Fundraising In the U.S. Presidential Campaigns_In the Name of the Media Age
Nikki Fang (?????/span>)
Economic Law, Student ID :s06137,
Paper Supervisor : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2007 Academic Year
The story of America’s presidential elections from 1789 is somewhat like a textbook of money financing and spending. There is beyond any doubt that the need for money in a modern U.S. political campaign is pervasive and grows with each cycle. Every stage of the whole election process and each tactic employable for effective and efficient message delivery require money. Therefore, concerns over financing presidential elections have become the focus of attention, which is long centered on the enduring issues of high campaign costs and its influence on election results. Money is, in short, the fuel that drives the engine of election campaigns[1]. Hence, is it a good thing to spend so much money on presidential elections? Of course not all observers view this issue with alarm. Many insist we do not spend too much on elections and maybe do not spend enough. But that may not be the case. Although the practices of rising campaign costs were presumably legal, they may have violated the law’s spirit. It is better to view this issue with alarm and find alternatives to reduce the spending and help to improve efficiency and effectiveness of the money usage. The following paper is trying to chase down the sticking point of the above-mentioned perennial problem and propose alternatives, which here means the Internet, to help tp reduce the ever-increasing campaign costs by analyzing the 2000 Election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
(1)Law and Regulations about the Fundraising Process
According to professors of American University----James A. Thurber and Candice J. Nelson, there is no magic to elections, even for grizzled veteran incumbents, fundraising can be the most intimidating and onerous task involved in conducting a campaign for public office[2]. Take a brief look at the Constitution and other related statutes, which are the backbone and guidance of the presidential election is of primary importance. The presidential election is a single-member plurality system (“first-past-the-post”). The constitutional requirement to be elected president and vice president is that the candidates receive a majority of votes in the Electoral College. Obviously, there are fierce debates on whether to eliminate the Electoral College in the election process or not. This is, however, no concern of this research paper. And the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) provides the legal framework within which campaign financing is orchestrated[3]. The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which was established by the Act, monitors the conduct of some aspects of the election campaigns and is partly responsible for implementing public financing of presidential candidates.
Then under the regulation of related laws, how the substantive campaign costs issue come into being the target of public criticism along with academic ones? The answer could only be found by tracing back its history.
The First Reform in the 1970s
Since first being systematically compiled in the 1970s, campaign expenditures have risen substantially, even exceeding the overall rise in the cost of living. Campaign finance authority Herbert Alexander estimated that $540 million was spent on all elections in the U.S. in 1976, rising to some $3.9 billion in 2000. The above data were cited by many researchers as evidences when analyzing the campaign costs, which may give a hint that election costs have grown to levels often considered exorbitant. Especially, it is argued that officeholders must spend too much time raising money, at the expense of their public duties and communicating with constituents. As a matter of fact, the high cost of presidential elections not only casts doubt on the justice and democracy of election results, but also reflects the paramount role of the mass media in modern presidential elections.
There have been three long-standing complaints against the role of money in elections, namely, that it influences (1) access to the electoral process, (2) election outcomes, and (3) decisions on public policy[4]. But not until the 1970s did Congress pass legislation that seriously addressed the problem of money in presidential elections. These regulations came in the form of the Revenue Act and the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), both were passed in 1971. In response to the Watergate, there followed a series of amendments to the FECA in 1974. Among those statutes there were two carried heaviest weight: (1) For presidential candidates only, provided optional partial public funding of their nomination campaigns. (2) Established an enforcement mechanism (the Federal Election Commission) to monitor compliance, including the public disclosure of all contributions of $200 or more.
However, these reforms were only seen as enhancing part of candidate accountability by public disclosure of campaign contributions, but give no help to reduce the ever-increasing campaign costs.
The Second Development
A second development diluting the impact of the campaign financing reforms grew out of a concern voiced by scholars and politicians that the 1976 presidential election campaign was devoid of the party-building activities----buttons, bumper stickers, get-out-the-vote campaigns, recruiting volunteers----that had characterized previous presidential election campaigns[5]. Accordingly, in 1979 Congress decided to allow individuals and groups (including banks, labor organizations, and corporations, which have long been prohibited from making contributions directly to candidates) to give unlimited sums of money to state and local parties for purposes of “party-building” activities. And this money was known as “soft money”. Without hesitation, the second attempt also received strong criticism because of the 1976 Presidential Election. Since that election, campaign organizations have discovered various loopholes in the law that allows campaigns to get around the law[6].
The Third Reform
And after several unsuccessful attempts, Congress in 2002 finally passed new campaign reform legislation----the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, more commonly known as the McCain-Feingold Bill. In this Act, it prohibits national parties from accepting any soft money contributions, while allowing state and local parties to accept up to $10,000 in soft money each year per individual for get-out-the-vote and voter registration efforts in federal and presidential elections. However, the newly issued legislation seems fail to stop the continual skepticism and criticism of the astronomical sum of campaign expenditure. Because resourceful candidates and their intelligent lawyers can always find creative ways to circumvent any campaign finance restrictions. Therefore, after all those indigent reform efforts, the amount of campaign costs mounts up term by term, instead of showing any sign of being reduced.
(2) Instruments Employable in Presidential Elections.
Why presidential candidates need so much money to run for the White House? Where do they spend the money? It comes to light that all candidates spare no effort and pour maximum election funds to create their candidate images in order to triumph over the presidential election. Nowadays, some people choose to name our times as the Media-driven Age. According to professor Jamieson who commented in 1987, that, “Speaker image becomes central t the assessment of viewer response, so central in fact that one can say the candidate image is the issue in the campaign, the one and only criterion every American voter feels qualified to apply.” Maybe it is not the candidates to be blamed, but the election system which drives them to act in that way.
One of the best ways to create this so-called candidate image is through the mass media. One cannot overlook or downgrade the strength of the mass media in modern times. According to researches, other than the traditional electioneering speech tours, there are plenty alternatives for the candidates in the name of the Media Age, such as television spots, debates, web pages, radio spots, television talk show appearances and so on.
Speech Tours
William Henry Harrison was the first one to take a stump in 1840 to make a few innocuous speeches[7]. After that, speech tours have become the popular and effective way to promote candidates in electioneering. However, this is proved to be time-consuming and exorbitant for every candidate to travel around the country. At the same time, this also required high expenditure for the potential voters who went a long way just to see the events held by candidates. All in all, this is centuries-old but also lavish and inefficient. In this regard, it is better to maintain this commemorative method but with restricted usage and for big events only.
Radio Spots
Along with the technological revolution, radio came into being and brought great convenience to people, including election candidates who made it a campaign tool. Radio was one of the various media used to persuade voters during the 2000 presidential general election campaign. Radio Advertisement requires candidates a large sum of advertising rate. It is said that some American people resist the television or the Internet. In this circumstance, radio broadcasting may be one of their most important news sources. Other than those people, taxi drivers and other workers in particular fields are also big consumers of the radio broadcasting. Therefore, radio advertisement is still effectively functioning in this regard. But one could not deny that radio’s position has gradually being replaced by television ever since the latter was invented. Hence, radio spots are no longer the priority for candidates when making [...]
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