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Frank Greer

Frank Greer is a Democratic consultant and a founding partner at GMMB, a Washington, D.C.,-based firm. With a focus on advertising and communications, he has been a key strategist for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign, for Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, for Nelson Mandala’s campaign for South African president, and for Vaclav Havel’s campaign for Czechoslovakian president. GMMB is currently consulting for the Barack Obama campaign.

Jules Witcover interviewed Greer on September 18, 2007.

[I’d like to talk with you about campaign finance.]

It is a favorite topic of mine. Because I think it has been such a tragically corrupting development in American politics.

Keep talking about it and tell me why, and what you think is going to happen with it.

First of all, Jules, we both go back many campaigns. But I remember coming out of Watergate — I was working for [Democratic Senator] Fred Harris at the time; it may have been the first time we met. The nation had gone through the trauma of Watergate, had developed a campaign finance reform system. It provided matching funds in the primary, provided public funding in the general election. It was a year when Fred Harris, among others, thought that it would be a great year for an outsider with no money and no special-interest backing to run for president.

Well, why did he think that?

Because every dollar was going to be matched, so you would have funding for Iowa and New Hampshire in the early states. It was going to level the playing field, because you didn’t have big money, which had been a major problem before Watergate, all of the money that was going into the [Richard] Nixon campaign. And you could, with relatively little money in the matching funds, run a credible campaign in the primary.

Unfortunately, there was another guy who had the same theory and his name was Jimmy Carter, also kind of running from the outside and basically being able to use matching funds in this new system to be competitive. And then, if you won the primaries, you were going to have public funding for the general election. It was a revolutionary new approach, right?

So Democrats, who didn’t have as much access to money as Republicans, had a great opportunity in 1976. Jimmy Carter was the one who was able to capitalize on it. One of the little known bits of history, Jules, that you may remember is, there was one fundamental problem for some candidates like [Democratic Representative] Mo Udall and Fred Harris and others. There was a lawsuit that held up the matching funds into January or February.

I remember that.

So the money we were counting on for Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t come through on time. But there was one candidate who survived. And you know what he did? He went to a guy named Bert Lance, who was a baker in Georgia, and asked him if he could borrow the money against the FEC matching funds. And Jimmy Carter got the funding for Iowa and New Hampshire and ended up winning both, while all of the other candidates — [Democratic Senator] Birch Bayh, [Democratic Senator] Scoop Jackson, and Fred Harris — there were all of these candidates that were running. 

Nobody else thought of that idea?

I don’t think anyone else thought it was legal. But Bert Lance came through. And by the way, that’s why there was such a close relationship between Bert Lance and Jimmy Carter. He was the banker that funded Iowa. So a little glitch in the system, but then, in the general election, the system worked. And we had actual funds from the federal government that were given to the candidates.

But Frank, who would bring the suit? Was that the Republican Party?

No. No. No. Who was the senator from New York? It was the classic suit that also established that you could not restrict freedom of . . .

Jim Buckley.

Yeah, and his brother.

And his brother, [National Review founder William F.] Buckley.

That’s right. Bill Buckley. It was the Buckley brothers’ suit [Buckley v. Valeo]. And unfortunately, it also established that you can’t restrict personal money. It created what since McCain-Feingold is this kind of unworkable attempt to fix large independent expenditures.

So my theory is, from that point on, that was ’76, you had a reformed campaign finance system that worked pretty well. People were limited to $1,000 in each election. You gave. You got matching funds. Everybody participated in the matching funds. And after you won the nomination, you got federal funding. Without that system, I don’t think Bill Clinton — we worked on the Bill Clinton campaign — would have been elected. It was a relatively level playing field.

The only thing that’s kind of unleveled is how much the parties spend. But if you go back — and there is a guy named Chris Arterton, who is now at George Washington School of [Political] Management, at the time was at Yale University; he has done an analysis of funding and spending. He actually came to a conference in Buenos Aires when we were down there. He is a brilliant guy. He is Dean of the GW School of [Political] Management.

And the interesting thing is, going back to ’75-’76 — and maybe before that, it may have been ’72 — he has done an analysis of campaign finance and spending of all the candidates. It’s like one of these academic things that most people don’t even know about. But if there is a walking, talking authority on this, it’s Chris Arterton. So if you look back through the history, from ’76 through ’92 it was a system that worked pretty well. Not always politically, because the Democrats weren’t winning very much. But that may have been our candidates and not our funding.

Were there any efforts in those years to go outside that system to circumvent it?

No, never.

And why do you think that was?

Because I think people, one, thought it was a pretty good system that you would be embarrassed or criticized, especially if you are a Republican, for going outside the system, because you would be the big-money candidate versus the little guy. It is like a political reluctance to not abide by the system, right? And not play within the rules of the system.

Because it was [former Texas Governor] John Connally in that period who was the one guy who did it, right?

That’s right. But, of course, he never made it past the first two primaries. And he was, if you remember Jules, really criticized for being beholden to the big Texas boys and everything else.

Anyway, it worked pretty well. And it worked really well for Bill Clinton. And the reality is, if you look at the spending in the general election, Republicans and Democrats, it basically came in at about $100 million. Now think about the money today. But it was about $100 million on each side, or may have even been for the whole campaign: $50 million on each side for [Bill] Clinton and for [George H.W.] Bush.

And this is where it all went off the tracks. In 1995 in my office, which at the time was downstairs on the 8th floor of this building, Dick Morris comes to my office. And he has been kept out of the Clinton campaign of ’92. He had a real falling out with Clinton. But also, Clinton knew that Dick Morris was too close to the Republicans and too close to [Republican Senator] Trent Lott. He had clients all over the map, unlike other consultants who usually work one side of the street or the other.

Yet Clinton, who thought he was in big trouble — this was the period where he says, “I am not irrelevant,” — thought he needed Dick Morris. So I always say Bill Clinton made a deal with the devil. And the country has had hell to pay ever since. So he brought Dick in as an adviser. Now the interesting thing is, I actually was around still helping every now and then on the sidelines. But if you remember, that spring of ’95 was the Oklahoma City bombing of the federal building. And like I have seen with so many governors, if you rise to the occasion in the right way at the right time, you become relevant. You become compelling. And Clinton did a great job out of that. I remember working on some of the speeches that he gave during that period of time. So his numbers turned around, and he was coming back up.

But Dick Morris convinced him that unless he went on the air early, with early media, that he was going to lose in ’96. Now it’s, I kept saying to people in the White House, totally unnecessary. His numbers are coming up. He’s going to be fine. We have a year and a half to do this. But all summer Dick Morris has said, “You have to go on the air. You have to go on the air early.”

So he sent Dick Morris over to talk to me. Harold Ickes said, “Will you talk to him?” And Clinton said, “Would you talk to him?” So he comes in, and he says, “You know, Frank,” — because this is the kind of stuff Dick Morris will say — “the fundamental problem here is, we have all of these campaign finance laws. I didn’t have any idea that you had all of these restrictions on how you could raise money and how you could spend money. There is not enough money to run a year and a half campaign. And there is not enough money to pay my commissions.”

He said it in that order?

No. He didn’t say it in that order. He said it in the other order, Jules. I am trying to be a nice guy for the sake of history. But he said: “I am not going to make any money out of this if we follow these guidelines and these rules, these restrictions on campaign spending. We have got to find a way around it. We have got to get on the air early. And we have got to raise a lot of money.” And unfortunately, he convinced the Clinton White House campaign to set aside the limits and to go for broke. And it brought us the Lincoln bedrooms and the fundraising . . .

Oh, you mean in terms of getting the money?

Yes. Well also, it was the first time that anybody — and I hate to say it, but it was a Democrat — said: “We are going to circumvent the rules. We are not going to follow the game plan. And we are going to bust the limits. And we are going to raise whatever we can and spend whatever we can.”

But there is still some check on that. I mean what was the guise for looking like you were staying within the limits?

Well, first of all, you would have to get the legal opinions that were used at the time. But they said early media did not count because, I believe, primary media was to be considered after the beginning of the year. And so they went on.

Beginning of the year before the election?

That’s right. The beginning of the year before the election. This was in the summer of ’95.

Because, if I am not mistaken, the year before was the period in which your money could be matched.

Right.

Only until the year before the election year.

Right. And I believe that Clinton went on the air with spots in August or September. I think it was August around Labor Day of 1995, and he just kept going, just kept spending.

And this wasn’t counted against anything?

No. But they had, by that point, decided they weren’t going for matching and they were going to bust the limits. And those were limits for state by state. Those were limits for how much could be spent in the primaries. Those were all of the limits that had been in place since Watergate. So I would like to say it was Ronald Reagan that broke the limits. I would like to say it was some Republican like George Bush who broke the limits, that basically broke the system. The system was broken by the Democrats.

So when you say they were going to go for broke and do without the matching, state by state. That’s in the election year?

Right.

But they didn’t do that, did they?

Yes, they did. They broke it, as far as I can remember.

Well, how did they get away with that? The FEC was not watching them?

Because you could either opt into the matching system or out. He opted out of the matching system. If you opted out of the matching system — this was the Supreme Court law — then there was no limit on what you . . .

Yeah. But Clinton took the matching money, didn’t he?

In ’92. Not in ’96.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

As a good team, you will check my facts. But this is my recollection.

I was under the impression that George W. [Bush] was the first one not to take matching money.

In 2000? Nope. And if he took matching money, he basically started spending money before the caps and the limits went into effect. So even if he did in the spring, Jules, he did not in the fall.

The fall of ’95?

Of ’95.

I am pretty sure, Frank, he must have taken the match for the primaries, because that was very closely watched.

I’ll bet you dinner on it.

OK. It would be worth it. That’s an interesting story.

[Editor’s note: Clinton-Gore did take matching funds in 1996 but the FEC later determined that they broke the caps and asked the campaign to repay the matching funds in 1998.]

Aren’t you amazed at my sense of history here? And then in 2000 it was “Katy, bar the door.” I should have said Bill Clinton made a deal with the devil, and Al Gore had hell to pay. But there were no limits. And Gore, I think, didn’t abide by the state-by-state spending limits either, did he? In 2000.

I think they did. If they didn’t, they did it under the table.

[Editor’s note: Gore did take matching funds in 2000].

OK. And then in 2004, [John] Kerry basically broke the limits in Iowa.

Yeah. And George W. was given the credit or the blame for having been the first serious candidate not to take matching money.

Well, that would make me feel better.

Actually, Howard Dean was the first one, wasn’t he?

Right.

And then Kerry reacted to Howard Dean.

Right. But Kerry also took a loan on his house so that he could spend above the limit in Iowa. By the year 2000, I think most of the campaigns — and I actually thought Gore was also putting aside the matching funds and basically going above the limits. But I will learn this when I read this book.

But in any event, suddenly the whole thing was undone by that. And what was the chief motivation? Was the problem the state limits that bothered the campaigns? They had all of this nonsense about if you were in New Hampshire, you would put your people up and across the border in Massachusetts and things like that.

I used to mooch off you for meals and a hotel room, anyway, so I could stay in New Hampshire. And you bought media in Boston and counted it against the Massachusetts limit instead of New Hampshire limits.

There are two things that I think didn’t keep up about the campaign finance laws. One was the $1,000 limit. It became so arduous and difficult to raise within the $1,000 limit the kind of funds that you needed. There wasn’t a cost of living escalator or an inflation escalator. From 1975 on, the contribution limit was $1,000. That was onerous, and I think created a real problem. Two, the limits of what you could spend in a state weren’t being adjusted. And that was onerous.

It was so much per eligible voter or something, wasn’t it?

Right. And then three, I think people basically thought they needed to raise and spend more money. And they needed a way around it. The other thing is, you were seeing huge amounts of money go into the national party. That was the other limit that was kind of broken. You had labor and business and others just pumping in huge amounts of money. So it was kind of a mutual escalation. And that was, of course, soft money, not the hard money. And that was a corrupting influence.

But what about, on the giving side, was it the desire of — because this is always a point in the line of reformers that people are trying to buy the election. Was this money drawn from contributors like pulling teeth?

No. No. No. They were searching for ways to get around it. And one of the big sources of wanting to get around it in ’96 and 2000 was labor, who wanted to give large contributions, not hard federal funds. The other was big business. And the other was wealthy individuals. I mean the system has always kind of been driven by wealthy individuals. Now it’s bundlers, and one guy for Hillary raises $800,000. Right? That’s their new way around it: Oh, I can only give [$2,300], but I will go find you $100,000 and be a — what do they call them?

Hillraisers.

Thank you, Jules. I will become a Hillraiser. So I think the money drives it, to some extent. And I think a part of it, also, is just mutual escalation. Up until ’92, when things were fairly even at the parties, and things were fairly even in the general election, you didn’t feel a need to go out and [raise so much]. You weren’t going to be outspent 10-to-1. But then when people found all of these avenues to give and to take money around the limits, then you had to go flat out and raise as much as you could just to be competitive. Jules, you should go back. I actually thought that all of the limits were off in ’96, and that Clinton did not take federal funding in ’96.

I’ll have to check that. If that’s true, he got away with it. But when George W. did it out front, that opened the doors.

And he announced that he wasn’t. Right. The genie was out of the bottle in 2000. Then it was like the whole system was completely broken, non-functioning.

Candidates on both sides have announced that they are not going to take it for the general either.

That’s right.

You would think that since it’s a finite period of time — I think they are talking about $80 million — that would be enough that you wouldn’t have to do it. But they are going to do it anyway.

Right. And I think it’s this fear of unilateral disarmament. That, well, if he is not going to abide by the limits, I am not going to abide by the limits. And the amazing thing to me, now, is how much money is flooding in. I mean it’s amazing.

What about the independent expenditure groups and the 527s? What can you tell me about how they came about?

They came about in the late ’90s, hit their stride in 2000. And the other thing is, all of this that we are talking about is kind of the presidential politics. Every two years it was influencing the congressional politics, too. And that was from ’94 on with Newt Gingrich and the kind of takeover of Congress. That was also people finding ways around the contributions. And you had the Club for Growth and other groups making all of these huge independent expenditures.

In many campaigns they were running more money on negative ads. The candidates were running on positive ads, these independent groups. And I know that McCain-Feingold was supposed to try to fix that, but it didn’t work. It’s like an oozing kind of pollution that if you block it here, it just finds a way around it. And it keeps oozing, kind of covering up the political process. Then it oozes around again. And unfortunately, money has become the kind of great corrupting influence. And it’s fairly bipartisan.

What about the 527s?

They also were a great way to raise and spend tons of money.

Was that always on the books and nobody noticed it or what?

No, no. That’s after ’96. I mean 527s, weren’t they formed by McCain-Feingold?

No.

I think they were. I think that was the legal citation. And I thought that was after ’96. [JI note: 527s existed before McCain-Feingold, though they became a popular method of getting around the limits after.]

I’ll have to check that.

All of this is a good research. I know you are a technician on that. But the timing on 527s was after ’96. That was before McCain-Feingold, because McCain-Feingold was 2002. There were some campaign finance reforms that were in the ‘90s and one of them established this loophole for 527s. Now you make me want to go back and research this.

What about the role of the bundlers? That was also attributed to the [George W.] Bush campaign. Was that done before then?

I think it was. It’s interesting. It was done somewhat on a state level before in the late ’90s. But it really came to the fore, I think, in 2000 where you had all of these — I don’t even know what they call them, the Eagles — but Bush set up this whole mechanism, kind of like Hillraisers, where you had the inner circle. And they were the people that could raise $100,000 or $250,000 or half a million dollars. And bundling really hit its stride, I think, in 2000 and 2004. But, of course, it also has spilled over into the Senate races and the gubernatorial races. And that’s kind of the preferred way of raising money in the gubernatorial races.

But it was the individual limit that really triggered that.

That’s right. And not only was it the individual limit, it was the individual limit in especially the Senate campaigns and congressional campaigns that had been the same since 1975. No inflation. No increase. I mean there was a fundamental flaw in the law. They should have had some cost of living escalator built into it. And by that time, there would have been about a $5,000 limit. And it would have been easier to raise money. But you had a 1975 law that limited it to $1,000 and made it very difficult to raise money.

So do you think raising those limits slightly made any difference?

Oh, you mean last time around? No. First of all, they didn’t raise enough to make up for that 20-year hiatus. Because [$2,300] is a lot less than $1,000 was in 1975. But, in ’75 dollars, probably $5,000 would have been a better figure. But I don’t think it really made that much difference. And you are right. Everybody had gone to bundling. So you challenge people. They go out and raise and find 100 or 1000 people to give [$2,300].

Frank, for so-called second-tier candidates, do you think the existing matching-fund system can survive for them? And will it survive for them? And is it possible for anybody who does that to win? I mean the scenario would work the same way.

Right. It worked in ’76, right?

You would get recognition in Iowa and New Hampshire using the federal money. And then it will trigger . . .

Momentum.

Yeah. But now, because of the calendar, doesn’t that make it almost impossible?

Right. It does. Although I think if you could run a competitive campaign in Iowa, I mean John Kerry, who was in fifth place in 1994, won Iowa and catapulted himself — without much money, by the way; he had borrowed on his house $8 million — into the frontrunner position. And it still worked. Now he didn’t use matching funds. He didn’t limit himself. He broke the limits, etc. But you did see somebody who was fairly obscure and in fifth place.

But here is the problem. If it was still like 1976, when Jimmy Carter won, and you had all of these other candidates, it would be very possible because no one had a lot more money than you did. But now the second-tier, third-tier candidate who is out there using federal matching funds is still going to be so overwhelmed by the money that goes into the people who basically are outside the law, outside the system, that you can’t compete. So I don’t think you have a shot at coming in first in Iowa.

You have to remember, too, as I am sure you do, Frank, that there were five weeks between Iowa and New Hampshire in ’76. So that Carter could then capitalize on all of the free publicity he got.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, look at [Bill] Clinton. First of all, Clinton was able to avoid Iowa. I think if he had had to run in Iowa, he probably would have had to be more left than he was, right? And probably wouldn’t have done as well in the general election.

That was when Tom Harkin . . .

Tom Harkin was on the ballot. Tom Harkin was the Senator. He was the favorite son. I keep thinking that if [former Iowa Governor Tom] Vilsack had stayed in this time, they could have used the same excuse. But they bypassed Iowa. And they went to New Hampshire. And then they had plenty of time before Colorado and Georgia. And Clinton had time — he came in second, but we did [well] against [Democratic Senator Paul] Tsongas — to get ready to run.

I am trying to remember the schedule. I remember being in Pennsylvania in March or May, and being in Oregon and California in June. That was the former schedule before they compressed everything. It gave you time. And the interesting thing is, Clinton was falling in the national polls, and we had to reintroduce him in Pennsylvania. And we went back to bio spots and “The Man from Hope” to remind people he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. You had time during those long six months of primaries to make adjustments.

You don’t have that now. I mean you are going to hit New Hampshire. You are going to hit South Carolina. And then bam — it’s California and Florida and New York. And it’s going to be crazy.

Do you see any possibility — this was suggested to me by one of your colleagues a few weeks ago — that it’s not guaranteed that momentum will work? And that some of these states now — at least on the Democratic side, I believe — the delegates are going to be proportioned by CDs [Congressional districts].

California being one.

Yeah. So it’s possible that after this is all over, you are going to have four or five candidates who will have enough delegates to at least have a toehold. And therefore you are going to have to go on. Because the conventional wisdom is that it’s all over on February 5. Isn’t it possible it wouldn’t be all over?

And that is a very possible scenario. And here is the interesting thing. Right now, in Iowa, I just checked with [Jim] Margolis. Jules, I should have said as a preface to this, that we as a firm are working on the [Barack] Obama campaign.

Yeah, I talked to Jim some time ago about it. 

OK. But just as a disclaimer. So anyway, yesterday, you look at the polls in Iowa, Barack’s up one, Hillary is up one, [John] Edwards is up two. They are all within a point. One of the things that could happen is that they all three come in within a point or two of each other in Iowa. And it’s a considered a tie.

And in New Hampshire, between Barack and Hillary, it might be considered a tie. And then it’s Edwards and Barack in South Carolina. And all of a sudden you have not a clear momentum like Kerry had, but you have kind of a muddled lack of momentum. And you have all three candidates in the mix. And then California may be proportional. I don’t know whether Florida’s proportional this time.

I don’t know.

But you could end up with a competitive delegate race.

So could you have like one of these matches where you put about six wrestlers in the ring, and they keep killing each other?

The last one standing.

They are all down.

Right. I don’t know. You should write that.

That could happen.

I can’t say. The one thing that will mean that does not happen is there are two — I don’t think three — candidates with the capability to raise a lot of money very quickly online. And actually, that’s why I was going to disclaim this. Barack’s in a better position to raise money online than either Edwards or Hillary, because Hillary has people who are maxed out. Barack does not.

So you all of a sudden hit this kind of muddled, you have three candidates, what do we do? What do we do for California? What do we do for Florida, etc.? I think Barack would have the best opportunity to go back and raise money quickly. Because that’s the other dynamic that changed in 2004, for the first time Democrats through the Internet and through MoveOn and all of these other mechanisms, could raise a lot of money in small contributions online very quickly. So that’s changed.

So I actually think that at some point, even if they are bunched up together in South Carolina, the person with the resources for the big states is going to be Barack or maybe Hillary. But there is not a scenario where a [Bill] Richardson actually can kind of come out of a surprising finish in Iowa. It’s just not there. You have to have the momentum, at least some momentum, or at least be in the top three. And then you have to have the money momentum or the money capability. By the way, did you hear what Richardson did yesterday?

No.

Margolis read me this note from the Barack campaign. [Richardson] went to speak to SEIU [Service Employees International Union], whose biggest rivals in the world are AFSCME [American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees] and [President] Gerry McEntee. Right? So it’s [SEIU President Andy] Stern and McEntee. And he gave this great speech, and at the end of it, to this big rally to SEIU, he finished his speech by saying, “And let me just say, thank you AFSCME.” He had forgotten where he was.

Wow. Of all things.

So he sealed his fate.

Did anybody call him on it out there?

I don’t know. Jim showed me an e-mail on it. I don’t know.

But just continuing this for a second, suppose those many candidates, three or four, do well. And then somebody like Richardson, simply because it’s so diverse — assume they all don’t have 15, and he has 10. Then he is suddenly in the mix.

And he says, “I am the alternative.”

Because you also have the phenomenon of Gary Hart in Iowa in ’84. He got like 12 percent, but he was second to [Walter] Mondale, or 15 percent.

And surprisingly so.

And he came out of nowhere.

Surprisingly strong. Yeah. Or you have, on the Republican side, the governor of Arkansas. What’s his name?

[Mike] Huckabee.

Huckabee. Yeah. All of a sudden he becomes the contender instead of [Mitt] Romney or whatever. My whole theory about it is, we have such a money-driven system now that if Richardson didn’t have a ready-made base on the Internet, I just don’t know how he raises money even if he is a strong candidate in Iowa or New Hampshire or wherever. It is money-driven. It is now driven by the Internet. And your top candidates are going to have such an advantage.

Well, here is something that maybe goes more toward your business. Do you think that a great influx of money inevitably leads to negative advertising?

I don’t think it influences the tone of advertising. It influences the quantity. If anything, there is an argument to be made, although I wouldn’t make it, that you could spend less on negative advertising to move an election. So you might say that those with less money are more prone to use negative advertising.

Now here is the other thing, which I think I said to you at one point, even in ’92; I have certainly said it to people like Howard Kurtz. In presidential politics, paid advertising is less important than anybody really realizes. And you are a veteran. You know these presidential campaigns better than anyone. The press, the momentum, the coverage all is more important, even in the general, than paid advertising. I kind of think we play a supporting role.

Because of what, credibility?

Yeah. And people look more to the news coverage of the candidates. And they can get more input from the candidates directly. You are running for the Senate or for Congress, most people are not going to see you on the evening news every night. But they do if you run for president.

So my answer to the fundamental question is I don’t think more money in advertising has created more negatives. I don’t think it’s influenced the quality or nature of advertising at all. There is a lot more of it. I will tell you this. I just did some focus groups on another campaign in Indiana, for example. People are really, really cynical and negative about politics and about political commercials. And I think we have kind of OD’d. There has been so much money in the system and so many ads on the air that it’s kind of like the nation has gotten really turned off. It’s sad.

What about the cost of television, Frank, and what that has to do with it? It’s always been said, that’s the monster that eats up all the money. Is it still the case?

It’s a big problem. And it does require a lot of money, and [there is an] escalating factor in television advertising. Although recently it’s kind of stabilized, simply because people are getting so much of their information from non-network sources. But that’s OK. Now Barack is doing tons of advertising on the Internet. Hillary does, too. So it’s kind of gone off of broadcast television.

That’s a lot cheaper, isn’t it?

Yeah, it’s a lot cheaper. I testified in the late ’80s that one of the best things we could do for American politics would be to have an equal amount of time, given that the airwaves in those days were considered the public airways. In order for you to get a license, you had to give a certain amount of time to each candidate. And each candidate who was a qualified candidate, in some way that it was determined, would have the exact equal amount of time.

My sense was the Founding Fathers and even people who wrote the bill in 1974-75 wanted to have a level playing field. And if we owned the airwaves, and we give licenses to the commercial stations, why didn’t we just have them give a certain amount of time for each candidate. Let’s have a debate, or let’s have campaigns present ads. And the interesting thing is, I believe the American people really do want a level playing field. And they think that is fundamental fairness. They also think that the way the system works now — and it’s why people respond to Barack’s outsider message so well — it’s all controlled by the special interest and lobbyists and big money folks and bundlers.

But why are the television stations able to continue to charge huge rates?

Because there is no other avenue to reach people. And they charge the lowest unit rate. But you know what that means is, whatever their commercial rate was at any point during the year — and they keep those rates up — then they have to charge that lowest rate. But it’s still very expensive. The only thing that’s bringing it down right now is all television advertising rates are coming down, because people are watching HBO and the Internet, so their audience is coming down. But they have always been able to escalate and charge a huge amount of money for access to the voters.

Frank, in your experience, have you ever encountered, either for yourself or your candidate, anybody actually coming up to the candidate saying, “I’ll give you $10,000 if you push this bill or if you do this, that, or the other thing.”

Never. I think that is the perception the public has. I don’t think the system actually works that way. But I am also glad to say, Jules, we have been very careful about the people we have worked for over the years, both candidates and causes, because we are kind of a public interest communications firm. So I have never had an ethical question about anybody we have worked for. I can say that generally. I am proud of everybody we have worked for: governors, senators, presidential candidates.

It’s not a simple quid pro quo. I can bundle you $10,000, and I can ask you to vote a certain way. It just doesn’t work that way. I think what it buys — this latest case of the Chinese-American [Norman Hsu] from California — is access. It’s also being able to say to your business associates or others, “I have access.”

It’s what you do with that access.

Yeah. Then it may just be that you are getting new business contracts from your colleagues or whatever, because you are a high roller. And you are a big player. But I have never seen [a quid pro quo]. Now I don’t work on the Republican side of the street. I don’t know whether you could tie contracts like Halliburton and this damn war into what was given to Republican Party. I don’t know. But I have certainly never seen that on the Democratic side.

Well, what about the whole Harry and Louise business and the insurance companies?

They were spending a fortune exercising their speech — free speech — to kill the Hillary health care bill. And most folks would say that was kind of a legitimate battle of free press or battle of paid media. It was not free. And unfortunately, going back to my days, Roger Hickey and I, who is still working in this town, set up a public interest advertising agency called Public Media Center. We said freedom of the press shouldn’t be guaranteed only to those who own one.

The whole idea was that we need to level of playing field and give everybody access to present issues and communications, etc., so that yes, you could have a Harry and Louise brought to you by the insurance industry. But under the fairness doctrine, before Ronald Reagan did away with it, then you could say to a station that put that on the air, “Oh, you have to put something on the air for health care victims.” Let’s have both sides present their viewpoint. But instead what you had, especially in issue advertising, is whoever’s got the money has the largest voice. And usually the other side is not heard at all.

What about the old issue advocacy business? And do you think that is going to continue?

I think so. I see no end in sight for that. I think beginning in the late ‘90s, when we set aside the campaign finance law, you kind of set aside any restrictions. The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated in 1989 or something like that [1987]. So there is no Fairness Doctrine requirement for stations to present both sides of a viewpoint. So I think that what you have is a system that is just going to be completely controlled by money and who has the money. I am not sure there is any countervailing force or other side that will have the resources.

Given all of the Supreme Court decisions, including going back to the Buckley case, I am not sure you can restrict it unless there is another interpretation by the Supreme Court. And given this [John] Roberts court, I don’t see that happening until there are a lot more enlightened members of the Supreme Court. It’s kind of like this thing started unraveling in the ’90s, and then it’s just continued and snowballed. And if anything, there is just more and more money in the system, more and more money for candidates with no level playing field. It’s a matter of who can raise it.

The only thing that leveled the playing field is that we had Democrats able to raise money on the Internet. And you have all of these independent expenditures like Club for Growth. In Senate campaigns I have been involved in, like the Erksine Bowles campaign, they spend as much as the opponent. I mean it’s mind-boggling.

Do you think McCain-Feingold is just going to be ignored eventually?

I think it’s obsolete. And I think it was obsolete when it was passed. I mean I don’t think it was going to work the way they thought it was going to work. But it’s certainly irrelevant. And it’s like that kind of toxic pollution I was talking about. It finds a way around. And it seeps in and out. And somehow you stop it here; it’s going to go around and find another way in. We have a toxic money problem in our politics.

It reminds of at the racetrack where a horse is doped. And they find out how to identify that. So before they can do anything about it, there is something new, there is something else they are putting in the horses. And it goes on and on like that.

Right. So you kind of erect a little barrier dam here and try to stop this abuse. And it just seeps around. And it kind of finds another way that is still just as polluting. And it’s still polluting the whole system. But unless you had a change of heart at the Supreme Court and real restrictions where you could say each candidate can only spend “x” amount of money. But if you cannot control spending, then there is no way to control the corrupting influence of money.

Whatever restrictions are imposed now are part of that deal coming out of the ’70s.

Right. You have to voluntarily agree. But that goes back to Valeo.

Buckley and Valeo.

Buckley v. Valeo. That was the name of the lawsuit. But that is the reason we can’t regulate. That’s the reason you can’t restrict money in politics and you can’t restrict spending in politics. Terrible lawsuit.