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Russell Verney

Russell Verney was a top adviser in Ross Perot’s 1992 presidential campaign, manager of his 1996 run, and the founding chairman of his Reform Party. Prior, he was the executive director of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and a 1982 congressional candidate. More recently, he was the southwestern regional director of Judicial Watch, a conservative government-watchdog organization.

John W. Mashek interviewed Verney on August 16, 2007.

We’re interviewing Russell Verney in Dallas, Texas. Russell has a long political past. Primarily, he was a principal adviser to Ross Perot in 1992, and then his main adviser in 1996. Russ, when you were executive director of the Democratic Party up in New Hampshire, did you raise money for legislative or congressional candidates? Or was that done individually by them?

The candidates raised their own money for their campaigns. The political parties do raise money for what are called coordinated campaigns, and we did that in New Hampshire. Under a coordinated campaign, you put out literature and mailings on behalf of all of the party candidates for major office or state.

In a state like New Hampshire — a lot of people aren’t familiar with the size of the legislature — I would assume, when you were there, that there wasn’t — and maybe even today — a considerable amount of money needed by incumbents or challengers. Or maybe I am wrong there. Does that increase, too, in your judgment?

In the New Hampshire House of Representatives, where there are 400 members, it’s the third-largest parliamentary body in the English-speaking world. You can run for elective office with very little money for the state House of Representatives, because door-to-door personal campaigning will substitute for media campaigns.

When you get to the congressional races, the U.S. Senate races, [and] governor, then you have to have money. Not nearly as much money as a major state like New York or Florida or Texas, but you are talking about a $400,000 to $500,000 congressional race or a million dollar Senate race.

Or more, probably?

Yeah.

Like in this next race, I assume because he is on the target list, that [Senator John E.] Sununu, and whether former Governor [Jeanne Shaheen] runs or not, that will be a high-expense race, won’t it?

Occasionally there are very expensive races in New Hampshire, and the seat that Sununu is holding is going to be one of those hotly contested ones. But again, the media markets are not as expensive as, say, New York or Philadelphia or Florida, the type of state where you have multiple media markets you [must] advertise in. So we are still talking in the million-dollar to $2 million or $3 million at most.

And even though you have been gone from New Hampshire for a period, I know you do follow and know something about it. Are you surprised at all by the amount of money that’s being spent both in New Hampshire and in Iowa in this campaign cycle by candidates from both parties?

The amount of money devoted to New Hampshire and Iowa is not out of the ordinary. What is out of the ordinary is all of the states that will follow immediately after New Hampshire and Iowa causing the candidates, essentially, to have to run a national primary. The history of New Hampshire and Iowa was that somebody like Jimmy Carter could come and spend two years sleeping in people’s living rooms, campaigning the state without any money, have success in the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary, and then raise money to compete in all the later states. You can’t do that anymore. You now have to have all the money in hand to run a, essentially, national primary by the time New Hampshire and Iowa occur.

Are you surprised that — again, playing on your past knowledge on the state — in this last election New Hampshire both at the legislative level, and, I guess, [Governor John] Lynch now, has turned from what I would call almost certain “R” to “D” and giving the Democrats big cause for joy up there. Is that probably going to be a temporary thing? Or is it going to be longer than that?

New Hampshire voters are very independent. And they are not right-wing or left-wing voters, neither the Democratic or Republican parties up there, with a huge independent vote. So it can fluctuate between Republicans and Democrats very easily. We have had Democratic senators when all other offices were going Republican in the state, so a split-ticket vote in New Hampshire is extremely common. If the Democrats perform, and that’s going to be more important than party affiliation, they will be able to maintain a hold of the offices in this state.

Then moving over to the campaign that you joined with Ross Perot, what drew you into the campaign? Were you disillusioned with the Democrats and the Republicans? Or was it Perot himself? That would be interesting to know why a man who has had that past was drawn into the Perot independent candidacy.

I was first asked to go down and assist the Perot campaign by an organization out of Washington, Aristotle Industries, which was a vendor of software to the campaign. I was asked to go down by capacity of having knowledge of compliance with the Federal Election Commission regulations, to oversee their financial reconstruction of the Perot campaign, of everything that occurred from when Ross said on television, “If you put me on the ballot, I’ll run,” until he got out of the race in July. There was no central control over any of that. It had to be reconstructed from receipts state by state, city by city.

So my first introduction to the campaign was on a professional basis when he was not in the campaign. The distinction I discovered after arriving at the Perot campaign was that everyone associated with the campaign — volunteers, activists, supporters, and staff — were there to give something. And my history with politics was, every meeting, every event they ever went to, people were there to get something: get a contract, get a connection, get an appointment, everybody was in it to get something. And here people were simply showing up to give something to make their country better. It was shocking to me, and just became addictive to become associated with people who wanted to do what was right instead of what was of personal benefit.

Well Russ, you also, in your past, have been an air controller. Were you there when [Secretary of Transportation] Drew Lewis and [Ronald] Reagan fired the air controllers?

I spent approximately 10 years, 8 months, and 4 days as an air traffic controller before being fired by President Ronald Reagan from the Rose Garden. Yes, I was an air traffic controller during the strike of ’81 and very active in the organization PATCO, Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization.

Well, I have to ask you this, because you have been there and you were active. Did that action, taken by a Republican administration, prove to be another disenchantment as far as party politics was involved?

No, not especially. I didn’t view it as Republican or Democrat that they fired us. I viewed it as opportunism and profit for the aviation industry. The firing, though, did open the way for me to enter into politics, because up until that point, I was prohibited, under the Hatch Act, from being active in partisan politics. And after the strike of ’81, I actually ran for Congress in a Democratic primary in ’82, and then went to work in the New Hampshire legislature and started consulting to campaigns. In fact, I ran the campaign of a state legislator who ran against Senator Sununu’s father John [H.] Sununu for reelection for governor in 1984.

Right. I am trying to recall here now. When you were raising the money, and there wasn’t any huge amount up in New Hampshire, I assume because it’s so expensive, that wasn’t done by direct mail. It was done more by word of mouth; the candidate would call supporters, or one of his good friends would get on the phone and raise money, because there weren’t large sums like it is today.

The candidates can raise their own money, and a lot of that was done by direct mail. But the party, when we raised money, we did some direct mail. But we did a lot of host-sponsored events where a leader within a community would hold an event at their home or at a function hall, and people would pay for the opportunity to come to the dinner and hear a keynote speaker. And they would be fundraisers. The largest for the party every year is the 100 Club, which is an event where all of the prospective presidential nominees for the next cycle show up. So the presidential primary cycle begins in New Hampshire and Iowa the day after the general election ends.

Let’s move up to ’92 now. Much has been written about how much Perot put into that campaign — some figures are probably way off — of his own money. Most of the time that figure was usually mentioned at around $50 million. And I assume that included the prime time on the infomercials. Is that figure about right? Or does anybody really know?

The amount, I am sorry, I am a little fuzzy on it. It was either $62 million or $68 million. I can’t recall. I think $68 million is what he put into the ’92 campaign.

Was that all his, too? I mean did he take in any outside money?

There were individual contributions, and a lot of it was done at the state level. For instance, when I came down in September ’92 to reconstruct what had gone on, they were looking for bank accounts in every state. They found like in Florida there were 24 bank accounts associated with the name Perot that the campaign had no knowledge of, that people were raising money into and spending at the local level, and those all had to be reported. So out of that $68 million there is some that are contributions. But it wasn’t a significant amount.

Russ, can you remember in the infomercial, he didn’t have us in the press to filter out what he was saying. And it certainly captured a lot of people’s fancy. But 30 minutes of prime time on one of the networks, even back in ’92, that had to be very expensive.

Actually, it wasn’t. It was extraordinarily inexpensive. And when you consider the price per contact, which candidates and campaigns look at how many people are watching their commercial at any one time, it was probably the most cost-effective advertising that’s ever been done in politics. The infomercials were in the range of $500,000.

Oh, that’s interesting. I would have thought about $1 million.

No, there were probably some that were cheaper than $500,000 and some that were a little more expensive. But the average price would be around $500,000 for 30 minutes of national network time. And they had huge audiences. So your cost per viewer was extraordinarily small.

Well, in 1992, as both of us know, he was a very prominent player for a while. And various polls were taken that he was sometimes even first down to third, but certainly competitive with both [George H. W.] Bush and with [Bill] Clinton. What happened?

Well, in July ’92, Ross suspended his activities. He had never announced his candidacy, but he suspended his activities at that time. And he got back in on the first of October. And having sat out for that long period of time, he went from leading in the polls in July to down around 5 percent, 6 percent or 7 percent in the polls, because he was not an active participant. When he did get back in, though, his appearance in the news reporting and the advertising that he did and his participation in the debates brought him back up into a range where he was starting to compete again.

So yeah, he picked up; on that analogy, he went from 6 back up to 19 on Election Day.

Right.

And many of us — and we could probably have this all wrong in the press — were stunned when he suspended, particularly for at least one of the reasons about the sabotaging of his daughter’s [wedding] and blaming the Bush campaign. Well, of course, we all know now about campaign tactics on both sides, and what seemed to be just absolutely ludicrous at the time makes a lot of people say: “Well, wait a minute. Maybe there was something to that.” But at the time, I know that everybody was shaking their heads and couldn’t understand how an independent was scoring a lot of points, and then he got out.

Well, yes. And one of the reasons that people in politics couldn’t understand it is because we are so used to politicians who will walk over their mother’s grave in support of family values, and we don’t know any politicians who live the family values. And to Ross, there is nothing more important in life than the happiness of his children on their most precious day, the day they get married. In the late [former Texas Governor] John Connally’s autobiography — it was at least in one of the drafts — he noted that he was the one who told Ross about that dirty trick.

Well, interesting, though with Connally as a news source to me for many years, as we both know, [he] did not like George Bush. And the ultimate slap in the face was when Governor Connally paid $11 million for one delegate in Arkansas, and then that one delegate voted for Bush. Even before he died, Connally told me himself that was a bitter, bitter pill.

Well Russ, after that and before the more abrupt entry into 1996, the movement that Ross started, United We Stand, certainly got off to a good start. And you had played a part in that. Is that dormant now?

Yes.

Isn’t there some sort of significant reform group that has lasted? Or with Ross on the sidelines, has this thing evaporated?

To a great extent it evaporated after the [Pat] Buchanan hostile takeover in 2000. In 1993, Ross followed up the campaign with a citizen advocacy organization, United We Stand America, which attracted millions of members nationwide and was very influential on the state and national level on public policy, including half of the Contract with America, which was devoted specifically to issues that we had raised on government ethics and government reform. The United We Stand America organization morphed, if you will, into the Reform Party movement in 1996.

Well, didn’t Ross have to disavow Buchanan with some antipathy that somebody was hijacking the movement?

Ross never made any public statements about that at all. What happened was the Reform Party grew out of the 1996 election. It didn’t exist at the ’96 election nationally. It did exist in some states where you could create a party before an election. But after Ross’ success in the ’96 election, the Reform Party was formerly established and was eligible for some federal funding in 2000 based on Ross’s success in the ’96 election. That became the undoing of the Reform Party. We were hurt by our own success.

We were now eligible for $13 million of general election funding in 2000, which is a lot of money for somebody who wants to advocate an issue. But it’s not a lot of money for somebody who truly wants to compete for the presidency. So Buchanan came along and instead of working cooperatively with the Reform Party, decided eventually to do a hostile takeover, get the $13 million, and then sit on the sidelines so that there would be no Reform Party, no third-party substantive challenge to [George W.] Bush.

Well, you got up to 1996, when Perot got in. And this is my version of it. You can sure correct me. I didn’t think he had his heart in it. There was an incumbent then, and [he was] popular in many ways. And from the get-go, Bob Dole didn’t seem to have much of a chance. We have interviewed Dole for this project, so I am not throwing darts at him, but it seemed like a very difficult chore to get in this time when it gets to the incumbent. Can you tell me a little bit about ’96 and how the money was raised, if any? And was it still his own money or was it taken from others?

In 1996 it was completely different from ’92. Ninety-six was motivated by people from the ’92 campaign and the United We Stand America organization, who wanted a new political party. Ross financed the ballot access portion of it, which you could consider, perhaps, the primary spending of the Republicans and Democrats. He spent around $10 million of his money to create the ballot access.

But he was going to establish precedent in the general election, if he were the nominee, by using the federal funds. This was this first time anyone other than the Republican or Democrat qualified for general election federal funding. It was $30 million. We had a decision to make in August of that year. Now if you accept the federal funding, you can’t put your own money into a campaign. So if we are going to run a general election campaign on $30 million, do we use it initially around Labor Day to manage poll numbers? Or do we use it to close the campaign using the earned media, the reporting that goes on, to establish the campaign in the early weeks and months.

Perot, at that time in ’96, was exactly the same as he was in October ’92, around seven or eight points in the polls when he was permitted into the debates. We were being federally financed. We felt that there was an excellent opportunity for him to be in the debates. Therefore, on my recommendation, [he] decided to husband the money until after the debates and use it to close the campaign. Of course, when he was locked out of the debates by the Republicans and Democrats, we didn’t have that bump from which to do the advertising.

Was he locked out on that 15 percent threshold? I can’t remember exactly. The Commission on Presidential Debates has a percentage, both primary and general.

They didn’t have a percentage at that time. It’s all a fraud, because in 1992 he was exactly where he was in ’96. In ’92 he was in the debates and in ’96 he was out. In ’92 he was in the debates because George Bush, Sr., said there would be no debates unless Perot was included. The candidates control who is in the debates, not this fraudulent commission.

Bobby Birchfield, who was legal counsel to the Bush ’92 campaign, testified in the House of Representatives in 1993 and provided the documentation that proves that it was the Bush campaign that flatly said there will be no debates unless Perot is included. And their theory was that there was an anti-Bush vote out there, and they wanted to split it between Clinton and Perot so that Bush could win reelection.

But clearly the only reason Perot was in the ’92 debates was because of Bush’s insistence that that’s the only way he’d participate. And clearly the reason he was not in the ’96 debates was because Clinton and Dole refused to allow him in. It has nothing to do with this commission or any percentages that they set.

I see. Well Russ, just a couple more questions, and this isn’t so much speculative as it is taking advantage of your background both with an independent candidate and with money-raising. First, do you think today’s public financing of presidential races, based on what we know now, is just about moribund? Or is it still got some life?

It’s on life support. It perhaps gives a candidate like Mike Huckabee an opportunity to compete with matching funds in the primary, where he is never going to raise the kind of money that the other candidates are going to have. But the influence now of fundraisers, people who are leaders within an industry or an interest group, who are capable of tapping associates for large contributions, is now the way the campaigns will be financed as opposed to the public financing.

Well, the so-called “second tiers” — I don’t like that [phrase], but it’s one that’s gotten into our jargon now — the six, three each in party, and perhaps [Fred] Thompson, if in fact he does get in, are all eschewing the barriers. They know they can raise even more. But it would seem like, as you mentioned, Huckabee and perhaps [Sam] Brownback, and on the Democratic side [Joe] Biden and [Chris] Dodd and others, will need it.

So on that basis, it will be meager when you run up against the [Hillary] Clinton, [Barack] Obama, and on the other side the [Mitt] Romney money and [Rudy] Giuliani, of course. So it appears that is the only way that, as you mentioned, somebody like Mike Huckabee can at least challenge, until you get up to that 20-state mega-primary.

Right. The parties moving all of their primaries up is all about influence for politicians. The reason they move them up, to give you an example, in 1988 George [H.W.] Bush took the pledge: “Read my lips. No new taxes.” Well, that was John [H.] Sununu telling him how to win New Hampshire. But out of that, John Sununu became [White House] chief of staff, so it’s about influence.

If you are in an early state, and you have an impact in these candidates, you have lasting influence throughout the administration, and that’s what’s going on in each state. It’s not about the voters of the state having a say in who the nominee is. The politicians and political leaders of these states don’t care about that. They care about what influence they are going to have in the next administration. And that’s why they move them up, so that they can become players within the initial part of somebody’s presidential campaign.

Well, you would be a good source on this, Russ, to at least speculate on; Mayor [Mike] Bloomberg’s name has cropped up as a possible entry as an independent. And he holds an office as opposed to Ross who didn’t. And he, of course, has a lot of money at his disposal.

Does he at all face — just if he gets in — the same barriers that Ross Perot had to climb, now that he is an independent, not a Republican, and a former Democrat? So he’s covered all three. Is it a fool’s errand for him to get in? Or given some of the disaffection for candidates in the two parties, could he light a fire?

I don’t think it’s a fool’s errand for Mayor Bloomberg or anybody similarly situated to get into the race. In 1992, the Voter Research Services conducted exit polling for the media. There was one question they asked people that nobody in the media reported. And that question was a follow-up question to people coming out of the polls, identifying themselves as [George H.W.] Bush or [Bill] Clinton voters. The follow-up question to them that was never reported was, “If you thought Perot could win, would you have voted for him?” And the analysis of that question, which was never reported, is that Perot would have won in ’92 if people thought he could win.

that nationwide?

Yes.

In other words, they had been so geared-up by the two parties and by the candidates through the media that said the guy has no chance. That played a big role.

Yes. And if you recall the debates of ’92, in answer to virtually every question, Bush or Clinton would say, “I agree with Mr. Perot, but . . . I agree with Mr. Perot, but . . .” And then the wasted vote strategy syndrome that we faced was, Perot might be right, but he can’t win. So vote for me. I agree with him more.

Well, Bloomberg obviously is an articulate man and would ostensibly do well in debates. But boy, Russ, he would be facing — and I must confess, I would as a journalist point out what has happened to independent candidates in the past, which is probably unfair. Because when you throw in John Anderson and then go back to Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond, the playing field is pretty littered with casualties, and so I think that probably does become a factor, too.

Well, it does. But if you look at the Republican and Democratic nominating processes, it’s littered with more casualties. So there are more losers over there than there ever were on the independent side. Abraham Lincoln was the last independent or third-party elected to president. It doesn’t mean he’s going to be the last forever.

I think with a candidate like Michael Bloomberg, who has a record of service and accomplishments, by all appearances seems to be very well-appreciated by his constituency, [which] has the money to run a national campaign. [His constituency] has some very recent, I think, blueprints for the Perot campaign and others, and is aware of the strategies that the Republicans and Democrats will utilize to marginalize him. [He] has an opportunity to overcome those.

One other question. We are going to know who the nominees are on February 5, almost for sure. Not many can envision candidates coming out of there still competitive if there is one in each party who is on the way to the nomination. That’s February. We have a hiatus there of several months until the conventions, and then several months after that until the election. Is this going to be a time of, as Lee Atwater used to say, identifying the opponent? That we are going to see a swamp of negative ads on both sides?

Yes. What you are going to see are the negative ads coming from political organizations, not from the candidates. But the candidates will be twisting in the wind for months, fully exposed to any attack out there. And the [Swift Boat Veteran]-type of attack ads will be coming from groups on both sides against the prospective nominees of the opposing party. You are going to see a massive advertising blitz by non-candidate committees.

Since he was hugely active in 1992, and maybe less so in 1996, there is some astonishment on the part of the media that Ross Perot has remained rather silent, if not altogether silent, on politics, particularly since 2000. Is it because he just is dismayed by what’s going on? Or is it just he’s decided that it’s best that he not make any pronouncements?

Ross felt that he became the target instead of the policy that was promoted around 2000, and since then he has not made any public statements on public policy or politics. And since 2001, Ross has engaged every moment of his time in assisting the wounded men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan and feels that his time and his efforts are far more valuable there than in the public policy and political arena.

Now Congress’ approval is 25 percent, and Bush is up three or four points over. You have never seen the president in the 20s, which is rather amazing. But now you are hearing [Karl] Rove and others say, “Well, maybe ours is bad, but look at Congress.” I mean in the 20s, it’s really hard to fathom.

But Congress has always been there. The question is why is the president there.

Right. Well, it’s 535 voices against one. I mean I am really not surprised. And I am certainly not siding with Congress, which can dig itself into a deep hole procedurally or otherwise. But it’s always been when a Republican is president, and even when the Democrats are in charge, Republicans have a way to stymie legislation. And then the same goes the other way, so the cycle continues.

But I think a lot of us out here who are not avid partisans actually prefer the divided power in Washington.

Because then nothing happens, right?

Well, less happens, and there is apt to be a little more give-and-take in that. The first four years or so under President [George W.] Bush “43”, where everything was a rubber stamp, nothing was debated, nothing was investigated, carte blanche, isn’t the best. Now in the [Bill] Clinton [years], you saw him in ’96 go to the Dick Morris triangulation and try to co-op some of the Republican ideas and corral them in.