Countdown

It’s the first presidential campaign under the new rules imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as the McCain-Feingold Act. The law bars the soft-money contributions that the national party committees have used to pump additional millions into presidential campaigns, and requires independent groups to disclose contributors of $10,000 or more for television or radio “issue” ads supporting a candidate, within 24 hours of receiving the money. Additionally, corporations and labor unions are banned from underwriting such ads within 30 days of a primary and 60 days of a general election. (In 2007, the Supreme Court will strike down this portion of the law.) To compensate for the restrictions on soft money, however, McCain-Feingold raises the limit on hard-money contributions to candidates, from $1,000 to $2,000 per election cycle, and indexes the limits for inflation. More >

Vice President Al Gore, who seeks to succeed President Bill Clinton, faces a primary challenge from former Democratic Senator Bill Bradley, of New Jersey, who tries to position himself as a more liberal alternative to the centrist Gore. Both contenders raise funds early and aggressively. By January 1, Gore’s campaign, which relies most heavily on contributions from lawyers, the real estate industry, and Wall Street, already has amassed $28.2 million and spent all but $5.7 million of it. More >

Though President Bill Clinton is unopposed in the Democratic primaries, he quickly raises the maximum $37 million allowed under the public-finance system and qualifies for an additional $13 million in federal funds. In addition, Clinton and Vice President Al Gore mount an equally intense parallel effort to raise soft money. Gore, for example, makes nearly 50 calls to donors from his office, asking them to give $25,000 to $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. It’s not the amount of soft money Democrats raise, but how they use it, that blows a gaping hole in federal campaign-finance law. At the instigation of Clinton political adviser Dick Morris, the DNC spends tens of millions of dollars in 1995 and 1996 on television commercials that tout the Clinton administration’s policies and criticize the GOP for opposing them. More >

President George H.W. Bush, despite having his once-stratospheric popularity damaged by an economic slump, nevertheless starts 1992 with $7 million in his reelection war chest. That’s about 10 times the amount raised by Pat Buchanan, a Nixon and Reagan White House aide turned TV commentator, who’s challenging Bush in the GOP primaries. More >

Vice President George H.W. Bush aspires to succeed Ronald Reagan, but he must contend with a slew of Republican hopefuls, including Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, former Senator Paul Laxalt of Nevada, former Delaware Governor Pierre “Pete” DuPont IV, Representative Jack Kemp of New York, and the Reverend Marion “Pat” Robertson. More >

Incumbent Ronald Reagan is unopposed for the GOP nomination, but he nevertheless raises $10.1 million in campaign money for the primary season. Though Reagan says that he is philosophically opposed to the public funding of elections, he isn’t so opposed that he turns down the money. Indeed, Reagan’s prodigious fundraising qualifies him for the maximum in matching funds provided in the federal system. More >

President Jimmy Carter faces an unusual primary challenge, from Democratic Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Kennedy manages to win the Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut primaries, but Carter beats him decisively everywhere else and wins renomination by a two-to-one margin at a rancorous party convention. More >

In January, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Buckley v. Valeo, a case challenging the constitutionality of portions of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 that was filed by Republican Senator James L. Buckley of New York, former Democratic senator (and presidential candidate) Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota, and 10 other persons and groups. More >

• 1973
• 1974
• 1975

President Richard M. Nixon’s reelection campaign raises an unprecedented $60 million to finance a win-at-all-costs effort, but it will all come crashing down with the Watergate scandal. More >

• 1970
• 1971

With the U.S. military mired in Vietnam, President Lyndon B. Johnson faces a challenge in the Democratic primaries from an antiwar candidate, Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota. McCarthy’s candidacy is financially dependent on a few large donors, including industrialist-philanthropist Charles Stewart Mott, who gives $210,000, and Wall Street financier Jack Dreyfus, Jr., who gives $500,000. More >

• 1966

Lyndon Johnson, who ascended to the Oval Office after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, is nominated by the Democrats to run for a term of his own. Candidates for the GOP nomination spend an estimated $10 million total in the run-up to the national convention — about three times as much as Democratic candidates spent during the primaries in 1960. More >

For the first time, a presidential campaign features a candidate, Democratic Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who comes from a wealthy family. In addition to its direct contributions, the Kennedy clan helps by forming Ken-Air Corporation, which buys a $385,000 Convair airplane and leases it to JFK’s campaign at a cut-rate cost of $1.75 per mile. Throughout the pivotal West Virginia primary, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, Kennedy’s chief rival, complains of the difficulties of competing with “Jack’s jack.” Humphrey’s complaints about JFK grow even more bitter. “I don’t have any daddy who can pay the bills for me,” he says. “I can’t afford to run around this state with a little black bag and a checkbook.” More >

President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s reelection campaign outdoes the Democrats financially by an even wider margin than in 1952, amassing nearly $8 million — twice as much as the Democratic Party and its labor union supporters are able to raise. As newspaper columnist Drew Pearson reports, some of Eisenhower’s support comes from oil tycoons Sid Richardson and Clint Murchison, who not only pump money into the GOP campaign treasury but also pick up several thousand dollars in pre-convention hotel bills for Eisenhower’s campaign staff. More >

Incumbent President Harry Truman is exempt from the two-term, 10-year limit imposed by the 22nd Amendment since he already was in office when the amendment was passed by Congress in 1947. But Truman, whose popularity has been hurt by economic woes and a bloody stalemate in the Korean War, opts not to run. In his place, the Democrats nominate Governor Adlai E. Stevenson II of Illinois. More >

Democrat Harry S Truman, who took over the presidency when Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, decides to seek election on his own. But Truman, whose popularity has suffered amid postwar inflation, severe shortages of consumer products and housing, and labor strife, is beset by divisions within his own party. More >

The Democrats nominate incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt for a fourth term. The Republicans nominate New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey. In response to the new federal ban on direct contributions to candidates, the Congress of Industrial Organizations forms the first political action committee, or PAC, which is funded through donations by union members rather than directly through its treasury. CIO leaders ask members to donate at least $1 apiece — “a buck for Roosevelt,” as the slogan goes. More >

• 1943

President Franklin D. Roosevelt decides to run for an unprecedented third term. To oppose him, the GOP nominates Wendell Willkie, the president of New York-based Commonwealth & Southern Corporation, the nation’s largest electric utility holding company. More >

• 1939

Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt faces Governor Alf Landon of Kansas, the Republican nominee. More >

With the nation’s economy still staggering through the Great Depression, both incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover and his Democratic challenger, New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt, find it difficult to raise money. Joseph R. Nutt, the treasurer of the Republican National Committee, announces that Hoover will run the most economical national campaign in a generation, but even so, the Republicans are so strapped that they set up scores of “Hoover Clubs,” which collect a $1 fee from members. More >

When President Calvin Coolidge announces that he won’t run for reelection, the GOP nomination goes to Secretary of Commerce Herbert C. Hoover. Hubert Work, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, announces that Hoover’s campaign will restrict itself to raising a relatively modest $3 million, far less than the Harding or Coolidge campaigns. More >

Calvin Coolidge, who took over the presidency after Warren G. Harding’s death in 1923, is nominated by the GOP for a full term of his own. Coolidge’s campaign raises nearly $4.4 million, a bit more than half as much as the late Harding had amassed. More >

At the Republican National Convention, after a hopeless deadlock between the two favorites, General Leonard Wood and Illinois Governor Frank Lowden, the proverbial smoke-filled room of party insiders agrees to compromise with Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio, who is nominated on the 10th ballot. Harding’s campaign manager, Will Hays, promptly sets about amassing funds. More >

Incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, who doesn’t want to be perceived as using the White House as a political prop for his reelection bid, moves into a rented house in West Long Branch, New Jersey, for the duration of the campaign. The house’s owner offers him the place rent-free, but Wilson, a stickler for propriety, insists on paying. More >

During the Taft administration, Congress passed laws setting spending limits for U.S. Senate and House campaigns (later struck down by a federal court) and requiring disclosure of contributions for those races. Oddly, legislators have neglected to set similar rules for presidential campaigns. More >

President Theodore Roosevelt, keeping his earlier pledge not to seek a second term of his own, selects William Howard Taft, his Secretary of War, to be the Republican presidential nominee. Taft is a reluctant candidate — he would prefer that Roosevelt appoint him Chief Justice of the United States instead — and he quickly shows his discomfort with the unseemly realities of campaign fundraising. More >

• 1907

President Theodore Roosevelt, who ascended to office after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901, has used his executive powers to break up monopolies such as the Northern Securities Company and to intervene in business-labor disputes, turning the White House into a “bully pulpit” from which to castigate big business for its excesses. But when Roosevelt decides to run for a term of his own, he quietly goes to the same robber barons and trusts that he’s been attacking and hits them up for campaign contributions. More >

Mark Hanna raises $2.5 million from business interests to bankroll President McKinley’s reelection effort. More >

The first true big-money presidential campaign in U.S. history pits Republican William McKinley of Ohio against Democrat William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska. More >