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James Blanchard

James Blanchard, a Democrat, was a two-term governor of Michigan, a four-term U.S. representative, and the U.S. ambassador to Canada in the Clinton administration. Blanchard, a partner in the Washington office of the law firm DLA Piper and chair of its government affairs practice group, raised more than $100,000 for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Jules Witcover interviewed Blanchard on March 2, 2007.

The Center for Public Integrity has written, in each of the last few elections, a book entitled The Buying of the President.

I do believe that the campaign spending and campaign fundraising is way out of hand. And something needs to be done.

Well, that’s what I would like to get your thoughts about. What do you think needs to be done?

Well, I haven’t sat down and really thought [about it]. Look, if somebody said, “Write a thought piece for The Washington Post,” I haven’t sat down and said what is it I would say based upon my 35 years of being actively involved. I’ve followed things since I was 10 years old. But let’s go back to 1970 and say: “All right, that was my first big campaign for Sandy Levin. What have my observations been? And what do I think should be done?” Well, my observations are that the explosion of fundraising and spending in campaigns has just been the most dramatic change in American politics that I can recall. It’s true, in later years, the injection of religion has also become, along with money, a twin evil in my opinion. In fact, they may even be connected, but normally not. I got elected to Congress in [1974]. As my wife says, “This is my ‘I love me’ wall.” She doesn’t allow it at home. We have a home in Michigan and an apartment here. We go back and forth. And I am still involved in Michigan politics. I just did a report for our governor on the state of the state budget. But going back here, I don’t even think we had met at that time.

That’s your first term in the House?

Yeah. Thirty-one-years old, first trip to the White House, [President] Gerry Ford, first campaign speech announcing for Congress. I went from the son of a single-parent mom — no one in my family had power, money, or position; we weren’t poor, I am not going to give you log-cabin stuff; never held office before — to Congress, through a Democratic primary, a tough one, and knocked off a multimillionaire incumbent. In retrospect, he was too cheap to spend his own money. I spent $40,000 in the primary. And a lot of it was in small contributions, although I did borrow money from relatives to help me. Forty thousand dollars in the primary, $110,000 in the general election, and a lot of that was labor, because labor liked me. They didn’t back me in the primary, but they thought I was their best bet to win.

Forty thousand dollars wouldn’t be car fare these days.

Right, with $40,000 you hardly open up an office. We didn’t even have any paid staff. Today in that same district, it’s not intact. It’s been split up. It’s would be part Joe Knollenberg and part Sandy Levin. In fact, I started working with Sandy Levin in 1970. And I tried to get him to run for Congress, and he decided to run for governor again. So I ran for Congress and won. And then he succeeded me in Congress when I became governor. But the bottom line is Sandy will have to, with a tough race, routinely spend several million. There hasn’t been a primary there in years. If there were, it would be huge item.

The reality is, I sit here and tell you, as interested as I was, as hardworking as I was, as well-connected as I was, I was well-connected because I had helped several Democrats run for office in Michigan. So I knew the infrastructure of the Democratic Party really well, even though I was only 31. So I really did know everybody. I had been a field director for Levin. I had been a top assistant to the attorney general, Frank Kelly. I had worked on the [Edmund] Muskie campaign. I knew the labor guys. I knew the wealthy contributors. And I knew people. I stayed in touch with everybody. I had a wonderful infrastructure. But I had never held office before.

Did you raise money yourself?

Yes. I raised $10,000 in small contributions.

How did you like doing that?

It was OK, because I had a guy named Ron Thayer, who is still a very close friend, who was a very well-liked fundraiser for the University of Detroit and for the Democratic Party. So he helped me. But I really didn’t enjoy raising money. But with Ron there, it was reasonable, because everybody liked Ron. And I was good at remembering everyone’s name. And I was considered kind of a fair-haired boy that would be the strongest. “If we could get Jim Blanchard nominated, he would be our strongest candidate. But [the] poor kid’s never held office before. So how is that going to happen?”

The point is, as much as I was really very well-prepared to run and win, and I ran probably the best campaign of my life, I could never do that today. I could never. There is no way, today, Jim Blanchard could get elected to Congress. I would have to be in some other local office first, and then get to know people, and then raise money. It would be very, very difficult to do that today because of the fact that at the national level, these districts are picked, they are targeted, and huge amounts of money go in there. The Republicans in that case would have said, whether they liked Robert Huber or not — the late Robert Huber was the guy I defeated, a multimillionaire — they want to hold on to that seat. They would say, “Bob, you are going to have to spend a couple of your millions, and we’ll put some more millions in.” Before the campaign was over, people would think that I was a practicing devil or something. I just couldn’t do that.

The other thing is this: I spent very little time raising money. I spent maybe 10 percent of my time trying to raise money and 90 percent of my time walking door to door. I walked for nine months, and shaking hands, and figuring out strategy, and talking to the press, standing in shopping centers and things. They were all targeted, by the way. I mean, when I went to a door, it was someone who we figured out was a likely voter. I was in Congress four terms now. I would spend maybe 20 percent of my time raising money in an election year. Today, these people, if they have a swing district, which is what I had, they are spending half of their time raising [money]. These poor senators, they get here and they are having fundraisers to kill off debt. Anyone in a contested district is spending huge amounts of time. They go to their office over here in Rayburn or wherever it is, Longworth or Cannon, and during election year especially, they are walking across the street to a separate office where it’s dialing for dollars. And they have booths set up where they are all calling. And if you call them back, by the way, you figure it out, because you get this “Operator 23.”

There is actually a boiler room up on the hill?

They must. Well, I haven’t looked there. I just know what they are doing, because you call back and you have to tell them which congressman called you. And then a staff person comes on. Again, all separate from their offices. I mean, they are wise enough and smart enough and honest enough to separate it from their offices. It’s illegal to solicit campaign contributions in the government buildings. But the fact is they spend huge amounts of time raising money.

I think in the money chase, the biggest downside isn’t just that people are preoccupied with money, and it breeds cynicism on the part of the public, a huge amount of cynicism. But it’s not that they change their opinions, although some do, clearly. It’s not that people who have given money have access, because they clearly do, although other people have access that don’t give the money. It is that they are spending all this time on that, rather than studying the issues, getting to know their colleagues, maybe going to a museum, spending some time with their family. The balance to the job is, I think, destroyed, because there is too much time raising money. And that is, to me, a bigger evil. I mean, one of the evils of spending is they don’t have as much time meeting with their staff, meeting with their colleagues, reading a good book, just getting a balance to the job. It’s terrible.

And then this presidential thing is so out of hand. I mean, I think if there is a way to prohibit fundraising for president or campaign spending for president until the year of the election, it would be a great thing for everybody.

All of us would save money. It would save all of these candidates the preoccupation to win the fundraising race. They can still run around the country giving speeches and trying to get free press. But at least it would be a balanced campaign. And everybody would start equally, or it would be more equal instead of what we have now.

But it’s going entirely in the other direction now, because this latest thing where candidates are not going to accept federal money for the general election if they get the nomination.

Right. And I have always supported public financing, both for Congress and clearly for president. I voted for it. I introduced the bills for it when I was in Congress. A lot of incumbents, as soon as they get there, decide they don’t like it. But I’ve always supported it. I thought the system that was set up for president was really good. Once George Bush said he wasn’t going to do it, it basically killed the process. And it was killed without anybody even expressing outrage. Once he did that, it was over. And these 527s, all of this stuff, I think it’s just a real tragedy. And I think we’re lucky.

The program was never bought by the public, because if they had that checkoff system, people wouldn’t give. And it started out it was financed by a $1 checkoff on the income tax. They raised it to $3, hoping they could provide enough money for a pool for the candidates. And nobody gives to it. So isn’t that a part of the problem, too, that the public is apathetic about it?

I haven’t analyzed all of that — I mean, I don’t know. All I know is that we have gone the other way. No one is going to end up accepting — well, maybe they will — public funding. In Michigan we had public funding for governor. It worked very, very well. It got broken in 2002. And I suppose, and you can analyze the Supreme Court case, but as long as the Supreme Court says money is speech, which I think is foolish, we have a problem.

I am not sure what to do. All I know is that it’s way out of hand and campaigns are too long. Most of the money goes to consultants, who ultimately run negative ads, and that breeds more cynicism and it takes more money. And I would say this: If you look at the candidates running for president right now, there is what, maybe 12 or 13 people running? I think the public is very lucky to have such talented people running. With a couple of exceptions, I think they are all highly qualified and could have the potential to be very good leaders.

Duncan Hunter would be happy to hear you say that.

Well, there are a couple here I don’t take as seriously. The point is that on both sides of the aisle, there are some very, very good candidates, a lot of them. And I think we are lucky that all of these people are willing to stick their neck out and run, given the ordeal they are going to go through, and the climate we live in, and the demands for fundraising. I think we are very lucky to have these people running. I know personally Chris Dodd, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, a little bit Mitt Romney, Chuck Hagel. I am just trying to go through the list. [Barack] Obama I have met. It’s a very fine list. I don’t know [Rudy] Giuliani personally, but I put him the category of a talented guy. We are lucky that they would do this.

But they won’t be doing it too long.

You would have to be a little crazy.

Isn’t it true that most of them are going to be dropping out even before we get to the election year?

And the reason will be the money primary. I doubt it will be their ideas, or their organization, or their record, or their résumé. I doubt that. It will be money. Or there will be some quick “I got you,” like the Biden thing [allegations of plagiarism from Biden’s 1988 presidential campaign], although I think he has survived that now. But nevertheless, those things happen. And they either are human mistakes, or quotes out of context, or wrong words juxtaposed. I’m not going to make excuses, because he said what he said. But you know, it’s “I got you” politics.

I am a believer in this country. And why wouldn’t I? I dreamed of being a congressman as a young kid. I was a congressman, governor, ambassador. I am still a man who believes in this system. I believe in this country. And I don’t think there are too many countries where I could do what I did here. But we are going to lose that, if we haven’t lost it [already].

Do you think a Jimmy Carter could happen again? You know, be as successful in an early caucus, which generated money for him and enabled him to keep going?

It’s possible. But it’s hard to be successful in an early caucus when you don’t have a lot of money. Obama, in a sense, looks a lot like Jimmy Carter in this current race as running relatively new and running as an outsider, and talking about changing the political landscape and political dialogue. It sounds very similar. But he’s attracted far more attention and has the potential to raise a lot more money. But it’s a bad situation. I talked about this, I might add, with my next-door neighbor, Doug Bailey, and Jerry Rafshoon, too. They are working on trying to help change politics as well.

What about the problem of proliferation of primaries and moving them up, frontloading the system? What could be done about that?

I think it’s crazy. Well, I think the parties have to sit down. I think they need to move them back and space them out. Let people have a chance to sift and sort and think about these candidates. Yeah, I don’t like it, either.

How could that happen?

They are all jumping in, like Michigan. We used to have a thing on St. Patrick’s Day. But by the time it got to Michigan — actually, we played a pretty key role for Clinton in ’92 — but generally speaking, for a lot of reasons, it ended up not mattering, because you had the early stuff like last time. That was for Kerry. And things worked out for us. It was just huge. We pulled an upset victory in Iowa, and that was it. The cards just went down. It’s just unbelievable. So I think the fundraising should start on January 1, 2008. The first primary ought to be made in March, then April, then May, and June. Maybe several primaries, I don’t know.

Well, that’s been proposed over and over again.

I’d like the idea of a couple of caucuses, where you get really good at retail politics before you go wholesale. Wholesale being where it’s more media, and retail more face to face. But I haven’t sat down and said, in my vocabulary, what’s the ideal system. I haven’t done that at all.

But there is no shortage of good ideas. The one you mentioned a minute ago about the spacing out the primaries, so many every month, that’s been around for quite a while. Nobody will pick up on it. And in fact, your own state, I think it was Carl Levin who was a force in trying to get an earlier primary for Michigan.

Yes. Right. Well, that’s because he felt that, and we all agreed, Iowa and New Hampshire are not necessarily representative of how you win the election, or how you govern your country, or all of the garden variety of issues. They mean something, though. Iowa and New Hampshire mean something. They are good at evaluating. But you don’t have any big manufacturing, you don’t have any substantial minorities, you don’t have a lot of the pressures and challenges of a place like Michigan, or Ohio, or Florida for that matter, or even California. Michigan is trying to move up because they feel that these early primaries are not representative. Michigan has decided that we are going to have a caucus. I still think we ought to have a primary, not a caucus.

What’s it going to have this time, a caucus?

Michigan is going to have a caucus February 9, a Saturday. But the party leaders have already decided, if a bunch of big states move their primary to the 5th, then Michigan is going to move its caucus to the 5th, so you are going to have like a national primary.

Well, Michigan used to have what’s called a firehouse primary.

Yeah, that’s what it is.

Is it still that?

It’s called a caucus, but it’s really a firehouse primary.

You just go in and vote, and there is some kind of public building.

They have wooden ballot boxes in a bunch of places. They used to try to keep it down so they could control it. But the last time we had 160,000 people go to regular city halls and places where they knew where they were. 

Have you ever had anybody, either as a candidate yourself or when you were working for somebody else, ask for something in exchange for a contribution?

No, I have not. But I have had my fundraisers. But my top fundraiser, Ron Thayer, who worked with me and still works with me since 1974, my first campaign, has had people come to him with checks and say: “I want to be a judge. I need to have Jim do this.” And Ron will say: “I have to give you the money back. I’ll make a note of what you want. But I’ve got to give you your money back. We can’t do that.” Ron, who is a devout practicing Catholic, feels guilty when you look at him. We always used to joke and say, “He’s turning more money back than some candidates have raised.”

And the biggest, I think, was when I was governor and you appoint judges. And there is no even advise and consent. It’s just you appoint them. I had to appoint 160 judges. And anytime anyone hinted to him when they were either raising money or contributing with somebody in mind, or they want to be able to turn back and say, “You’ll be on Jim’s list to be considered,” [he said], “We cannot.” But I don’t know that all of these candidates have people like that.

Sometimes Ron would shield me from people. And we always separated our fundraising and politics from government. And so, for example, neither Ron nor I, nor anyone close to me, ever had a hand in talking about contracts with the state. A little different in Congress, because what are you going to do? I guess you could sponsor a bill or something. We kept it all separate. And I don’t think that’s the case in a lot of states.

But the connections between money and conduct are way too close. And what’s happened here in Congress is a good example, where they abolished gifts initially of over $50. And now it’s zero in terms of lunch or dinner. But if you give them a $1,000 campaign contribution, you can have dinner. But if you don’t, you can’t. So that means that you have to give someone a campaign check to have lunch or dinner with them. Isn’t that the way the rules work now? Have you looked into that?

I don’t know.

I think that’s the way the rules work now, that you can’t take a member of Congress to lunch or dinner, period. It’s not just more than $50 a dinner, which it used to be. You can’t take them to dinner or lunch. You can’t buy them dinner or lunch. You can’t take them to the [Detroit] Tigers ball game. They have to pay their own [way]. You can go with them; you have pay your own way. But if you say, “This is a fundraiser and here is a check,” you can do it. So the new rules and laws are more tightly drawing the noose around money and access.

You know, when I was in Congress or governor, just to give you an example, people who raised money for me and contributed money to me got access. Absolutely. But so did a lot of other people. People who circulated petitions for me did. Or somebody who coordinated people who circulated petitions, mayors, school board members, prominent people, labor leaders, lots of people had access to me. It wasn’t just contributors. So I think the notion of that’s all is not fair to members of Congress, or governors, or anybody else. But to say that we don’t think about giving them access if they are a major fundraiser would be dishonest. But the bottom line is, wise public service makes sure a lot of people have access, including journalists, students, and everybody else. So that’s the way it ought to work. But if your are spending all of your time raising money, or a lot more time than you should be, or you can’t have lunch with anyone unless it’s fundraising, that makes it much worse. Double-check that rule, though, I don’t want to be misquoted on that. I think that’s what it is now. It’s just not there.

Since you left elected office, have you functioned yourself as a fundraiser for other candidates?

Oh, sure. Yeah.

The last presidential campaign, for instance?

Yeah, absolutely. I don’t really raise anything here in town. I have a business here. I do a little bit of lobbying; I don’t do a lot of lobbying, but a little bit. I am one of the managing partners here at the firm; I oversee government relations. We have 100 people and we do a lot of things. We have a PAC [political action committee] and we do a lot fundraising. My fundraising, personally, is I contribute, myself, to people I like. My problem is [that] I know all of these people. I have known them for years. It’s hard to say no because they are good people. But I raise money in Michigan. That’s where I raise my money. I don’t do it here in town.

Do you actually go out? Did you make phone calls for people on behalf of Kerry, for instance, in 2004?

Absolutely. I was the first major supporter of his in Michigan. And I raised some money for him. And then once he won Iowa, it was a lot easier. But the people I raise from, it’s different from most Washington lawyers. The people I raised from are people who are really into politics. They are political people; they love this stuff. They are not asking for anything. They are not my clients. They are not lobbying. They are people like my friend Barry Howard, who is here today. He is a former judge I appointed and now practices law. I got him involved helping raise money for Hillary [Clinton]. And he’s just a real political junkie. He’s going down to Mount Vernon today with my wife. He went to a dinner at Hillary’s last night. He got involved, through me, when I ran for Congress in 1974. He met Vernon Jordan last night, and Hillary. He’s in seventh heaven. But there is nothing he wants from anybody. He’s just happy to be part of the process and support someone he believes in.

I am raising [money] for Hillary now in Michigan. Before that it was Kerry. Clearly, I had the first fundraiser for Bill Clinton in ’92. Do I spend a lot of time on that? More than I would like. But I do have a day job. But we have had stuff at our house. We have a network of people. But they are not going to give to somebody they don’t like. They just won’t do it. And I can’t remember — other than maybe once in a while somebody wants their daughter to be considered to be an intern or something — anybody asking from me anything. It’s basically they want to be remembered. They want a good photograph. They want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. And they would agree with what I am saying about all of the money.

Do you qualify yourself as a bundler?

I think that depends on how The Washington Post would define it. I don’t know how they would define it.

Well, a bundler is somebody who pulls together big chunks of money. No particular number on it.

Yeah. I don’t view myself as a bundler because I am not a full-time lobbyist. And I don’t raise my money in Washington. I view myself as a former governor, former ambassador, former member of Congress, who has been involved in Michigan for over 30 years. And I raise money for candidates. But my major contribution is generally strategic and organizational. And in Kerry’s case, the first major endorsement he had was me. And then he finally got the governor’s husband. But my value, usually, is more political in Michigan than it is fundraising. So I don’t view myself as a bundler. But do I bundle? I guess you could say I do. But I am not a good bundler. I am more of a senior adviser to campaigns in Michigan, and I work with everybody.

Last weekend I was at the Democratic convention with my wife. We are there usually weekends going to the Democratic State Convention. We wore Hillary buttons and badges. We stood around signing people up. I spoke at caucuses in favor of Hillary. I didn’t ask a single person for money. So what was my value in Michigan? It was giving speeches, talking to UAW [United Auto Workers] leaders, talking to Black Caucus, talking to Sandy Levin’s district caucus, which overlaps with mine. It was political. It was public relations, doing interviews for Hillary. There wasn’t any fundraising that went on last weekend on Hillary’s behalf by me. On the other hand, today we are going to have a finance committee call to talk about fundraising in Michigan. And I helped recruit a finance committee for Hillary. Those people, frankly, will do more than I will. That’s why I want them to have a direct relationship with her, not just through me. I help them. I help her by her getting to know my network and not trying to control and be a gatekeeper.

I don’t want to be known as a bundler, because then all of the candidates will come to me. I am more of a believer in the system. And I wish we didn’t have to be raising now.

Do you think money inevitably leads to negative campaigning?

It does today. Yes, because you have all of this money, and so some of it’s going to be positive and a lot of it will be negative. And the consultants will believe — and the candidates begin to believe — [that] negative works. And the other thing is, the public and the press loves a good fight. No matter what they say, they love a good fight. And a good fight is people saying nasty things about each other. And the major networks are so addicted to the cash, it’s worse than the crack cocaine on some poor down-and-out person. They are addicted to the money. They cannot do without it. They will not pull an ad, even when it’s rather clear it’s false. And they will not do it. They will say: “You are going to have to refute it. You are going to have to buy time.”

So the talking heads on Sunday, most of whom I admire, will eschew and criticize all of this spending. But the networks that pay them are addicted to negative advertising and campaign cash. They cannot do without it. In fact, the only way that you’ll ever have public financing on elections and free media is for us to pay the networks that money they would have made so they will stand still for regulation. You could never get them to give free media, even though those are public airways and belong to the public and should be reasonably regulated in the public interest. There is no way they will ever stand still for anything that would mimic the money they spend on TV unless you just said, “All right, you got $300 million last year at XYZ network. We’ll give you that, but you have got to give these guys free airtime.” I don’t know any other way.

So it’s television, it’s consultants, it’s the public loves a good fight, it’s the networks addicted to the cash. In Canada, of course, it’s a different system. It’s parliamentary. They drop the writ. There is a six-week campaign. It’s publicly funded. If you don’t have a certain amount of vote, you have to refund the money. There are other ways to spend money, but it’s pretty subdued and very clear.

I never understood why, if the airways are free and the government can regulate it, why can’t they regulate in a tighter and more effective way?

It’s a good question. You would think the newspapers would be strongly behind such a move, because it would allow them to have greater impact. Because, generally speaking, in my opinion — although Michigan’s newspapers have dwindled up to nothing — historically, newspapers set the agenda. I could go to a political event Thursday night when I was governor, and there would always be three or four TV cameras to see me, even if it was just Lansing television. And what they would ask me would be what is in the Detroit Free Press that morning, or The Detroit News, or the [Lansing] State Journal. So the reporters used to bemoan the fact that we didn’t have influence. I said, “Wait a minute.” These people read that, because there is some context and history. So the Free Press still has influence. But I think with conglomerates and stuff, they are probably part of the system. I mean, Newsweek owns Channel 4 in Detroit. I am just trying to think. Newsweek, Washington Post, what else? Probably other stations are diversified, right?

They had to switch Detroit News and the Free Press. And the Post had to switch stations because of that.

Right.

But I don’t know whether that’s such a firm requirement anymore. I think you can own multiple stations now.

I don’t know. The system is broken. The candidates are better than this system.

What about the impact of the Internet?

That’s still emerging. I don’t know what to say.

Emerging pretty fast.

It sure is. My concern with the Internet is you can say things about people and they can be spread, and there is even less accountability for what is said. I just haven’t had enough experience with it. I use it.

Would you go into politics again if what is going on now was going on when you first entered politics?

Oh, probably. I mean, I am a history buff. I am an activist. But I don’t know that I would have been as successful. I would like to think I would be. But I already told you at the outset: I don’t think I could do today what I did in 1974. And I think there are a lot of people like that. We’d all like to think we’ll succeed no matter what system. But I’d certainly be involved, that’s for sure. Would I have even been allowed to run? I don’t know.

Do you think it’s true, as some people suggest, that the best people don’t run anymore? I’m talking about for president.

Oh, I don’t know.

Don’t run because of both the need to raise money and making yourself a target.

I am sure that’s true with some, absolutely. I think there are probably many good people who won’t run because they don’t want to go through the ordeal. Or they are worried that something they did when they were a teenager or young person that would be embarrassing — a drunk-driving charge, an incident at school, or something — would come out. I think there are corporate leaders in particular who can serve effectively. But probably somebody will make a mountain out of a molehill on something that happened. You have to be willing to get bruised pretty badly and get back up. A lot of people are just very fragile, so public life is not for them. But I am sure the system deters people. But I think it’s as much the negative campaigning as the money. Nowadays, with the Internet and around-the-clock news, an incident like George Allen had — and I am not going to sympathize with him, because he was not only wrong but cruel — that was it, boom. So foolish remarks, off-hand remarks that used to be written somewhere and forgotten are fatal.

Well, the Internet, particularly, picks up on that stuff. And anybody can do it. You don’t have to be a professional journalist to put anything out there that you want.

The Internet allows a lot of people to participate who wouldn’t. So there is good and bad. 

Well, let me just ask you this: How do you feel about the use of independent expenditures on the campaign? Do you know what I mean by that? Where a group goes off and they don’t . . .

Yeah. I don’t like it. I tend to think that it’s generally used for attack campaigns. So I am not a big fan of it. But again, you get into the free-speech stuff. And I guess I don’t have a problem with independent expenditures on an issue. But it’s when they go through this whole thing and then say, “Call Governor Blanchard and ask him to stop the cruel murder of little babies,” that part — I mean, it’s one thing to advocate different things: legislation, regulations, make your case. I don’t have a problem with that. When clearly the effect is to attack the candidate or promote a candidate, it bothers me. But just in terms of the issue stuff.

Some campaign managers have said to me, “We lose control of our own campaign when you have those things.” They go off and do something that maybe the campaign doesn’t want to be done.

Well, I am sure that’s true. See, I haven’t had a lot of that done during my time. But I’m sure that’s true. On the other hand, they like a lot of it, too. They can disassociate themselves from it, because they haven’t had any contact with it.

Do you think the public really cares about how much money the candidates spend? Do you think that’s something that bothers them? 

No, it wouldn’t. The public says they don’t like negative advertising, but the pollsters and the candidates say it works. I can’t imagine that if you asked people 10 issues, I don’t know where that would rank. It would be interesting to see. You don’t see it come up in an unprompted response: What’s the most important issue? You get Iraq, and jobs, and the environment, health care, scandal, or whatever. You don’t get that. But it’s related to political scandal. I don’t know. If you ask people directly, they would probably say too much money is spent and campaigns are too negative. But I don’t think it would be one of the top five or six issues they think the government should deal with. 

Do you think public disclosure is something that people care about?

Yes.

I wonder how many people actually try to find out who is contributing to which candidates.

Well, today on the Internet you can find out a lot. And reporters write stories. So that part I think is good. That’s probably something that improved over 1972. The campaign finance, out-in-the-open stuff, started happening in ’74, really, including disclosing one’s assets as a member of Congress. That first started in about 1974. So I think disclosure is good. And I think that has been an improvement.

Do you think you’ll ever run for office again?

It’s highly unlikely. But if I did, I would want to be sure I was the candidate with the most money. But I am helping others run, and it’s true: I want them to have the most money.