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Patricia Schroeder

Patricia Schroeder, a Democrat, was a U.S. representative from Colorado from 1973 to 1997. She mounted an exploratory campaign for the 1988 presidential election, but withdrew due to lack of funds. Schroeder is now the president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Publishers.

Josh Israel interviewed Schroeder on February 21, 2008.

Congresswoman, as a bit of background, you served 24 years in Congress?

That’s right, from 1973 to 1997.

What would you say, just very briefly, were your most significant accomplishments in that time?

Well, I usually end up saying my marriage was still intact, none of my children were in jail, and I wasn’t indicted. I did an awful lot of work on whistle-blower protection, on work and family issues, family medical leave, women’s issues, and trying to dent the Pentagon and break through all of that. I must say no one has ever accomplished that. I gave it a good shot, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.

Shortly before the 1988 presidential campaign, you jumped in as an exploratory committee candidate. Looking at the biography on your website now, it says you withdrew for lack of funds despite ranking third in a Time magazine poll. Can you talk a bit about that experience?

Sure. I had started out actually as Gary Hart’s campaign manager. He was from Colorado; we were very excited. In 1984, if you remember, he would have won but for superdelegates. It kind of sounds like deja vu all over again, doesn’t it? So he reannounces in 1988. I cleared my calendar to help him, and along comes someone named Donna Rice. So the whole world turned upside down. I decided to then say, “Well, maybe I should get in, if he got out.” One of my more rash moments, but that’s what I did.

That’s how I spent my summer vacation. There were then seven candidates in the race already. You’re a) getting in late, and b) they don’t give you a discount for getting in late. So we were trying to raise money and move as fast as we can. But the reality set in that at the end of the day was not going to be able to raise the kind of funds that I really needed to be competitive, and that basically America just wasn’t ready for a woman. No matter what you say, you just couldn’t make the math work. I could come out top in all sorts of intelligence, or knows about this, that or the other thing, or trust. There isn’t enough people who said that it wasn’t going to work. So, that was the long and the short of it.

Now, looking at the news reports from the time, I get the sense that you raised somewhere in the vicinity of $800,000 to a $1 million.

Right, can you imagine?

And, in those days, $20 [million] to $30 million was all it took to win the nomination, which seems pretty cheap now.

Yeah, doesn’t it though? They now spend that I guess in the congressional races.

It’s true. Some of the candidates that got no traction this time raised more than that.

Oh, I know. It’s unbelievable. [Rudy] Giuliani and his $60 million with one delegate. That’s the most expensive delegate I think in the history of the presidential races. What I found was we had lots and lots of small donors. That was wonderful. This was pre-Internet, so it was much harder, obviously, to raise it from small donors. We had to do, literally, parties and things to get those. The big donors that traditionally backed the high rollers, that backed the Democratic candidates, would all be very sympathetic. “Oh, it’s wonderful, we really like you. We love your position on issues and everything else. But we want to go with a winner. We want to be ambassador to the Court of St. James or something.” So they weren’t standing in line saying, “This is great; sign me up.”

And the money that you did raise, it was house parties, direct mail?

Absolutely, house parties and direct mail. So lots and lots of small donors, which is the Jeffersonian way. It’s the way that would have been terrific for everybody to follow. It just was very clear that wasn’t going to get us there.

EMILY’s List was sort of in its infancy at that time.

And they really weren’t interested. They were into the House and Senate, they said. Again, they were [thinking], “We want to play where we’re going to win and we don’t think we’re going to win here.” So they weren’t interested in making an investment in it.

How difficult was it at that point, specifically, for a woman to raise money?

Well, EMILY’s List was beginning to be a big help, obviously, I think for new women running for the House and Senate; there’s no question about that. For a woman just running for the presidency, there was obviously no one. Again, the high rollers want something usually. They aren’t just going to give it to you because they think you’re nice or they believe in good government. That’s always the little myth that we have around here, that folks give you money because they believe in good government and like you. Well, no.

You mean even with all these committees called the “good government committee for . . .”?

Yeah. Somehow, it still doesn’t work out that way. I don’t want to burst your bubble, but, damn, that’s how it is.

What was the difference in your experience between trying to raise money for a presidential run and raising money for a House run?

Well, for the House run, it was still very hard. My average campaign contribution when I was elected was $7.50.

Wow.

I know, but I liked that formula. When I left, my average campaign contribution was I think $32 or $35. So, we always tried to keep it lots of small donors in the district. I always figure any time anybody gave you five bucks, they were going to vote for you and they probably had some friends to vote for you. You could save a lot more money raising the money in your district, rather than raising it outside your district. If you raise it outside your district, all you can do is spend a lot of money on media, trying to sell yourself to people in your district. So, that was always how we ran it.

Now, we didn’t have an option when I first ran. Nobody would endorse me. I mean the AFL-CIO went crazy, wouldn’t have any part of it, even though I had been an NLRB [National Labor Relations Board] lawyer. I came back to see the DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] and they wouldn’t even see me. They were like: “You won the primary? Oh, that’s a lost seat, forget it.” So, there was clearly no money coming out of here at all. So we were forced into the coffees and teas and so forth and so on. But after doing it I thought, you know, this is really the way to do it. It’s exhausting, but everything is also a campaign event.

And that’s probably harder to do nationally.

Oh, it’s impossible to do nationally. Although, we did “Run Pat Run” parties all over the country. And that’s how we raised most of our money. We asked people to have a party in their home and have a video. I suppose now you’d have a DVD. I think nationally now it’s a whole lot easier, to be honest, because you’ve got the Internet, which we didn’t have. A mass mailing is much more costly and involves things on the Internet. So, websites and Internet, that should bring a huge reform, I would hope, to financing these campaigns.

It seems that a lot more individual small donors are giving now, just because it’s a lot easier to push a button than write a check and mail it.

Yeah, absolutely. That, to me, is real progress. We had to do it the hard way. As I said, there was no EMILY’s List. There was nothing like that around in 1973.

Now, once you decided not to run, Senator Hart did get back in, didn’t he?

No.

Sort of a brief shoestring campaign?

Well, he thought about running, I think, another time, but not that year.

And then come 1992, did you consider running again?

Nope.

Once was enough for you?

Yes. I totally believed that a woman just couldn’t make it. I was one of the ones who in 1984, when Geri Ferraro was on the ticket, thought: “This is great. What a huge break for women. We’ll never have the same kind of tickets again. We’re always going to have this diversity,” and so forth and so on. Man, was I wrong. We haven’t had it since. Instead of it being a whole new breakthrough, it turned out to be a blip. We thought we had won a revolution and instead it was like a beachhead that got washed away. So as a consequence, I just kind of said, you know what? Been there, done that. Try it on someone else who wants to get out there, but no.

That’s sort of a good segue to 2008 where it does seem there’s a little bit more diversity in the race. Senator [Hillary] Clinton, who I gather you’ve endorsed?

Absolutely.

She’s smashed fundraising records and I think through the end of 2007 was something in the vicinity of $115 million raised, which even by today’s standards, is pretty impressive.

It’s awfully impressive. It’s awesome.

What’s changed?

Well, of course, that was very helpful because she had quite a Rolodex list left over from her spouse. She also was a senator from one of the wealthiest states in the nation. There’s a big difference between Colorado and New York and the resources they can tap. They’re both a national brand, really. People know them. The more amazing thing to me has been the pick-up on [Barack] Obama. Obviously Illinois is a wealthy state and he got some money from there, but the Internet seems to be just booming for him, although I guess it’s also booming for her. It’s been quite interesting to see how many people have kicked-in that way.

Obviously in some ways she’s sort of a special case, but she is a woman. What sort of challenges do you think even she faces because of that?

I think the media has been amazingly behind Obama. Now, there are several professional groups that have come out and said that very clearly. Think about it. Most of these races, this thing has been a virtual tie for a long time. Yet, if you read the media, he’s winning. It’s this huge tsunami coming 100 miles an hour. It’s this, “oh my God there are 18,000 people.” The paper today is filled with how she gave a speech for like three minutes and then they pull it off and put him on for 45.

I do think she’s had a real uphill battle that way. Just the commentators, she’s had a lot more negative stuff. “She’s too cold. If she laughs, she cackles.” It’s really amazing. There was a very profound story in The Boston Globe yesterday about gender versus racial bias. Lots of scholars who’ve studied it said the gender bias is much, much harder to crack. I think we’re seeing we’re not there yet as we watch all of this unfold. It seems like nothing they can do is right. I keep thinking about when Elizabeth Dole was running. Her husband was nowhere and was sending checks to John McCain and he was doing Viagra ads on TV and people didn’t say much about that. If Bill Clinton hadn’t been trying to help her, they’d say, “See, it really isn’t a good marriage.” He tries to help her and it’s like, “What is he doing?” You really do kind of feel for them because there’s just no way they win.

Do you think this makes it easier for future women to run for president?

No, no.

Harder?

I think this makes it really harder. I think anybody’s going to look at this and think: “My gosh, she had all these resources and look what happened. She couldn’t make it.”

Assuming of course that she doesn’t.

Yeah, assuming that she doesn’t. If she doesn’t make it, I think there’s going to be an awful lot of women just feeling like, “Oh, we’re a long way from where we want to be.”

One of the things in the news the last week has been sort of the federal funds controversy. I gather your campaign qualified for matching funds?

We were going to. We never put in for it. We didn’t get that far along. We were working on it because I really think it’s wonderful and I wish everybody would use it. It’s brilliant. That was a Mo Udall genius thing.

We’ve seen [that] everyone doesn’t seem to be able to figure out how to deal with this system. Senator McCain opted out for the primary after sort of saying he would do it. Senator Obama said that he might opt out for the general. Senator McCain’s attacking him for that. Senator Clinton is attacking him for that. It doesn’t seem like anyone’s going to take it for the primary or the general that’s still in.

It’s very sad. It’s because they don’t want to be limited.

Is there any way to fix the system?

Oh, yeah, of course there is. I always want to debate that. Say in front of the Supreme Court, I can’t believe the Supreme Court’s stupid decision. The Supreme Court gives you 10 minutes to debate something or 15 minutes to debate something. So, if you got done with your 10 minutes and you pulled out your wallet and said, “You know I want to buy some more time, my free speech has been interfered with, I need more time,” they would have been absolutely horrified, right?

Yeah.

And that’s exactly what they’ve done [and] allowed to happen with the entire political thing. You can always buy more time if you’ve got the money. So, if you don’t have the money, you probably better stay out of it. I see why people don’t want to have these limits put on them, because the guy he’s running against has limits, then away you go.

Now, I think, you’ve got to think some way — and I’m not a good enough constitutional lawyer to figure it out — to revisit that case and find some way we get some kind of limits on this. I think the 527s are just as bad. Suddenly, the candidate is really not in control of the message anymore. People can come in and make all these comments for you or about your opponent. The average person thinks that you are controlling that. You would think so; it’s your campaign. So it’s really gotten to be really nuts and the money swirling around out there is just beyond belief.

Do you think money buys access or influence in Washington?

Oh please, of course. People wake up in the morning and they have a number in their head, if they’re a senator or a congressman. It’s what their campaign tells them they have to raise that day. If they don’t raise it that day, then they’ve got to raise twice as much the next day. So, think about that. That number drives everything that they do. They sit in these little cubicles and dial for dollars. To think that that doesn’t affect policy is just crazy. Of course it affects policy.

When you were in Congress, did people ever come up to you and say, “I’ll give you a donation if you do ‘X,’” or was it more subtle?

No, they never did that to me. No one ever trusted me with any of that stuff. Are you kidding? I was on armed services, and of course voted against I think anything any military industrial complex guy ever wanted. I wasn’t going to get a dime from them. You really understand how this begins to work. I would be in markups where they talk about how many F-15s we are going to get. And they’d say, “Well how many tickets did they buy to your fundraiser?” I was so innocent and naïve. I thought it was on the threat levels, what you needed. But it more was their threat level, what they needed.

Well, with the small donors being such a part of the presidential campaign, not just on the Democratic side, but we were saying with Ron Paul’s campaign, the Republican side, do you think with so much money it makes special interest money sort of diluted as far as its influence?

I hope so. I really hope. I would like to see reforms, like you can only take money from people in the state that you’re running from and so forth and so on. I really think if we could get some of this big money out of it, it would be very helpful. The Washington fundraiser thing just never ends here. I’ve been on both sides of the cause and I don’t know which is worse. But now they’re up to, you know, bring $5,000. Are you crazy? Yet, when you figure out how many millions they’re raising, even to run in a congressional race, that’s not much. And somehow we just have to crank all this down again, I think. There’s just too much money out there floating around. Basically the ones who make all the money off it are the TV stations, if we can be really honest.

They certainly don’t seem to be going without food or drink.

No, no, they love this because they can charge maximum amount for everything, and they do.

Obviously there’s some financial interests in play, but why do you think Congress hasn’t done a better job of requiring the minimum unit? You know what I’m talking about — the unit rule that makes TV ads available at the cheapest rate and time.

I don’t know. Part of it is they get there under the system that’s in place. They worry that if you change the rules, they may be more vulnerable. More people will be able to challenge. If you look at Congress, basically what’s happened with reapportionment and everything, almost everyone there has a totally safe district. So the real question is, why do they need any money at all? How many have even had a race? Yet, every year, they’re raising more and more money for races that aren’t really races, and using the money for all sorts of other things actually. I guess change is just very frightening to a lot of people; they don’t want change.

One last question sort of off of that topic. What do you think — in the short term, in the long term — will be happening with the campaign finance system? We saw McCain-Feingold. Some of it’s been more effective than other parts obviously. Is that sort of what we’re stuck with?

No, the real issue is whether the American public ever gets very angry about this. Common Cause and others have been working on this for years trying to get people to care and to understand and to connect the dots. It just hasn’t happened. People say they’re worried about it, but they’re worried about it for two seconds and then they don’t think about it again. So it’s just not a deal breaker; it’s not something people vote on. I keep hoping. The saying in the cloakroom is: “There go the people. We have to get in front of them because we’re their leaders.” So, you know, when the people decide they’ve had enough of this stuff, then I think it’s going to be OK, but not until then.

And will that be some sort of public financing?

I would hope it would be more like the matching stuff. I really think what’s in the whole arena for the presidency, which none of them use of course, but I think that that really makes a lot of sense. That you’re raising money in the districts you’re trying to represent and it has to be small pieces of money, then you get some kind of a matching on it. Then you really push people very hard to do the check-off box.

The $3 that almost no one clicks anymore.

Almost no one clicks anymore. You’re going to have to run a real campaign as to how important that is.

And you think there’s some hope that we’ll see this in the near future if things continue the way they are?

I would hope so. I can’t promise you anything. I’ve been waiting for a long time. It’s like Cinderella waiting for the prince. People just have never really quite risen up and said: “Stop. We want this thing cleaned up.” Maybe they will.

The prince came to Cinderella eventually.

Eventually. Let’s hope. Let’s hope.