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 Recent commentary from National Journal: Media: Who Sells Darkness? (October 28, 2003) The media hasn't filtered out what good news there is in Iraq. By William Powers. Legal Affairs: Closing the Racial Gap In Learning: What Does Not Work (October 28, 2003) More integration, more money, smaller class sizes, different teacher—none of these holds much promise. By Stuart Taylor Jr. Wealth of Nations: The WTO's Getting a Bum Rap. It's Not Usurping Power. (October 28, 2003) Critics talk as though this modestly endowed body were some rich and mighty force in its own right. By Clive Crook. Media: Too Good to Last (October 21, 2003) What's odd about K Street, and riveting if you give it a chance, is its indifference to all the familiar ways of thinking about Washington. By William Powers. Political Pulse: Democratic Dynamics (October 21, 2003) Campaign 2004 pits outsiders against insiders, "true" democrats against "new" ones. By William Schneider. Social Studies: Who Can Win in 2004? Just Use This Freshness Test. (October 21, 2003) Like milk, presidential hopefuls have a sell-by date. They only have 14 years to make it to the White House. By Jonathan Rauch. More from National Journal. |
Political Pulse 
The Internet as ATM
Dean's campaign hopes to find 2 million foes of Bush willing to give $100 each by William Schneider .... Who's winning the money chase? Third-quarter fundraising totals are in, and the candidate who has broken all records is—no surprise—George W. Bush. But the top Democratic fundraiser, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, merits a special prize. His fundraising is likely to have the biggest impact on the campaign finance system. Dean raised nearly $15 million last quarter, almost half of the $34 million raised by all nine Democrats still in the race. Dean's closest competitors—Sen. John Kerry, followed by Rep. Dick Gephardt, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and retired Gen. Wesley Clark—came in at just $3.5 million to $4 million each. Dean's total is important because, according to research by Northeastern University political scientist William G. Mayer, the candidate who raises the most money by the end of the year before the presidential election always gets his party's nomination. (The lone exception was former Texas Gov. John Connally, who at the end of 1979 had raised more than Ronald Reagan, the eventual Republican nominee.) About 169,000 people gave Dean money in the third quarter. Their average contribution was $73.69. Bush outpaced Dean in the number of contributors and in their average contribution, which the Bush campaign said was $280. That put Bush's haul for the third quarter over $50 million. And Bush doesn't even face a primary challenge. Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, is proud that in each quarter this year, the average size of Dean's campaign contributions has been getting smaller—$168 in the first quarter, $88 in the second quarter, $74 in the third—while the total raised each quarter has gone up. What does that mean? Trippi says, "We have so many supporters across the country who are giving small amounts. Most of them have the ability to give to us again, or to find friends, or co-workers, or family to give to us in the future." Trippi sees a sharp contrast with the Bush campaign. "The Bush donors are being hauled off to big dinners and bundled into these huge amounts," he said. "Our donors are giving a small amount, but there are so many of them that it adds up." In the third quarter, it added up to more money than any Democrat had ever raised in a single quarter—even more than Bill Clinton collected in 1996, when he was a sitting president. Trippi is proud that only about 1 percent of Dean's contributors have "maxed out" at the legal limit of $2,000. That means the Dean campaign can go back to its donors again, and again. The Bush campaign has big shots, 100 "Rangers," who have raised a minimum of $200,000 each, and 185 "Pioneers," who have raised at least $100,000 each, by "bundling" contributions from friends, colleagues, and employees. Dean's campaign works differently. "It's apparently bringing in people who have not contributed before and who have not been connected with campaigns," said Larry Noble of the Center for Responsive Politics. "It's aimed perfectly at a new generation of potential voters and contributors." How does the Dean campaign do it? Answer: the Internet. Dean raised $7.4 million—half his total—on the Internet in the third quarter. By comparison, Bush raised about $1.5 million on the Internet, or about 3 percent of his total. "My campaign is about empowering people," Dean says. And the Internet is how he does it. Trippi says, "There's only one medium in the world that allows 2 million Americans to contribute $100 in one day if they decide to do it. And that's the Internet." There's a calculation behind that example. Bush is expected to end up raising an astonishing $200 million. For Dean, 2 million contributions at $100 each would equal $200 million. Trippi says, "I really believe there are 2 million Americans who will give $100 to get rid of George W. Bush." That's wildly optimistic, but it does signal some big changes in campaign financing. The Dean campaign figured out how to make the Internet pay off politically. For the past 25 years, Republicans have become specialists in drawing small contributions from large numbers of donors, mostly angry conservative activists. Dean's base in "the wired Left" could now become a competitive donor base—one that rewards candidates who appeal to voter anger and passion, as Dean does, further polarizing American politics. "I think the Internet is going to have as much impact from this day forward as television did after the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960," Trippi predicts. It could have another kind of impact as well. "One question is whether Dean is going to stay in the public-funding system, which would limit how much he can spend in his primary campaign to $45 million," Noble points out. "If he can raise more than that—and it looks like he's on target to do it—I think he's going to drop out of the public-funding system for the primaries." If Dean becomes the first Democrat to decline public funding, he will then be able to spend competitively with Bush, who has already indicated he will opt out of the system. It's the law of unintended consequences at work: The Internet could kill off public funding.
What do you think? Discuss this article in the Politics & Society conference of Post & Riposte. More from National Journal. More on politics and society in Atlantic Unbound and The Atlantic Monthly. William Schneider is the Cable News Network's senior political analyst. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times, National Journal, and The Atlantic Monthly. His column appears every week in National Journal, a weekly magazine covering politics and government published in Washington, D.C. For information on National Journal Group publications, see NationalJournal.com. Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. | [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ||
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