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David L. Mercer

David L. Mercer is the president of Mercer & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Mercer has worked on numerous aspects of presidential campaigns, including field, media, and fundraising. He worked on the presidential campaigns of independent John Anderson and Democrats Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry, and was a deputy finance director of the Democratic National Committee. In 2004, Mercer raised more than $1 million for the Kerry campaign and the DNC and he is now a volunteer fundraiser for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Josh Israel interviewed Mercer on May 30, 2007, and June 21, 2007.

You have worked in a whole lot of presidential races in a whole lot of different capacities. What was the first race you worked on?

[My] first race was 1980 for the John Anderson [independent] presidential campaign. And there I did events for Governor [Patrick] Lucey [a Wisconsin Democrat and Anderson’s running mate], who was the former [Ted] Kennedy delegate in the Kennedy campaign. Having lost the nomination to President Carter, a lot of people moved to the Anderson campaign. And I had the good fortune of working with him doing events around the country. And at 18, it was a birds-eye view of my first presidential campaign.

I have worked in every subsequent campaign since in one capacity or another, from communications to delegates to fundraising and field work. So I have been in pretty much every aspect of presidential campaigns, in addition to Joe Kennedy for Congress to [Frank] Lautenberg for Senate, and one of the most important, in my experience, was Ron Brown’s chairmanship for the DNC.

And what role did you play in that?

I was the Midwest regional political director, assuring that we had the majority of delegates coming out of that region in combination with the other regions for him to have the majority to win the election.

And he was the first African-American Democratic National Chairman?

First African-American of either national party, yes.

So you have been in this business for a long time and done a whole bunch of different roles. Where was the first time you started looking at it from the money side?

The first time, funny enough, was after we won the Ron Brown for chair race. And I had been a political director. Ron had asked me to do fundraising. And given that I had a possessive attitude, if you will, toward the politics of the Midwest, I thought I should stay, do the politics, and not get into a new arena. After working through transition at the DNC, I had moved to the Christian Science Monitor Channel to work in TV as a producer for a business show. And it was only after the Clinton campaign that I then found another opportunity to be involved in fundraising. And that was at the DNC.

I saw what Ron Brown was trying to do in guiding my career earlier to get me in the fundraising, because it was quite the nexus between various constituents and business groups and industry leaders in various sectors in the economy. I came to meet and came to understand the nexus between politics and business. And my career has alternated between the private sector and the public sector, having worked at places from Procter & Gamble [Company] to Bank of Boston [Corporation] to, as I mentioned, the Christian Science Monitor Channel, Citizens Energy [Corporation], trading gas. And so it was good to find myself back in fundraising, where you are dealing with both business interests as well as politics.

And you were the deputy finance director at the DNC?

At the Democratic National Committee, yes.

And you now run a consulting firm?

I now run a government affairs consulting firm in Washington, Mercer & Associates. We have represented everything from various political committees to nonprofits, from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship to the NATO Summit, to companies from Ernst & Young to Honeywell [International], AT&T, Verizon, to other interests as well.

And what was the first major political contribution you ever took in?

Well, there were several nominally large contributions. But the one of greatest importance to me, that was earlier on, sometime in the fall of ’93 when I was fundraising for the Democratic National Committee, and in particular the Women’s Leadership Forum, which was hosting its first-ever Women’s Leadership Forum annual conference, chaired by the first lady at the time, Hillary Clinton, and Tipper Gore. And I was soliciting a host of prospects and focusing also on diversity and had the opportunity of reaching out to the late Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, who I had finally gotten interested in being a member of the Women’s Leadership Forum and participating in the conference for $1,000. Of course, we were also looking for executive board members for the Women’s Leadership Forum, which would have entailed a $10,000 contribution. Nonetheless, we went through the three-day conference.

And I’ll never forget how our relationship had grown in just those few days. After the closing luncheon she was waving me over to her table and she had what looked like, maybe, a matchbook — would have been her number or something — but something folded up. And it turned out to be another $9,000, totaling now $10,000 that she was contributing both to the DNC and to the Women’s Leadership Forum to be a part of the network of people and in support of the party and what it stood for. And I thought that was a fabulous thing, in that if you focus on the relationships and building those and not just focused on the money, that in fact the money comes as you are doing your job.

This was an unsolicited contribution of sorts. Is that a normal thing, in your experience?

It’s not a normal thing. I try to make it more a rule than an exception. But again, I think if you treat people for who they are and not just a donor, that you will see higher percentages of giving and goodwill. And with that goodwill, where people have the wherewithal and the resources, that you will find the support that you need financially.

The political consultant universe — the strategists, the people who work in all the different aspects of electing presidential candidates — has historically been a fairly homogenous community. Can you talk a little bit about your experience as being a minority in the consulting universe?

Let me just say, in general, and overall politically, that there was a great increase in African American participation in the [Democratic] party both as donors, as senior staff, and as consultants, when Ron Brown became chair of the party. That was a great four years with his leadership. And I might add, for the party and setting up the party for somebody like Clinton to have as a platform to launch a successful presidential campaign. But in particular, as it relates to diversity and minority participation, I think you saw it at an all-time high at that point. And one of the reasons was because of the environment that he created.

Two, people wanted to support — from the African-American community, of course, institutionally — the first African-American chair. So you had donors who previously had not given at top levels getting involved, knowing they had a steward who was guiding the investment in the party and their investment in the party, and having input as to how the party built itself. And with that, you had for the first time, institutionally and in a very disciplined and organized basis, minorities participating at the senior levels and going through a learning curve as to the merits of giving. It’s not just to give because you like a candidate. But again, it’s to build for the future. It is also to be a part of the political process, that just as much as voting or grass-roots organizing is an incredible element of winning campaigns and defining agendas for the future, and which we can tell by the increase subsequently every cycle of the amount of money that is raised by folks.

So starting from Ron Brown to have had our involvement, and for us to have been involved, and even expanding on that in the Clinton-Gore years, because as we know, in the black community, we almost consider Bill Clinton the first African-American president. And so again, the first event I ever did was done for Clinton from the African-American community in August of ’94 raised $1.4 million in the first going; it was projected to do three or four or five hundred thousand dollars. And I think that you brought in not only donors that had been there with Ron. But you brought in new African-American donors who had a chance to become a part of the donor programs, to relate and develop relationships with mainstream donors who had been giving to the party for years. And it showed representation and gave us representation to be able to participate in the process, again, just beyond voting.

So where does it stand now? You have a core of people who were involved and go back from the Jesse Jackson days, the Ron Brown days, who have emerged into senior staff, who worked at the White House, who have represented interests on the corporate side having come out of the White House. So you have an experienced core of advisers and folks to now tap on. It’s now getting the leadership to focus on that, so that you have additional folks doing media advising and consulting, which there are very, very few of in the Democratic Party doing. And, I probably would say, in the Republican Party.

And why? Not just because we give money, but because we are in a multicultural society now. And to make decisions based on that or to address issues that society is now confronted with, you need multicultural representation among your decision-makers and advisers, so that you can communicate with your constituents — and to say nothing of the fact that they are just as qualified as any others. But again, we still have that to break through. And that goes for government affairs representation. If we can have an African-American, a Hispanic, and a woman running for president, and every corporation has ways of diversifying its work force, then I would think that we could have more diversity among the ranks of those who are advising the committees, those who are managing campaigns, and those who are the spokespeople for the Democratic Party.

Bill Clinton used to, I remember in his campaign in ’92, talk about having a cabinet that looks and feels like America.

Yes. And that cabinet certainly did. But the consulting, lobbying, advisory roles, if you go around to firms, corporations, or the political committees and who they hire or consult with, you do not see the same mantra, if you will, that Bill Clinton had as it related to his cabinet.

And what do you think are the prospects of changing that in the near future?

I think the prospects are good. And given that a lot of us are in the mainstream political operations and apparatus, we have to continue to have that voice heard and to push on it. We are not fighting from the outside. But we are dialoguing from the inside and hoping for the leadership to see the merits of doing so.

And do you think having a diversity of people involved with all aspects of the political process has an impact on the policy that results?

I think it has an impact on the policy and how the policy is received. If I, as an African-American political consultant or operative, am asking people to give, I am asking people to support one candidate or to support the party in one way or another, they want to know that there is a representation. Who is doing the media consulting? Why isn’t there somebody partnered with another firm that is minority that is helping the campaign to develop its message for the public? And we have to see to it that that voice is heard.

Do you think the system has been changing much for the better as far as inclusion of African-American consultants and African-American donors in general?

There is a long way to go still. And it goes, again, in cycles. And it depends on the personality of black leadership the time. As I refer or allude to Ron Brown, who ideally was in the mainstream, had worked for Senator [Ted] Kennedy, had run a campaign in California in 1980. Somebody who was part of the party becomes chairman of the party. And so there is a stake in there. And it’s not only the stake for the black community, but it’s also for what it bodes for the future in that, in having that stake, more people are going to get involved for the black community. And they are going to see how the process works. They are going to see what Ron Brown experienced to get to chair. There are a lot of us, coming under Ron, who have gotten a great deal of exposure and experience in all different aspects of the campaign. And there are plenty out there.

The common refrain that you will hear from the mainstream, when it comes to senior positions, or roles, or advisory positions with campaigns, is we can’t find them — can’t find a black fundraiser, can’t find a communications director, can’t find a media adviser. Well, I am here to tell you that they are there. A lot of time was spent nurturing and developing that talent, and that if there was a little more effort by the mainstream really pressing on engagement, especially when we are now entering a very, very multicultural society, with that you have to have, in the decision-making processes, a multicultural representation if you are going to address the issues of the day in a way that is going to have substantial impact. And so, as of now, there is still a struggle to break through to the mainstream as a minority participant or representing diversity. But we’ll never give that up. And we’ll continue to engage and call on the larger political Democratic community to be responsive to that.

And, in your experience, do minority fundraisers, minority consultants, and minority campaign members have access to communities of potential donors that others might not?

That’s a very good question. Yes, they do. I have peers who are on Wall Street who are making a boatload of money, certainly more than me. And the question is, Why aren’t they involved? And it’s a very good question. I got involved and knew that there may be better opportunities working for Ron Brown to be the first black chairman of a campaign than me being on Wall Street. And it’s a matter of communicating those merits. And the mainstream political community should understand that by elevating, by making visible minority participation on a full compliment, as any other adviser or consultant, will allow those African-American representatives to go reach into their community. So just like those that gave to the DNC in higher numbers from the black community when Ron was chair, they will do the same if they see that kind of participation being supported, endorsed, and embraced by the larger political community or the Democratic Party.

With the recent scandals that have been in the news a fair amount, with [lobbyist] Jack Abramoff, for example, I am not sure that the average person really has a sense of what donors get, in general. Maybe you can talk a little bit [about that]. I am guessing that most of the donors that you have interacted with and built relationships with have not gotten an ambassadorship in exchange for their contributions. Is that fair?

Well, first I would say [that] nothing is ever in exchange. Nothing is ever a quid pro quo. Again, it goes to relationship. And it goes to information. And that being involved in the political environment gives you more access to information and intelligence to make better-informed decisions. Not only that, it’s less distorted than you would find in other parts of the country. Washington is, to me, the hub of information and intelligence. Call New York the financial capital; I call this the information capital. And so people are giving, in my estimation, to put them in an environment where, again, they are meeting new people. And when you meet new people, you have more access or reach to different ways of looking at things, different information about what’s going on in different sectors of the economy or in other communities, and so you are well-informed members of society. Whether you share that with your family members, or your associates, or your business partners, or whatever, that, I think, is a primary takeaway, if you will. And the money exchanged is a transmission of information. What people do in the stock market is based on intelligence that is arising in different parts of the world, or in different industries. So again, money registers one’s support, confidence, [and] a sense of community that they get by giving to that campaign. At the same time, being in that community, they are meeting so many people. They are learning about how a campaign functions. They are being briefed by consultants. They are participating in retreats or policy briefings by staff on the Hill or in the administration. In that regard, that’s the outlook or the perspective that guides me, and I would trust guides others.

Has anyone, in your decades of doing this, ever asked you or asked a politician you have been working with for something in exchange, in a quid-pro-quo kind of suggestion?

I have only heard anecdotally, whether rumor or not, but I have never been directly asked what does it take to be an ambassador or anything of the sort.

So, in your experience, that’s not commonplace.

It is not common.

What do you think generally motivates donors that you interact with to want to give?

It depends on the degree to which a donor has been involved. You take a Walter Shorenstein, who gives to none other than to Democrats, who has been a longstanding staunch Democrat over the last 40 years, and it’s the ideas that he believes in. It’s the party he stands by and stands with. And you have those types that are true Democrats and will always be there. To others who are in a presidential campaign, the heightened exposure to issues draws people who are issue-oriented and want to use that now-heightened exposure to advance that interest or that issue. You have business people that need to be involved, because issues are evolving, developing. And what is going to be the impact on them individually? What’s going to be the impact on them as a business or an industry given the policies or the platforms that candidates are running on? Better, of course, to be at the starting gate to see the evolution of those policies and platforms than only to be knocked over the head by them once the election is over and you are catching up. So again, there is a range of reasons for people to be involved in the presidential campaigns and with the parties.

For someone who has never been to a presidential campaign event with a candidate, or even perhaps someone without a candidate in attendance, what are these sorts of events like? Are they very small intimate affairs where a bunch of lobbyists are trying to persuade the candidate or the president to do something? Or are they generally massive events with thousands of people, hundreds of people, tens of people?

You have a range. I mean, there are events with 20 people and there are events with thousands of people. There are events that, when raising [money] for the party but elected officials from that party are in attendance, can range from $25,000 events to $100 events. And I would qualify [that], first of all, lobbying is advocacy, whether it’s from interest groups to businesses, and it’s also an educational profession from the standpoint that you are informing those players or key decision-makers in a decision-making process. What are the implications of the policy? What are the implications of the issues that aren’t getting addressed that should be addressed, whether it’s from health care, to welfare reform, what have you. To characterize it as an interest that is so self-serving as to be to the exclusion of anybody else, I think is a mischaracterization. In fact, the better lobbyists are those who anticipate and take into account the pros and cons of an issue, both sides of an issue, and the art of politics as compromise. So unless a lobbyist is presenting it that way as opposed to an obstinate position on one given issue or another, I think he would actually be isolated rather than embraced or engaged as somebody who is providing that kind of information.

So going back to the basis of your question, these events can be social gatherings. They could be, in fact, supporters who over a period of time have supported a candidate, and in fact, they do not have to write a check. And it’s to visit with a group of people — again, not only meeting with the candidate, but those who are also like supporters and share their appreciation and their confidence and pride in that candidate they are supporting.

In the 2004 campaign you were, I don’t know if bundler is the right term, but a fundraiser on a volunteer basis.

Correct.

And you started off at the $100,000 level of commitment?

I started at [$100,000], which was initially, I guess, anticipated. Then you get several $100,000 raisers. And that should be able to keep pace with the opposition or other candidates in the race.

And that’s collecting contributions with the limit of $2,300 or whatever it was in 2004?

I think it was $2,100 back in 2004.

So, that’s not a $100,000-a-pop kind of thing. You have to get a lot of individual [donations].

That is correct, given McCain-Feingold, and because it was a candidate for whom you are raising money. But in addition, later on, once he became the nominee, raising money for the party could be done in $25,000 increments.

So did someone call you up and ask if you would raise $100,000? Or did you wake up one morning and say that?

Well, I became a supporter of Senator Kerry. As a campaign is organizing itself, and laying out its schedule of activities, and planning for goals they have to reach, I was involved with the campaign and learned what those goals were. Initially we’re going to ask people who have the experience, and the relationships, and the network, and the wherewithal to raise $100,000. Well, it wasn’t months later that the new leadership would be $250,000. And then maybe you could do a half a million. And in the end it was raising a $1.1 million for the Kerry-Edwards ticket.

And so you raised $1 million for the campaign?

$1.1 million for the campaign and the DNC collectively, yes.

And I assume from this you had the similar opportunity to build relationships with the other people who were doing this and raising the contributions.

Without a question. And I was renewing old relationships from the Clinton-Gore days, or since the Clinton-Gore days. And people who had wanted to be involved in the presidential were waiting to be involved in the 2004 race. Given my reputation as a fundraiser, if people had an interest in the Kerry campaign, I would get a call saying: “How do I get involved? What level shall I participate in? What are the events going on in New York, or California, or Tennessee, or D.C.?”

Having been in this for a couple of decades now, you have seen what it was like before McCain-Feingold and what it’s been like since. How has it changed, aside from the actual number of dollars you can raise per person?

Well, the day after campaign-finance reform, you had a political committee, whether that be the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, or the Democratic National Committee, where they had maybe $100,000-check writers. The day after campaign finance reform they could only receive $25,000. So for every donor, you had to go find three more to make up for that shortfall. Also, spending [has been] increasing as we go to presidential election cycle to election cycle. That, in my mind, is a good thing, because more people had to be called. More people had to be reached out to. More people had to be persuaded. More people had to be engaged to be part of the political process beyond just going to a rally or doing a vote. And it’s an incredible process of engagement. You are first asked if you would consider being a part of the fundraising campaign and being a part and a supporter. You learn about the scheduling, and who is involved, and who is like-minded, and who you might team up with to raise money. And that, for those who hadn’t been involved before, I think is only educational.

Therefore, with McCain-Feingold, it did force the committees, and us as political operatives and strategists, to expand our net and our reach to bring more people in. That, I think, was a very good thing. The questionable thing, and the jury is still out on this, is that with the party, at least you knew the $25,000, the $50,000, the $100,000 check was going into the party. It was essentially managed, supporting the state parties, et cetera. Again, for every three donors, the DNC gets one. The other money also goes into 527s that are here this presidential cycle but gone the day after the election. And they are not maintained. And it’s pitching and striking tents rather than the continuity that exists in a party to continually have those funds on hand to build off the institutional memory and experiences for providing for more effective operation or strengthening the party.

Campaigns also, and the party in general, have a lot less influence and control over the message when you have 527s legally prohibited from communicating.

It goes to organization, message, targeting, et cetera, because they can’t be coordinated with committees or our candidates. You hopefully assume that they get the message by viewing what ads and other things are up by the candidates. But at the same time, the economy of scale and efficiency is not what it was when the national party had control of those funds.

There seems to be a fairly strong perception that the system of federal matching funds and public financing for the general [election] seems to have been less and less popular in the last eight years. First with the Bush campaign refusing the matching funds in 2000, and then with the Bush, Kerry, and [Howard] Dean campaigns doing so in 2004. And now candidates on both sides, seemingly, are planning to raise money for the general without accepting the public grant for that either. Do you think the matching-fund system is dead at this point?

Well, it certainly looks that way. But I would qualify your initial part of the question in that it’s less and less popular. I think it’s popular. And every candidate would probably rather be in a matching situation to reduce the time he or she has to spend raising money. If the goal of an election is to win, it has become, definitely, less and less feasible. Because we always have the looming threat of those who are not going to take the cap and take the matching funds, or who are self-funders and what have you. So to make your operation feasible as well as credible, you have to leave open the door to raising as much funds as is necessary and not be curbed or limited by what the matching funds would place on you. And so again, I have to believe that there is no candidate out here who would not like to reduce the time he or she spends raising money. But again, it’s an arms race in terms of raising money. And we might have to look elsewhere to begin to rein in how one makes for an even playing field as it relates to money, but at the same time protects freedom of speech and the ability to get your message out as often as you want and wherever you want.

Do you think a less-well-known outsider candidate has any shot, in this day and age, of getting the nomination?

I would say less and less, yes. I would say it’s no different than when John Anderson ran [in 1980]. There has to be some pivot or angle that justifies your being in the race, whether it’s your presence, your personality, your profile, whatever, that attracts enough initial attention to make you to have the perception of a contender. And those all have to be in place. You have Fred Thompson considering running. And he is certainly behind in the money race now, probably missing two quarters of fundraising. But being an actor, both on the big screen and on air now on TV, his visibility . . .

Seemingly there is a Law & Order [episode] on every channel you turn to.

That is correct. And on every channel you turn to there is Fred Thompson. So not only will he possibly need less money, he doesn’t have to spend money for visibility. But because of his visibility, people may respond to him and his character and the type of person he is because they have been introduced to him and know him very well, where other candidates have to get their names out. How do they connect with the potential supporter that already exists, possibly, for Fred Thompson?

Generally the largest expenditure, at least as I understand it, on these campaigns is TV advertising, the media expenditure. With the rise of things like YouTube and the Internet’s various different facets, is it actually possible that there will need to be less money in presidential politics going forward?

I believe that’s wishful thinking and that it’s only an additional medium. There is no way that YouTube, or bloggers, or the Internet is going to displace the call on financial strength to get your message out via TV, be that cable or network. That certainly will be the case in 2008. I don’t know what the prospect would be beyond that in terms of YouTube and other Internet phenomena now. But again, the media is still a major expenditure that campaigns are budgeting for now and raising the untold amount of money, which is evident with the frontloading of states, and big states like California or Florida where no one can reach the number of voters they are going to have to reach in short order. And they are going to have to do it on TV. And they are going to have to spend a bundle of money in that initial period.

One last question for you: Having come through this and having worked on campaigns from 1980, are you involved in 2008?

Yes, I am.

Do you have a candidate?

The Hillary Clinton campaign.

So having worked from Anderson, to Hart, to Dukakis, to Clinton, to Kerry, and now to Clinton again, do you think the system is working? Do you the think the system has evolved in a negative way in that time? Or do you think it’s pretty much where it was? What’s your overall thought on the state of campaign finance and campaigns in general, for that matter?

I think given that we have not seen an independent candidacy — the two strongest being, probably, Ross Perot and John Anderson — that we are pretty much in a status quo. And the changes are happening in the margins; and when I say the margins, positively in the margins and in some respects negatively in the margins. And as I pointed out, I think there are definitely a lot more people vesting not only time, energy, knowhow, but money more than they have years ago. Now is money, which as we all know is the mother’s milk of politics, a drain or a detriment to the political process? I am not convinced of that. Again, I look at money not as a necessary evil, but again, as a transmittal of information. And people are responding to it in a favorable way. I mean, that a candidate here can raise in three months $25 million, where in France that is the entire budget of their presidential candidate, says that people don’t have a problem with it, or that it is not polluting our political process or system. There may be some bad apples that emerge in the process. But all told, I don’t see that it has put a downward pressure, so to speak, on the engagement. That’s not to say that we still don’t have to address our turnout numbers and the number of people of voting and participating. It would be great, like we see in France, an 85 percent turnout existing here rather than at a 60-something percent turnout.

So again, I think it’s pretty much stayed the same, but on the margins has led to more people being involved and engaged. And I will say for 2008, I think we will have higher turnout numbers. Not necessarily because of money, but then again because you are advertising more [and] the frontloading of states, people’s attention is going to have to focus and be made to focus on the candidates and what this election means. But the fact that it’s a new generational campaign in that there is no incumbent. Most of the candidates were born after World War II. And as we saw in the midterm elections of 2006, people are looking for a change in course. And I think with the new leadership happening in Europe and in other places around the world, that new leadership is going to be emerging. And we are going to be a part of that. And that provides for a lot of excitement and a lot of engagement. So again, the money is not something to be isolated as the necessary evil. There are all sorts of other elements that are going to contribute to what I think is going to be a fascinating presidential 2008 campaign.