the amount, so that it would be a serious amount of funding they would have received.

How could the system be made more popular with the public? As you know, even though the amount is now raised, I think, [to] three dollars — three dollars is what you can write off on your taxes — it doesn’t get there. It may get there this time, because so many candidates are going to opt out. But in previous years, people were just not willing to contribute to it. What could be done about that?

A combination of your good journalistic profession and the public-interest ads on radio and TV, and like the promotion of the new George Washington dollar coin. If it’s for the interest of most people, but most people don’t know about it, then how do you bring about a different situation? It’s got to be a public-information campaign. It’s got to be publicly supported and sustained to have maybe 35 percent or 40 percent of our citizens check off the $3 amount. [That] would result in a fairly strong treasury for the fund for the, in this case, 2012 elections. But that’s not been done. And this has got to be have some firepower behind it.

Do you think that how much money is spent in a campaign is something that concerns the average voter? Is it an issue in which they would vote against somebody who has spent too much money, in your view?

Vote against somebody for spending too much money?

Is it an issue that people care about, that voters will say, “Well, I don’t want to vote for ‘X’ because he is spending too much money in this campaign.” Or that there is, generally speaking, too much money in presidential campaigns?

Well, unless that candidate has bogus money or money from the wrong sources or money that is considered inappropriate, the fact that they have $10 and the other candidate has $5 to spend on campaign work and on advertising and so forth is of no direct concern to the average voter. If they have bogus money, or money they shouldn’t have gotten from different sources, then the press, because of the public filings, will highlight that. And that’s healthy, I think.

Do you think that the same rationale applies to self-financing candidates like Steve Forbes or Ross Perot? People see nothing wrong with that?

As you know, we have examples all over the political landscape. If they are confident in basic ways for government leadership roles — and [I] would refer to the gentleman who I have met but who, honestly, is in pretty tough shape right now [following a serious vehicle accident]. The governor of New Jersey [Jon Corzine], who obviously spent a substantial amount of his own money both for a Senate nomination, Senate election, and not so much I gather for a governor nomination, but governor election. And he is competent. And he ran Goldman Sachs at the age of 48 or 47, or whatever it was.

So long as that person has a touch with reality that the normal voter has to deal with, people don’t hold that against them. On the other hand, there are other cases where we gave Joe Doaks or Tilly Doaks money — it’s not from being a business leader, or competent investor, or this or that. Then you can start an issue going as to not just the source of their money, but why this person is qualified, because the source of the money didn’t come from their own competence. Then you have an issue that’s worth working with.

But it didn’t hurt FDR or JFK to inherit a bundle of money?

That’s right. Very true. I am not sure how wealthy the Roosevelts were in 1932 dollars. But I understand your point.

I think [they] were on relief.

Yes. JFK’s dad [Joseph Kennedy] did really well. No question there.

Do you think money inevitably leads to negative campaigning? The more money that goes into a campaign, the more likely it is going to be a negative campaign?

No. No. It used to be good candidates, good issues, good organization. And now, in the modern era, the last 30 years, it’s money and media that have displaced, to some degree, the good organization and the good issues. So it depends. I’m thinking of a half a dozen different Senate and congressional races this last fall, many of which got negative on the Republican team but not on the particular candidate they were trying to whip. So the more money — well, are you saying excessive money? The answer is yes. I mean, if they’ve got too much money beyond what you need for good campaign, good organization, and good positive issues, media advertising . . .

Isn’t that what Watergate was all about?

Of course.

They didn’t need all of the money they had.

It was coming out their ears. They had to do some more things.

In your political experience, did you ever offer or encounter a real quid pro quo for a contribution?

Oh, you do it often.

Where somebody comes in and says, “I’ll give you 10 grand if you do this, that, and the other thing.”

Oh, you do it often.

It happens often?

Sure.

Directly?

More often then not they are naïve. Occasionally, they are crooks. But sure, of course you have to have your own set of principles and standards, morals, and so forth. It’s terribly important not to be financially necessitous yourself in dealing with these kind of curious offers that people come with quite often. It’s helpful to understand the different cultures. If you are boarding a ship out in the middle of the Pacific, and you are the naval captain, and certain people offer you a something or other, that isn’t a bribe. I mean, that’s their culture. So you have to understand the difference in the end. Happily, I got well enough trained as a kid in California that I understood the different cultures of givers that are still very active in both parties today. If you don’t have that background, then the culture of different groups would throw a fellow off.

Give me an example of that. I don’t understand exactly what you mean by culture as a factor.

In the California context, it would be many of our wonderful, wonderful Asian supporters. And you are talking Chinese and Filipino, Japanese and Korean. Each of the different cultures has different ways in which they present themselves, different ways they have a reception ceremony, which is totally different than what most of us would think about, different ways in which they present gifts than what we would. And it’s terribly important you know what they are doing and, moreover, what the meaning of what they are doing is.

Well, are you saying that in their culture they see nothing wrong with making a . . .

Giving a gift — it’s common.

Giving a gift in return for something?

No. No. No. I am not saying that. I am saying you have to understand their culture to know what they are doing. No. No. No, the ones I am referring to as far as the quid pro quo [are] all over the place: white guys, black guys, Latin guys.

They might come in and say, “We really like what you are doing, and here is $10,000.”

And here is $10,000 or $50,000. But we do want to have, wink, wink, ‘x’ achieved. And at that point your heart beats a little bit more rapidly than normal. And depending on how broke you are on that particular occasion, not you, but the other party, it’s tempting. But you’ve either got to turn it down or — once you go down that road, you can make the second exception, then the third, then the fourth, and all of a sudden the rule isn’t the rule anymore.

Well, how often, in your experience, was that sort of offer accepted by the candidate or somebody in his campaign?

None.

Was it frequent?

Not that I know of. Not very often. No. No. Again, you have to have your inner clock telling you what time it is, and your inner mind telling you to turn these things down. And sometimes the would-be giver gets insulted when you turn it down. But the connection, the proximate cause is such that it has a certain stench to it.

Well, by this time, isn’t that sort of arrangement, whatever you want to call it, pretty well recognized by people — it’s a distinct no-no, that you don’t do it that way.

That’s right. And more often than not, the way it is properly done is if you don’t know the people, or you don’t know exactly what they are up to, you have your able assistant or your legal counsel, in my case a Mike Steed, or Ann Lewis, or Bill Sweeney, or Cyrus Gardner, or different ones, talk with the people first to make sure you know what they do or don’t want to do. And if they want to do something that might be untoward, then your assistant knows the rules and waves them away.

In today’s presidential campaigns, is there a considerable apparatus built in to guard against the infiltration or acceptance of questionable money?

Yeah. I don’t know if you and I could really answer that question. The operation is so big today. And the fundraising activities, in many cases, are so big. [Barack] Obama goes to New Hampshire and has 1,400 people. And Hillary [Clinton] goes to Des Moines and has 600 people. And any of them go to L.A. and have — how do you check them all out? Well, as you know, the system — you have name, rank, and serial number, and who you work for. And are you a citizen? You get all of this.

But there is an apparatus to screen these . . .

Absolutely. And the people might fib on their whole report. The whole thing is a fib. The whole thing is bogus. Then you have got to have time to check all of that out. And if one is bogus, then you begin worrying about others that you don’t know are bogus. It’s not a perfect system. But I think most all of it is caught with the modern communication system and the computerization and so forth. Two or three different candidates won’t accept a donation without your Social Security number, I am told. Well, I wouldn’t give them money. I mean, [your Social Security number] is one thing you don’t like to give out. Other people, it’s all about the lobbyists, and don’t accept money from lobbyists and different things. Fine. It doesn’t affect the lobbyist. It’s cheaper for them. And is Tommy Boggs [a partner in the Washington law firm of Patton Boggs] going to be around town two years from now? Of course. As will, hopefully, a lot of other good people.

Do people who are in a campaign to kind of be a policeman on this sort of thing, are they substantial people in the campaign? Do they make a lot of money? Or are they mostly minions in the camp?

Much more professional than what you and I remember in earlier times, and much more professional with in-house counsels and in-house accountants. I imagine it in the big campaigns around the clock, around the months, around the years: [Hillary] Clinton’s different campaigns in the last six years. And several on the Republican side are the same. You just need to have quality control and continuity in your professional services. Well, if the people are really good, they can well afford to volunteer part of their time. But they need to feed a family. So, the displacement theory simply is, if you have ‘x’ number of hours in a week you can work, you can do part of it volunteer. But now so much is demanded of them that most are paying someone.

That leads me to ask you about the whole development of what I call the politics business, the politics industry, all of the people who now work on some kind of a campaign all of the time, year-round, not just in the cycles. When I started reporting politics — you will remember this period as well — when a campaign manager was the brother of the candidate, or his law partner, that person was, basically, a one-horse jockey. He got into politics because he liked being a candidate or thought he would make a good president. And if he won, he might or might not go into the administration. And if he lost, he would go back and do whatever he did again. You didn’t have these people who would just go from one campaign to another all of the time.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, I am asking you, basically, how that raises the ante on how much money a campaign needs to support this industry.

Absolutely. Sure. No, it’s very much. You hit it right on the head. I mean, start out articulating very much a young Chuck Manatt, 30 to 35 years ago, who was the part-time helper for a [John] Tunney campaign. Or who was the unpaid state chairman of California, or this, that, or the other thing. And now you have full-time, state-paid chairmen. And you have, as you say, year-round campaigns, virtually, as far as some of the organization. It’s a real challenge.

We just have to do the best we can, those of us who are volunteers, who believe in the mission of the Democratic Party as far as social justice and different things, and believe in certain candidates for office, Congress, or governor, or presidency, to stay at it, because otherwise there is total displacement by the so-called professionals. And they are at it 24/7. And we might have a law firm or someone else to have to pay some attention to in every waking hour. But it’s virtual total displacement of [your] example of the brother-in-law or the law partner having that role. In many cases, [they don’t] have any significant role at all in the modern campaign.

Well, how would you appraise the value or the detriment to politics to have that kind of a huge political industry? How would you assess whether that’s a good or bad development for the political process, to have the total displacement that you just mentioned?

How would you evaluate that? The proof is in the pudding. If the candidates still are in touch with reality, still understand the working stiff’s problems, still understand the labor issues in Sheboygan or wherever they might be running, through the eyes, in part filtered by their young professionals, then they still understand the issues and the people just as well as they did when their brother-in-law was doing it. Then, I guess, it’s a push. If they don’t, if they are less connected, if they are less realistic, then it is a shame.

But to hide behind the professional consultants and different things after a campaign is over, that’s what always makes us — What do you want to call guys like me, the part-timers, or whatever you want to call them? — so angry sometimes when you try to have input into a campaign. You try to say: “No. You need to do this or that.” [They respond:] “Oh, no. We are the professionals. We know.” Well, some of the professionals haven’t been at it remotely as long as some of the rest of us part-timers have. So, we have seen most of these different things. But you are blown aside by them and then the campaign tanks. Well, you feel angry.

Generally speaking, what is your assessment of the people who now elbowed their way into control of campaigns or [were] invited openly? Do you think they do as good a job in their configuration as a pro?

Yeah. In view of the needs of today, sure, of course they do. Because again, they are paid beaucoup dollars, so it’s their livelihood, it’s their business, it’s their profession. Whereas most of us, call us the part-timers, it was our avocation. Sure. Certainly very, very good, well-trained, experienced, in a very different way than if you are a volunteer for somebody.

You know, you occasionally have a Dick Morris pop up who works both sides of the street and is heavily involved in the money side of the campaign. Do you see very much of that? Do you think that’s bad to have Dick Morrises who work both sides of the street?

I would have no opinion on Morris. Do I think you work both sides of the street? You know the answer to that as well as I do. You believe in one set of candidates and issues or the other. You can’t believe in both of them. How can you be true to yourself, or is yourself not true to anything, if you one minute this side and one minute that side. On Morris specifically, whom I have met but don’t know particularly well, I don’t express an opinion on Morris himself. There aren’t many like him, I don’t think.

Talk a little bit about reporters who cover campaigns and what kind of a job you think they do now compared with years ago, and the relationship. As you know, in my earlier times, we had more direct access with candidates. And we had a kind of understanding about speaking off the record, or on a background basis, and before the advent of “gotcha” journalism.

Like with the part-timers, that’s gone out the window.

What effect do you think all of that has had on the climate of a campaign in [terms of the] relationship between reporters, and candidates, and campaign consultants?

Totally tightened up. It hasn’t frozen, but it’s totally tightened up the relationship and put them into a very much more formal context of the relationship and the negotiation of appointments through the press director. Many different things that, since it’s your profession, you know much better than I do. And the more you go into the “gotcha” kind of journalism, the more the candidate or the public official is going to step back, step back, step back from the different journalists.

Because in earlier times you know yourself, you know [journalist] Jack Nelson [of the Los Angeles Times]. You know this one and that one. But now there are 1,500 different ones. And there is no way you could remotely know any significant number, I wouldn’t think, of the different journalists who will be covering a campaign. The professionalism of the ones whom I know, of course, I consider very, very high, and with the exception of yourself and a few others, most of them are retired at this point. Plus what’s going on in newspapers and everything else is a big effect.

I want to ask you a little about things that drive up the costs of campaigns and whether anything can be done about it. I mean, the obvious thing is television costs. [There have] been proposals to get free time and so on. But these television stations just suck up money as fast as they can. Do you see any way to deal with that?

We have tried every way I can think of, short of the congressional mandate of the must-carry, which is one of the legal terms the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] is well aware of — ‘x’ number of public-interest minutes or hours during the 90-day presidential campaign, or 60-day presidential campaign, to have in time slots where you have got viewership. The modicum would be 70 percent viewership as far as the potential of what is going to be the whole universe, and mandate them as far as the must-carry, because we the people, in theory, own the airways. That’s the only way you are ever going to get to it because in all of our conferences — and we’ve had wonderful meetings in the foyer up there in the old Russell [Senate Office] Building, and met with ABC, and NBC, and all of the net[work]s, and everything else — it all gets back to business.

So why don’t you think that this could be a bipartisan effort in Congress?

It can be. It can be.

Because it obviously would be beneficial to everybody who would be voting.

Yeah, it can be. Sure. [I’m in] total agreement.

So what’s the problem? Why can’t it happen?

Well, in recent times, of course, there’s been a real need for it because — well, let’s take ’04. Both sides had plenty of money to run all of their media they wanted to run along with the independent-expenditure committees that, in a way, augmented what the candidates did. Bottom line at that moment would be inertia. But if it flip-flops and is drastically different this time, then there will be some discussion starting along about trying to go for the public-interest ads. No, it’s very much bipartisan. It just depends on who is in the White House.

What, in your opinion, is the impact of the Internet on not only fundraising but just delivering the message? Some people have suggested to me that because there is so much access out there for average people to get on the Internet and support or oppose a candidate, it’s possible that there may not be as great a demand for money. You may not have to pay to get your message out to the degree you have to pay now, because of the avenues that the Internet provides.

Well, that would be very encouraging, of course.

Can you see that happening?

Well, it’s right in front of our eyes right now developing, both as to the change of that relative to the radio, and especially television, and also the change of that as far as newspapers. So to the degree that’s the way that the young generation and those succeeding the current young generation are going to get their information, it’s very much available, very much out there, and very much the right of free speech is going to be presented that way. The thing you worry about is all of the inaccurate malarkey that’s also presented. Because you don’t have any screen as far as credibility, or this or that, and a lot of malarkey is presented that some people who then don’t go behind it to find out whether or not its malarkey actually believe stuff that’s malarkey. That’s a concern right now.

That raises something else again. And that is, campaigns can lose control of their own campaigns where there are so many voices out there acting on their own.

Of course, of course.

I mean, that was one of the problems that was raised, originally, against the independent-expenditure groups and the 527s. And now everybody and his uncle can get on the Internet and say something to help your candidate or hurt him. What do you see is a way, as a person who has been involved in campaigns as you have, to deal with that intrusion, if you want to call it that?

Well, what I would especially set up is the counterintelligence operation by way of knowing what is out there, what is playing, what is being watched, and evaluate on a regular basis what counter-info you need to put a write-up on the Internet to counter anything that’s any really terribly inaccurate. What was the concern of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign jumping on something Senator Obama said recently, or his campaign? I forget what it was.

The business about David Geffen.

Yeah, that’s right. And so they jumped. And there is a concern when a campaign jumps too much too quickly. By the same token, I thoroughly understand why you just don’t have the leisure of letting different things be out there for three or four days. Or then the pencil press will pick them up and the story will, all of a sudden, be a big story, which may have no accuracy at all.

So isn’t that, again, another development that requires candidates to spend more money? They have to hire these young kids out of school to monitor the Internet to make sure that goes unanswered?

Not much, not much. I mean, so many of the young people in campaigns don’t go through 18 campaigns. I am not talking about the ones who do it for a livelihood, but the ones out of college and what have you. In two different campaigns last year that I am aware of, they had a Colorado College graduate and a San José State [University graduate], I think, working in California and in Colorado. It’s like a year internship. They had a terrific time monitoring all of these things and might have gotten lunch and change. But that’s about all.

Talk a bit about the impact of the proliferation of the primaries and the frontloading in primaries. Does all of that have any substantial impact on the cost of a campaign?

Well, it certainly suggests that there is not much time to raise money after an Iowa or New Hampshire, because, as you know, Nevada and South Carolina are right behind them. And now California and others have moved up. So it’s a really different system that the frontloading has on the candidates, which as you and I well know, is to the big advantage of the leading candidates with the biggest fundraising operations and so forth.

So that’s why you are seeing, this year, the kind of frenetic fundraising that you would have seen begin a year later?

Of course, of course. Even as recently as ’04, it began much later than this year. Yeah, it’s do-or-die right now, and it’s only April. God, we didn’t used to start them this early. And the thing also, we have to realize, and we have been through it before in different varieties, presumably two nominees could be picked by Groundhog Day, or by Valentine’s Day, or Presidents’ birthday. Well, then you have got February. And for reasons better known to [Democratic National Committee Chairman] Governor [Howard] Dean and the Republican [National Committee] Chairman [Mike Duncan], we have picked the convention dates so late. Isn’t it the fourth weekend in August and the first week in September?

I think it is, yeah.

Well, they have from February until September with we don’t know what. We’ll see what we have.

But that’s one of the factors that drives the need for money.

It’s a long time.

Because candidates are thinking not just to raise money to get the nomination, but to stay alive in that period between deciding the nomination, whenever that might be, February or March, and up to the convention.

Right, yeah. And it used to be, of course, [that] they wanted it late because they were going to take the federal financing. And that clicked in after the convention. But not this time, based on what I am hearing. The leading candidates, as you know, aren’t going to take the federal financing.

What do you think the fiscal and the political impact is of not having two major candidates using federal money for the general election — using their own money for the general election?

Well, the main thing, as you alluded to earlier, will be [that] it will be one chance to substantially replenish the amount of federal money that’s in that account for the next go-around. And that’s a significant finding. It could help, perhaps, some candidates in 2012 that you and I don’t know who they would be. With the opting out of the federal financing, it simply means that the activity will continue at a much higher pace, if that’s the right term, between February and September, of doing the fundraising, to make sure they are amply financed with the media buys and everything they are going to start doing. I assume they do the media buys in June or July for September and October time.

But isn’t it likely that, say, both parties pick their candidates in February, then we have a national election that runs from February through the first week of November? The conventions will only be coronations and they will be a formality. So you will be having a general election campaign running as soon as the two nominees are picked, especially if they are raising their own money.

Some version of it, sure. No, you are absolutely right. You and I remember people’s attention is supposed to click in after the World Series. Well, now the World Series is so much later. The general campaign is September and October. And for this we’ll see how much parrying they do in the late spring and the summertime between the two candidates. Because largely the people of the United States, or the people of France, or the people of Japan, appreciate a vigorous campaign [of] maybe a couple of months, not nine months. I mean, it’s hard to stay interested. People get so tired of it by the time Halloween comes around, anyway. And to have it be going for eight months, it would be awful long.

What [effect] do you think, psychologically, that might have on the candidates if they know they have got to go for eight or nine months and keep the interest of the voters? Is that, do you think, likely to lead to more negative campaigning?

Hard to say, and it depends on who the candidates are, if they have a job — if they are both senators, for example. And lots of good legislative activity is going on in the Senate through July with the August break. At least through July they can do a lot of their underscoring, issue-highlighting in their legislative work and with, hopefully for both sides, the support of their legislative leaders, they can be showcased very nicely.

If one of them decides, “The hell with that, I am going to just keep campaigning,” then that means the other guy will do the same thing.

Then the other does the same. Yeah, that’s right.

So a campaign that runs that long, if it comes to the point where people are getting bored, I just wonder whether that isn’t going to trigger more sensationalism by the candidates.

Well, it could be our earlier learning was in state races. And for a long time, Illinois had the earliest one, which is about St. Paddy’s Day. And then from March until the end of November is a long time to wait. And indeed, much of Illinois, of course, is better organized, Chicago and Cook County, than other parts of the country. But they didn’t pick up the campaign there until mid-September. It’s hard to analogize that.

Well, you remember Mike Dukakis went home [in the summer of 1988] to take care of state business. And he lived to regret that.

Yeah, he did. He did. 

That kind of history is not forgotten by anybody who is running a campaign.

No, no, no. And we know [California Attorney General] Evelle Younger went to have a good vacation in Hawaii. And [incumbent Governor] Jerry Brown beat the hell out of him when he was over [there]. We don’t go on vacations too early after the nomination.

Well, you may not be able to answer this, but what’s the worst story you know about an attempt to buy influence of a candidate? What is the worst story that somebody you know of . . . ?

I don’t have a worst story.

Who would you rate as the most vigorous fundraisers as candidates who have raised money for themselves?

[Former California Governor] Gray Davis.

Names I have down here are Alan Cranston and . . .

Gray never let up. Assembly, controller, lieutenant governor, governor: Gray never let up.

Let me just ask you finally about the debates. Do you think the way the debates are run and financed — do you have any problem with that? Do you think there is anything wrong with the corporations and so on?

I don’t have any problems with that. Because blended enough with a number of different good companies, associations, trade groups, and labor groups being invited to support them, more often than not, as you know, they are done on college campuses, which I think is a healthy environment. And I remember raising money for a couple of them over a period of time. No, I think they are pretty healthy.

You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Ralph Nader doesn’t agree with you?

It wouldn’t surprise me, no. I don’t agree with him on a lot of things, either.