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Thomas E. Mann

Thomas E. Mann is senior fellow for governance studies and the W. Averell Harriman Chair at the Brookings Institution, an independent research organization in Washington, D.C. A former executive director of the American Political Science Association and college professor, he has written, co-written, or edited more than a dozen books about politics, including The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track (with Norman J. Ornstein).

John W. Mashek interviewed Mann on May 4, 2007.

Florida is in the midst of rescheduling its primary to put it further ahead. And, of course, the other states are talking about backing up their schedules, too. Is this going to increase the dash for money? Or is it already in place that the candidates are going to gobble up the dollars as quickly as they can?

Yes, the die is cast. Candidates understand now that fundraising this calendar year has taken on a life of its own, quite apart from timing of the primaries. It is now almost more important as an indicator of the seriousness of one’s campaign than it is important to have to spend at some later point. So the money race is fully engaged. All serious candidates are opting out of the public-financing system, meaning there will be no spending limits of any kind. In many respects, they will raise much more money than they need even in this frontloaded primary calendar. But these are dollars that at least the winning candidate will then have available to spend between when it’s wrapped up, say in February or March, and the conventions at the end of summer.

You set me up for the next question: Is public financing dead? I mean, some of the lesser candidates will probably try to qualify, but the ones who want to raise the big money, they are not going to want to go into public financing. Will they carry that over, post-convention, into the general [election]?

That’s really the question. Certainly, when it comes to the nominating season, all serious candidates will opt out of public financing. It’s simply grown out of date. The spending limits are ridiculously low. They still have state limits which make no sense. The public matching is not very generous. After George [W.] Bush in 2000, and then Bush, [John] Kerry, and [Howard] Dean in 2004 demonstrated the ability to raise large amounts of money, that is now the standard. I think the general election is less settled thus far.

[Barack] Obama has thrown out a challenge that he would abide by limits if the Republican candidate would. I think he said that.

He asked for and got a ruling from the Federal Election Commission that candidates could raise money now for a general-election campaign as well as for a primary. That is, the limit is $2,300 per election. They can raise that separately for the nomination and for the general election; they can segregate those funds. And if they then choose to accept the public grant and not spend any private dollars, they can return those funds. So [John] McCain and Obama have announced that if the other major candidate decided to live with the public grant, they would as well. So there is still a possibility the public funding could be in effect for the general election.

You know a lot about the ways and means of Congress. So how did the figure $2,300 suddenly come out? I mean, was that a compromise figure?

No. It is in the McCain-Feingold legislation; it’s called BICRA, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The limits that had been in place since the law was originally passed in 1974 — individual contributions to candidates of $1,000 per election — were increased to $2,000. But then they were subsequently indexed for inflation. And so the $2,300 reflects the inflation since the 2000 figure was approved back in 2002.

So if I go to a fundraiser, say, for a Democratic candidate and give $2,300, am I restricted then? Can I give $2,300 to another candidate each time?

Yes, you can. There are limits on what you can give in an election cycle to candidates and committees in total. Individuals now can spend a total of $95,000 over a two-year election cycle. But to the individual candidate you can give $2,300 in the primary and $2,300 in the general.

Is it a pure guess that a lot of people are going to max out on that in a big hurry?

They have. If you look at the initial campaign-finance reports of the presidential candidates for the first quarter of 2007, you will find that many, many individuals maxed out for candidates. So, for example, Hillary Clinton had the highest percentage of money raised from people who contributed $2,300. So, yes, that’s a big target of the fundraisers.

Is McCain-Feingold in jeopardy with the drive to just almost obliterate that, too? Or do you think that it’s in pretty safe situation?

No. McCain-Feingold had modest aspirations. It really wanted to eliminate so-called party soft money — that is to say, money given by corporations and unions out of their treasuries and by individuals of unlimited sums to the parties, ostensibly for nonfederal election purposes, but in reality used to finance federal election campaigns. That’s been completely successful. The second feature was to require that so-called issue ads, electioneering communications, running close to the elections that don’t expressly advocate the election or defeat of a candidate but [they] use the name of the candidate, focus on the constituency of the candidate, and in proximity of the election, would be treated as electioneering communications, meaning you can’t use corporate or union treasury funds to finance them. And again, that worked pretty much as anticipated. That’s now under challenge before the Supreme Court in an important case that was heard just recently.

And this will be the first time a case like that has come before [Samuel] Alito and [John] Roberts.

Exactly. I think the law and the decision in McConnell v. FEC, upholding its constitutionality, are threatened by the new makeup of the [Supreme] Court.

I don’t think Congress will ever give the FEC [Federal Election Commission] the proper enforcement tools and teeth, if you will, to really crack down on offenders. It seems like when they do, it’s seven years later sometimes that somebody’s fined for doing something erroneous.

Yeah. The FEC was designed, originally, to have a very tight leash held by Congress. It was set up in a way in which sort of partisan appointments are made. The two partisan groups are balanced, where you need four votes out of six to take any action, and which means one of the parties can easily block action if it seems to be working against its interest. And you also have the temptation to have a kind of coalition of the two parties to keep damaging things from happening. It doesn’t always work that way. And the FEC has, on occasion, surprised people. But the reality is it tends to show up on the scene after most of the violations take place. Politicians have come to believe that it’s better to err on the side of pushing the boundaries of the law if they think it will help them immediately. And if they have to pay a fine three or four years later, so be it.

There was an interesting chart in a little piece in The [New York] Times Magazine comparing the amounts spent as recently as eight years ago for television advertising in this cycle. And I don’t know if it’s the Senate, and the House, and presidency combined. But they extrapolated that figure for inflation and the number of people who are in the race now and said it would be about $1.2 billion. I think that figure could be conservative, when we will know on February 5, probably, who the nominees are, if not even sooner. Has television advertising now taken the place of any other appeals other than personal appeals on TV — taking an [infomercial], like Ross Perot did, and buying up 30 minutes of television time? One of the reasons why so much more money is being spent is because it’s so much harder to get the attention of the American people. Television remains the best way to reach a large number of people, but not a very good way. It’s hard. You have to do saturation advertising. There is so much less public-affairs coverage, campaign coverage by the media, local television, national television, the print media as well. So there is an incentive to put a lot of dollars into television. However, the research is really quite clear. The more personal the campaigning, the more effective [it is]. That is, person-to-person from trusted sources ends up being more effective in campaigning than anything else. And an increasing number of dollars are going into . . .

And local television stations get rich, even with the preferred rate that is supposed to be charged. You take all of those places in California; I would love to be a consultant for a California race.

Oh, it’s a big moneymaker for local television stations, now, advertising. And they have managed to have the lowest unit rate only apply to unattractive times, when you can’t reach large audiences. And so candidates will pay premium prices. This is a huge profit center for the local media. But candidates feel obliged to spend those dollars, especially when they are trying to get themselves known. However, as I said, you are beginning to see budgets diversify. You are beginning to see sort of more efforts of identifying voters, and getting out the vote, and person-to-person campaigning, and direct mail, and targeted e-mails, and Internet campaigning, sort of radio. So I think you will see, over time, some diversification of funding.

As early as next year?

No. Yeah, but that just means more money will be spent on everything. Serious candidates aren’t going to pull back from television advertising. But they are going to be spending money in other ways.

Well, let’s just say we do know, as everybody is guessing right now, after February 5 we’ll know who the nominees are. There is a terrific amount of time between then and the two conventions in Minneapolis and in Denver. And the candidates who are going to learn from Michael Dukakis — [that] you don’t go back and be governor and let the other side define who you are. So is it your feeling that during that time you are going to see one side, probably both sides, define the other? And we are going to see a torrent of negative advertising?

Oh, sure. The general election will begin as soon as the candidates are identified. They certainly won’t wait for the party conventions. We really saw that the last time with Kerry and Bush really fully engaged once Kerry’s nomination seemed inevitable. And if that happens again this year, remember, we have two open races. Yes, history and the continued frontloading of the calendar suggest that by February 5 we’ll have a pretty good idea who the nominee is. It’s possible, given the fact that there is no dominant candidate in either party, that you will have two and possibly three candidates with ample resources to complete through the Super Tuesday of February 5. It’s possible, if no candidate develops momentum out of the early events of Iowa, and Nevada, and New Hampshire, and South Carolina, that you get an indeterminate result in the mega-February 5 event.

Yeah. But the certitude of McCain and Clinton is certainly not certain.

Absolutely not. These are wide-open races. And therefore, the contest could go on. So we have to hold open that possibility. But if the candidates are known, then the general election will begin. And the fundraising will continue. Remember, Kerry raised $250 million before the convention. And most of that was raised after it was evident that he was going to be the nominee.

Of course, Howard Dean is given a lot of credit for going to the Internet. And I think Joe Trippi was the one who devised that. A lot of the money is being raised that way. I don’t know a percentage. But are the more expensive methods, direct mail, pretty much out now? If you go to the huge fundraisers like Hillary Clinton has held here in New York and elsewhere, and most of it’s going to come off the Internet?

No. Direct mail is still important. The parties are still raising a lot of money with direct mail. All of the major candidates have lists that they are using and raising money by direct mail. It’s just that the Internet is now an opportunity for individuals to make immediate contributions following developments in the mail. And then they get on the list. They are in the bank for the candidates. And then they are communicated with. But just to give you a flavor for this, of the $36 million that Hillary Clinton raised in the first quarter, it turns out that 86 percent came from large contributors — that is, $1,000 or more; 68 percent from those who maxed out at $2,300; so 9 percent from small contributors, from $200 or less. Obama got 22 percent of his $26 million from small contributors. On the Republican side, [Mitt] Romney and [Rudy] Giuliani raised only about 6 percent from small contributors. McCain got 19 percent. So it’s a growing phenomenon. The Internet is bringing, now, millions of new donors into the game. It’s very important. So there are many more individuals participating as contributors through the Internet. But the dollar amounts are overwhelmingly still raised from the larger contributors.

It was interesting to me that the morning after John and Elizabeth Edwards appeared on 60 Minutes — and even, I think, critics would say that people were impressed for Elizabeth — they raised more than $800,000 instantly on [the Internet]. People hit that key right away.

Oh, yeah. It’s just amazing.

I don’t know how many took it back after the haircut.

It’s hugely important. And what we saw is that’s where the money really came in for Kerry, after he had the nomination wrapped up. That is to say, it was the whole Democratic Party, individual citizens sort of sending in contributions. And that’s when it becomes more important. But to get your start, initially you are setting up these fundraising apparatuses in which individuals agree to be fundraising brokers and say, “I’ll get 10 or 100 others who will max out.” And that’s a big part of it.

Well, we all know that money doesn’t necessarily buy you into the race — certainly [with] John Connally and Phil Gramm, two Texans who just really had a key to a lot of kingdoms. The amounts people are raising now, does it ever become self-defeating that you just go out there and say, “I want more money,” and if your campaign message isn’t hitting high-gear, why it’s not going to buy you into the game?

I think of it now as a necessary but far from sufficient condition for doing well in the presidential primary process. The problem is going to be, say, for Chris Dodd, or Joe Biden, even Bill Richardson on the Democratic side. And on the Republican side, for a Mike Huckabee, or perhaps a Tommy Thompson, even a Sam Brownback, that if they had the national visibility, and standing, and fundraising, they might, just on the base of their knowledge and experience, be up there along with the top three candidates. And the odds are they are not going to be able to break through. And that’s unfortunate. But what I say is, at the top-tier level, you are going to get certain parity among the candidates, whereby one’s campaign war chest will balance the other. And money itself is not going to determine this race.

Just a couple more questions. The feeling by a lot of the armchair quarterbacks, and I guess I would include myself in that, that because this is so wide-open, the debates this time will be more important than ever. And that the debate over the debates may be shortened and we will have three presidential and one vice presidential, and not a prolonged argument about do they stand, do they sit. What’s your read on that?

Yeah. I think debates are going to be important in the nominating the process as well as in the general election. And I think, now, with no president or vice president running, both parties’ candidates will welcome the debates. There will be no argument about that. The real question is whether we might get some more interesting formats. John Kennedy and Barry Goldwater had agreed to go off on an extended trip around the country debating one another.

I remember that story. Because they liked each other.

Sort of serious debates.

But, of course, [Lyndon] Johnson didn’t want to do that.

No, not at all. It would be wonderful if we could find some other formats in which the candidates really talked between themselves in a less sort of structured [way].

I think the candidates might agree to that. It’s the consultants that start: “Well, we can’t do that. We got to have a moderator, at least, to filter this thing. We can’t have the two of them talking to each other.” But I am like you. I don’t have much of a feeling that’s ever going to happen.

It probably won’t. Listen, debates serve a very useful purpose. In the general election, they attract a large audience. You learn something about the individuals, and their style, their way of thinking, their way of reacting, how they handle issues, and problems, and situations. So I think the most important thing is to have them. If we could develop some more user-friendly formats, so much the better.