Date Campaign Process Chapter 14. Modern Political Campaigns ✤ The Nomination Campaign ✤ part of a political campaign that is aimed at winning a primary

Date

Campaign ProcessChapter 14

Modern Political Campaigns

✤ The Nomination Campaign

✤ part of a political campaign that is aimed at winning a primary election

✤ Candidate targets the leaders and activists who choose nominees in primaries or conventions

✤ Leaders are concerned with electability

✤ Activists are ideologically or issue oriented

✤ A time for gaining momentum and “an aura of support”

✤ Candidates must not go to far ideologically or they won’t be able to come back to the middle of the political spectrum

✤ The General Election Campaign

✤ Seek the support of interest groups

✤ Adopt a them or slogan

✤ 1. McCain: “Country First”

✤ 2. Goldwater: “In Your Heart, You Know He’s Right” (In your guts, you know he’s nuts”)

✤ Decide which issues to focus on during the campaign

✤ Define his or her stance on topics of interest to voters

✤ 1. Use polls to find out what interests voters

Coverage of the Campaign

✤ Paid Media

✤ Political advertisements or others that the campaign creates and pays to have distributed

✤ Free Media

✤ Stories that the news choose to broadcast or print

✤ New Media

✤ New technologies, like internet, which fall in between free and paid

✤ Positive versus negative ads

✤ Stress qualifications, family and personal ties, position on issues (usually by incumbents) vs. Attacking opponents character and platform

Testimonial Ad

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Card Stacking Ads







Contrast Ads







Glittering Generalities










Mudslinging Ads







Plain Folks Ads










Transfer Ads







Bandwagon Ads

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Campaign Roles

✤ If you are an A:

✤ Cash T. Wells

✤ Budget: $15,000,000

✤ Occupation: Former oil tycoon from

✤ Dallas, TX

✤ Married 3 times with 5 children and 17 grandchildren.

✤ • Attended Yale University with a degree in business.

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Increased foreign trade and family values

✤ If you are a B:

✤ Anastasia Lancome

✤ Budget: $13,000,000

✤ Occupation: Former CEO of a perfume corporation

✤ Widowed, engaged to the Governor of Idaho

✤ Left company after rumors of testing cosmetics on animals

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Simplifying the tax code and environmental protection

✤ If you are a C:

✤ Bradley “B-Rad” Williamson

✤ Budget: $10,000,000

✤ Occupation: Recent Harvard Law grad, heir to a real estate fortune

✤ First campaign since unsuccessful run for City Council

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Abolishing estate tax

✤ Owns and operates a top-notch law firm in Boston

✤ If you are a D:

✤ Edward M. Page

✤ Budget: $5,000,000

✤ Occupation: Former mayor of New

✤ Haven, CT and owner of local bookstore chain

✤ Divorced with 1 son

✤ Studied Politics and graduated Summa Cum Laude from Yale

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Ending gang violence and reducing government restriction on big business

✤ If you are an E:

✤ Gen. Lucas Wiley

✤ Budget: $1,000,000

✤ Occupation: Retired Air Force general and decorated Vietnam Veteran

✤ Married for 52 years with 3 kids and 12 grandchildren

✤ Recipient of the Air Force Cross for an “extraordinary act of heroism” during the Vietnam War

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Increased U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and easier access to student loans

✤ If you are an F:

✤ Dr. Lisa Morrison

✤ Budget: $500,000

✤ Occupation: Professor at a local community college

✤ Married

✤ Has taught political science for ten years.

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Reform “No Child Left Behind” and government ethics reform

✤ If you are a G:

✤ Charles “Chaz” Richards

✤ Budget: $2,000,000

✤ Occupation: Police Chief

✤ Recently married

✤ Has served the community for over twenty years

✤ Involved in the Police Athletic League supervising after-school sports for children

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Reducing crime and developing energy and fuel alternatives

✤ If you are an H:

✤ Dr. Rebecca Brazier

✤ Budget: $7,000,000

✤ Occupation: Surgeon

✤ Married to high school sweetheart with 4 kids

✤ Worked to put herself through medical school.

✤ Top Campaign Issues: Increasing childhood literacy and restricting malpractice suits

How do you reach people?• Registration Fee: $5000 - Everyone pays this

• Radio Advertisement: – Drivetime- $100,000 10,000 reached (limit 10)

– Other Times- $1000 1000 reached (limit 10)

• TV Advertisement:– Primetime- $800000 100,000 reached (limit 5)

– Other- $400,000 50,000 reached (limit 5)

• Billboard/ Newspaper:– $300,000 25000 reached (unlimited)

• Web:– $50000 8000 reached (limit 1)

• Promotions (buttons, pins, flyers, etc...):

– $50000 10,000 reached (limit 1)

Campaign Strategies

✤ To win, favorable coverage is needed. Campaigns use different strategies

✤ First

✤ Isolate candidate from the press- eliminates chances of ‘gaffe’

✤ Second

✤ Campaign stages media events- allows for sound bites- allows for focused, candidate approved ‘news’

✤ Third

✤ Spin- its all about the spin

✤ Most favorable possible interpretation for their candidate (and most negative of their opponent) on any circumstance occurring in the campaign

✤ Fourth

✤ Getting around news media by scheduling talk show appearances

✤ Answer questions and deliver information in a less critical format

✤ Debates

✤ First presidential debate was in 1960 and did not become a regular

✤ First debate was Nixon versus Kennedy

✤ 70 million people watched

✤ Those that watched said Kennedy won, those that listened said that Nixon won

✤ Face to face became common in the 80s

✤ Campaigns use debates to consolidate their voting base and correcting the image of their candidate

✤ Control is not directly in the hands of the candidate

✤ Errors often happen- any examples?

Campaign Financing

✤ 1883, Congress passed civil service reform legislation prohibiting solicitation of political funds from federal workers

✤ 1907, Tillman Act

✤ Prohibited corporations from making direct contributions to candidates for federal office

✤ Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA)

✤ Established disclosure requirements, Presidential Public Finding Program (partial public funding for candidates who meet certain criteria), independent agency to enforce election laws

✤ 2002, Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

✤ Proposed by Sen. McCain and Feingold to limit the amounts of corporate soft money that can be used in elections

✤ Included a provision to fast track challenges to the Supreme Court in order to avoid delays

✤ McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003), Supreme Court held that governments interest in preventing corruption outweighs free speech rights and restrictions on soft money donations and political advertising did not violate free speech

✤ Current campaign rules

✤ BCRA

✤ Outlaws unlimited and unregulated contributions to parties (soft money)

✤ Limits the amounts that individuals, interest groups and political parties can give to candidates for president, US senator, US representatives

✤ Goal is to prevent any single group or individual from gaining too much influence over elected officials

✤ How much can you give?

1 A contribution earmarked for a candidate through a political committee counts against the original contributor’s limit for that candidate. In certain circumstances, the contribution may also count against the contributor’s limit to the PAC. 11 CFR 110.6. See also 11 CFR 110.1(h).

2 This limit is shared by the national committee and the Senate campaign committee.

3 A multicandidate committee is a political committee with more than 50 contributors which has been registered for at least 6 months and, with the exception of state party committees, has made contributions to 5 or more candidates for federal office. 11 CFR 100.5(e)(3).

4 A federal candidate's authorized committee(s) may contribute no more than $2,000 per election to another federal candidate's authorized committee(s). 2 U.S.C. 432(e)(3)(B).

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2010/janqtr/11cfr110.6.htm





Political Action Committees

✤ In order for groups to make donations to campaigns, they must establish a PAC

✤ Recognized fund raising organizations that are allowed by federal law to participate in elections

✤ PACs are more influential than individuals because their small numbers donate enough to make a large proportion of campaign war chests

✤ PAC Readings

Public Funding

✤ Like in the simulation, the amount of money you start out with influences how long you stay in the race

✤ To even things out, public campaign financing is an option

✤ McCain challenged Obama to do this but Obama refused (then set a spending record)

✤ Public funds are donations from general tax revenues to the campaigns of qualifying candidates

✤ Only presidential candidates receive public funds

✤ To be eligible, the candidate, during the nomination campaign, must raise at least $5000 in individual contributions of $250 or less

✤ Then they can apply for matching funds,

✤ Donations less than $251 are matched by federal treasury

✤ Requires money in the Presidential Campaign Fund which is an optional contribution in taxes by citizens (20% actually do this)

✤ General election, candidates can accept $85 million after accepting the nomination- it then becomes the sole source of funds

✤ Third parties can obtain smaller amount if they reach a minimum of 5% of the vote in November (this is after the election is over)

Campaign Finance and 527’s

✤ Soft money- raised and spent by political parties for expenses like overhead, admin costs, grassroots activities like education and GOTV

✤ Banned due to increasing influence and amount pouring in to influence elections

✤ 1978, FEC ruled parties could raise soft money without limitations to cover operating expenses

✤ 1979, Congress allowed parties to spend unlimited amounts of money on same activities

✤ National parties then began transferring large sums of soft money to state parties to help pay for grassroots efforts (allowed)

✤ Line between money on operating costs and grassroots efforts and attempting to influence a federal election was unclear

✤ Whats the difference between ‘getting out the vote’ and ‘getting out the vote’ for your party?

✤ Campaign adverts using “vote for,” “vote against,” “elect,” or “support” qualify as expressed advocacy adverts and are not open for soft money spending

✤ These should be paid for with hard money

✤ Campaign adverts without those key phrases are issue advocacy adverts and are allowed to be paid for with soft money

✤ Response to these rules? Create issue advocacy adverts that resemble the express advocacy ones

✤ Example: Contrast ads- no mention of who to vote for, just a statement of facts and figures

✤ Lines became so blurry, Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act banned soft money

✤ 3rd party ads considered campaign contributions and were regulated

✤ Goal of the BCRA?

✤ Wealthy donors and interest groups would not be able to have a potentially corrupting influence on parties and campaigns

✤ Like every citizen, hard money would restrict power by limiting donation amounts

✤ Did not work

✤ BCRA led to formation of 527 political committees

✤ Named after the IRS tax code

✤ Unregulated interest groups that focus on specific causes or policy positions and attempt to influence voters

✤ Cannot directly engage in advocacy for or against a candidate but can advocate on their behalf

✤ Circumvent direct advocacy restriction by creating “sham ads”

✤ Naming a particular candidate and stating how that candidate supported or opposed a particular interest

✤ Allowed to do this as they never directly mention the groups opinion towards the vote

✤ To limit their influence, arent allowed to air ads 30 days before primary and 60 days before general election

✤ 501(c)(3)

✤ Named after IRS tax code

✤ Tax exempt non profits

✤ Prohibited from conducting political campaign activities to influence elections to public office

✤ Are allowed to educate voters on political issues as long as they do not overtly advocate a specific position

✤ Popular because they do not have to release names of donors

✤ Anonymous until tax returns are filed

✤ 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(5)

✤ Social welfare organizations, labor and business groups

✤ Permitted to lobby for a particular position on an issue

✤ Restricted in amount of their budget (less than half) they can spend on political activities

✤ Lessons from BCRA

✤ No amount of legislation will stop campaign money from flooding into political campaigns

Documents

Date Campaign Process Chapter 14. Modern Political Campaigns ✤ The Nomination Campaign ✤ part of a political campaign that is aimed at winning a primary