Financing Moves by 2 Democrats Recast Early Campaign Fights
nytimes.com
November 28, 2003
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
The decisions by Howard Dean and Senator John Kerry to withdraw from the campaign finance system are sharply altering the early Democratic presidential nominating battles in Iowa and New Hampshire, as both candidates pump large sums into those small states in search of a decisive early victory.
Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry said that pulling out of a program that imposes spending limits in exchange for federal campaign subsidies would allow them to be competitive with President Bush, who will follow the same course next year. But as important, aides to each candidate said, the decision liberated them from state-by-state primary and caucus spending limits that are a lesser-noticed part of the campaign finance law.
This strategic decision has given Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry freedom to make multimillion-dollar expenditures on television advertising, mailings and get-out-the-vote efforts in the two states that begin the Democratic nominating contest. As a result, Democrats said, Iowa caucusgoers and New Hampshire primary voters, who are already accustomed to being inundated by campaigns, will be subjected to the most intense political appeal in years.
"It will increase the intensity of the campaigns persuading voters, on TV, in the mail, and at their doors," said Steve Hildebrand, a Democratic strategist who ran Al Gore's winning campaign in the Iowa caucuses in 2000. "They are going to get inundated with telephone calls because of these campaigns. Because of Dean and Kerry, they'll see more TV ads than they've ever seen before."
The decisions by Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry have created complications for Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri. Mr. Gephardt is locked in a stiff battle in Iowa with Dr. Dean that could determine the viability of his candidacy but has been unable to raise enough money to consider abandoning the system.
In one early sign of the advantage created by withdrawing from the system, aides said yesterday that Dr. Dean was doubling his weekly advertising budget in Iowa, to $440,000, for at least a week. A new round of advertisements, to begin in Iowa on Saturday, include a 60-second biographical advertisement, twice as long as the spot candidates typically buy.
Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry have opened 11 offices in New Hampshire, a costly show of organizing strength that has heightened the visibility of both candidates in this pivotal contest. By contrast, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who is also competing heavily in New Hampshire, has two offices there, though he is planning to open more over the next few weeks.
"Does it give them an advantage?" asked Bill Buck, General Clark's New Hampshire spokesman. "Certainly."
Dr. Dean's advisers said they planned to import 5,000 volunteers from out of state to help with organizing in Iowa through January, a potentially expensive mobilization that would otherwise have threatened to push the campaign over the limit, given the costs of feeding, housing and moving the brigade of volunteers across the state.
And aides to Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry said they would flood Iowa and New Hampshire with mail in the final weeks of the campaign, a crucial advantage because mailing costs in the final 28 days of a campaign, when voters are presumably paying the most attention to the race, are counted against the spending limit. In Iowa in particular, late mail has historically proved to be a damaging means of attack.
"You can do it below the radar screen," Mr. Hildebrand said.
And while aides to each candidate said there were practical limits to how much television time could be bought, particularly in Iowa, Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry are now positioned to buy enough advertisements between them to effectively block other candidates who are trying to make a show in those states — in particular, Mr. Gephardt, General Clark and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
Mr. Kerry, who has seen his standing spiral in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, argued in an interview that the decisions he and Dr. Dean had made gave them a critical advantage in these states with early Democratic contests.
"Look, there are only two campaigns that have raised more than $20 million, mine and his," Mr. Kerry said. "And there are only two campaigns that are out of the caps, mine and his. In the next couple of months we're going to see a very focused, strong effort."
Aides to Mr. Kerry and Dr. Dean said the exact amount spent in Iowa and New Hampshire would be based on how much they raised before the end of the year, what their standing is in polls a month from now, and, in Mr. Kerry's case, how much of his own money he ultimately invests in his campaign, or raises by borrowing against his assets.
For all that, the state spending limits are notoriously porous, with many significant campaign expenditures, like staff salaries, not counted against the cap. And candidates, notably Mr. Gephardt when he ran for president in 1988, have been known to break the limits knowing that such an infraction would probably not be noted until well after the campaign.
Based on federal law, the candidates are limited to spending $45 million over the course of the primaries, including limits of approximately $1.3 million in Iowa and $730,000 in New Hampshire. Mr. Kerry has said he would abide by the overall $45 million limit, but has not pledged to abide by the state-by-state limits. Dr. Dean has left little doubt that he was prepared to break the limits.
As of the end of September, Dr. Dean had spent 18 percent of the Iowa limit and 17 percent of the New Hampshire limit. Mr. Kerry had spent 27 percent of the Iowa limit and 33 percent of the New Hampshire limit.
Mr. Gephardt had spent 27 percent of his spending limit in Iowa. And Mr. Edwards, who has so far trailed in many polls, had already spent 33 percent of the allowable amount in Iowa and 40 percent in New Hampshire, according to his spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri.
For Mr. Kerry, who is drawing on his personal fortune to finance much of his effort over the next 60 days, this is the political equivalent of a life-or-death gambit. Mr. Kerry, of Massachusetts, is moving first to invest heavily in Iowa in the calculation that even a strong third-place showing there on Jan. 19 would catapult him into the New Hampshire primary a week later, where polls show him facing a potentially disqualifying defeat to Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont.
By contrast, Dr. Dean is looking to take advantage of his extraordinarily vigorous fund-raising base to roar to back-to-back victories New Hampshire and Iowa that Democrats said would go a long way toward establishing him as his party's nominee.
But Dr. Dean is almost certain to have far more money than Mr. Kerry, giving him the ability to begin a potentially campaign-clinching assault in Iowa and New Hampshire while saving for the burst of primaries and caucuses that follow.
The problem this poses for Mr. Gephardt was visibly evident at the Jefferson Jackson Day Dinner sponsored by the Iowa Democratic Party in Des Moines this month. Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry were able to invest thousands of dollars in busing in thousands of supporters and packing the hall with banners.
By contrast, Mr. Gephardt's campaign organization, saving for television expenditures in January, turned in what even his own advisers described as an anemic display of organizational strength.
Given Mr. Gephardt's history of breaking the cap in 1988, his rivals were quick to predict that he would do the same thing again.
"Just because people have opted in doesn't mean they won't blow the caps," Dr. Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said. "They've done it in the past."
Mr. Trippi added, "There's no doubt in my mind if Dick Gephardt has the money, he'll spend it."
Mr. Gephardt overshot the 1988 state limit by about $457,500, or about 60 percent, allowing him to sweep to victory in Iowa. Four years later, his campaign agreed to repay almost $119,000 of his federal campaign subsidies, and three years later he paid a civil penalty of about $80,000 for that and other violations, according to the Federal Election Commission.
A senior adviser to Mr. Gephardt, Steve Elmendorf, said his candidate would not break the limit this time. "We'll be well within the cap, and we'll run a very aggressive winning campaign," he said."
Several Democrats said that being freed of the spending caps was more of an advantage in New Hampshire, which could end up being a critical face-off for Dr. Dean and Mr. Kerry. New Hampshire races are driven by television advertising, and much of that advertising must be bought on Boston television stations.
By contrast, television time in Iowa is relatively cheap, and winning caucuses is typically the function of a strong get-out-the-vote organization. |
