The New York Times
Monday 26 November 2007
Washington - Confronting an enormous fund-raising gap with Democrats, Republican Party officials are aggressively recruiting wealthy candidates who can spend large sums of their own money to finance their Congressional races, party officials say.
At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way.
These wealthy Republicans have each already invested $100,000 to $1 million of their own money to finance their campaigns, according to campaign finance disclosure reports and interviews with party strategists. Experts say that is a large amount for this early in the cycle.
In New York's 20th Congressional District, in the Albany area, Alexander Treadwell, an independently wealthy former State Republican Party chairman, has invested more than $320,000 of his money in a race that Republicans predict will cost each candidate at least $3 million.
While Mr. Treadwell, the grandson of a founding executive of General Electric, plans to raise money from donors, he has privately told party officials that he is ready to invest more of his money to unseat Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, a freshman Democrat, Republicans close to him said.
Ken Spain, a spokesman for the House Republicans' campaign committee, said that the recruiting effort has made the party more competitive heading into the elections.
"We have been very fortunate in our recruiting efforts," he said. "There will be a number of credible Republican challengers running for Congress next year that happen to have access to personal financial resources. They are in position to run strong, well-financed grass-roots campaigns next year in some of our top targeted districts."
But Democrats, who have been closely monitoring the Republican millionaires, assert that the recruiting underscores the Republicans' financial weakness since they lost control of Congress in 2006.
The most recent figures show that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised $56.6 million and has $29.2 million at its disposal. By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee has raised $40.7 million with a cash balance of $2.5 million.
That is a striking turnabout for the Republicans, who have outraised the Democrats by considerable margins for years. As recently as 2006, the Republican Congressional campaign committee raised $40 million more than its Democratic counterpart, $179.5 million to $139.9 million.
"National Republicans are in disarray, forcing them to recruit inexperienced and unprepared self-funders," said Doug Thornell, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Self-financed, deep-pocketed Congressional candidates are nothing new for either party, and the Democrats have their own share for 2008. But the Democrats do not have a concerted campaign to find such candidates, they say, while the Republicans describe the recruitment of these candidates as central to their plan for the 2008 elections.
There were 14 Republicans who had already contributed at least $100,000 to their own campaigns, compared with nine at the same point in the 2005-6 election cycle, according to an analysis of campaign finance reports and interviews with strategists. (One of those candidates is an incumbent and one recently dropped out.) Republicans say they are in discussions with other wealthy potential candidates, but declined to say how many. In particular, party leaders are targeting Democrats from districts that President Bush won in 2004.
Party strategists note that a 2002 rule known as the millionaires' amendment has tended to discourage wealthy candidates from pouring large sums into their own campaigns early on. The rule raises campaign contribution ceilings to candidates whose opponents spend large amounts of their own money.
The Republican recruiting process typically starts with party strategists identifying wealthy contributors, businessmen or individuals who have helped finance their own races in the past. Party officials then try to provide extra help developing strategies and finding consultants and staff.
Earlier this year, Republican strategists seeking a candidate for the Eighth Congressional District in Illinois met with Steve Greenberg, a wealthy businessman who was thinking about running for the United States Senate against Senator Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat.
Over several meetings at the party's headquarters in Washington, those strategists showed Mr. Greenberg charts and maps of the district's demographic and voting patterns to make the case that he could unseat the two-term Democratic incumbent, Representative Melissa Bean.
The pitch worked: Mr. Greenberg, who owns Herr's Pacific, a chain of stores that sell art supplies and craft materials, entered the race, telling party leaders that he was willing to spend his own money to run the campaign, party officials said.
National party strategists have not made any endorsements, because some of the candidates face primary challenges. Other wealthy Republican candidates who have been privately wooed include James D. Oberweis, an Illinois dairy magnate who is seeking to replace Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the former House speaker, who is retiring; Mike Erickson, a business executive seeking to unseat Representative Darlene Hooley, an Oregon Democrat; and Ed Tinsley, the owner of a restaurant franchiser, who is running for an open House seat in New Mexico.
Some senior Republicans, frustrated with what they describe as anemic fund-raising by the party's House campaign committee, say that luring wealthy candidates is no easy fix, as it does not guarantee victory. "I've seen many a rich guy blow cash and still not become a member of Congress," said one top House Republican, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to be seen as criticizing his colleagues.
This Republican and others argued that ready access to large sums of money was no substitute for a candidate with the personal qualities and political assets needed to meet the demands of a modern campaign, from an unflappable manner on the trail to an established network of allies and supporters.
In fact, past elections show that candidates who spend large sums of their own money frequently end up losing. In 2006, for example, only 2 of the 10 candidates who spent the most of their own money on their own races for House seats won the elections, according to an analysis of finance records and election results.
The potential limitations of relying on candidates whose most conspicuous asset is money were on display last week when a millionaire expected to pour his own money into a Congressional bid in the suburbs north of New York City abruptly dropped out of the running.
The candidate, Andrew M. Saul, a vice chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, quit the race after disclosures that he had raised money from real estate executives seeking business from the agency. Democrats say Mr. Saul's aborted campaign shows the inexperience of the Republicans' wealthy recruits.
But in a campaign when Democrats are trying to expand their majority, some Republicans argue that candidates able to tap personal fortunes may, at the very least, help put some Democratic incumbents on the defensive and thereby tie up money party leaders might otherwise spend challenging Republican incumbents.
"Democrats have cause for concern," Mr. Spain said. "Not only are these candidates well-funded. But they are running full-blown campaign operations that are already putting them on the defensive."
Indeed, in Texas's 23rd Congressional District, in the San Antonio area, for example, Francisco Canseco, a wealthy businessman known as Quico, has invested more than $700,000 of his own money in his campaign. He has hired a staff, including a pollster, media consultants and fund-raisers, and has already begun running television advertisements, including during the San Antonio Spurs' N.B.A. playoff and championship games last June.
Democrats, in turn, dispatched the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Texas to headline a fund-raising event for the district's first-term Democratic incumbent, Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez, who has $600,000 in his campaign war chest.
Todd Smith, a top adviser to Mr. Canseco, says that the Republican candidate's willingness to bankroll his campaign allows him to reach out to voters earlier than other candidates, who must instead court donors.
"Quico's investment has given us an opportunity to put a full-scale campaign operation in place," he said. "Right now, you have Congressional candidates around the country meeting with donors just to get the funds necessary to run."
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment