Washington Post Possibly Explains McCain's Move to the Right
Mon Dec 11, 2006 at 06:55:17 AM PDT
It's well known in the blogosphere that McCain moved to the right following the '00 primaries. What isn't well-known -- and what has been the subject of increasing speculation -- is why McCain chose to abandon his maverick image in favor of increasingly right-wing rhetoric.
An article in the Washington Post this Sunday offers a possible motive. It's not about the voters. It's about the donors.
[A/N: I heard most of this -- including most of the analysis -- on Young Turks this morning. As far as I can tell, it hasn't been diaried. If this is a repeat -- or if it's not okay to borrow someone else's analysis -- I'll take it down.]
During the 2000 Presidential primaries and, later, the election, George Bush enjoyed a single overwhelming advantage over his opponents: his fund raising. To quote CNN's biography during the 2004 election:
But a message wasn't the only thing Bush brought into the race. He had a record $70 million in the bank before the first primary. Due to his prodigious fund-raising, Bush declined federal matching funds during the primary season -- a move which exempted him from spending limits imposed on candidates who accept matching funds.
His fund-raising advantage caused several of his opponents to drop out before the first primary. He eventually raised a record-setting $193 million by the end of the campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
John McCain and other Republicans have learned from that election, concluding that:
Bush's 2000 campaign forever changed the fundraising dynamic for presidential races, showing that an enormous early financial advantage was the same as winning an "invisible primary." In that race, there are no voters, elections or overt campaigning -- just the wooing of fabulously rich people with the rewards of insider status, complete with fancy titles.
Thanks to changes in campaign finance laws, Bush's strategy focused on recruiting donors who not only could donate money themselves, but could network with others to get them to do the same:
In this new world of presidential fundraising, finding a wealthy person and persuading him or her to write a check is not the gold standard. Instead, the goal is to identify individuals who not only can contribute the federal limit of $2,000 but also can persuade 100 or so of their friends and business associates to do the same.
The Bush team named such people "Rangers" and "Pioneers", and they are just as important today as they were six years ago:
These Rangers, who raised $200,000 or more for Bush in 2004, and Pioneers, who each collected more than $100,000 as part of campaigns that redefined modern political fundraising, are being intensely courted by GOP presidential aspirants across the country, both in large gatherings such as the one in Boston and one-on-one.
In addition to fundraising, these big donors play an increasing role in the Presidential campaign itself:
The genius of the program was twofold: It let the fundraising team showily quantify its efforts, and it got donors involved in the day-to-day operations and planning of the campaign, according to Alex Vogel, a senior adviser to outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
"The relationship did not start or end when they wrote a check," Vogel said. "They were not just donors but part of the organization."
The money itself is not the only deciding factor. Fundraising also helps elected officials decide who to support:
"It's important, because in the invisible-primary phase, elected officials who have their own organizations and their own power to endorse pay attention to who the big fundraisers are coalescing around," said Wayne Berman, a Bush Ranger in 2004 and a backer of McCain in the 2008 race.
These cumulative effects mean that the "invisible primary" is not just a primary; it is the primary -- and, short of a major stumble, a candidate who wins this first 'primary' will go on to be nominated for President:
Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist not affiliated with a potential presidential candidate, said that with just 14 months remaining before the first ballots are cast, any candidate not knee-deep in conversations with Rangers and Pioneers is already falling behind.
"We are going to have a nominee by February 6th," 2008, Rogers said. "You have to have all of your money at the opening gun."
In other words, the Presidential nomination will not be decided based upon primaries -- it will be decided by the elite group of donors to the Republican party.
What makes donors decide which candidate to support? Extensive courting by candidates helps, of course. But part of the decision is completely pragmatic:
"It's much more like a professional recruitment than it is a romance," Berman said. "A lot of it has to do with discussions about how the campaign's fundraising is going to work, the team, what the candidate's approach on fundraising is going to be."
Rogich put it more bluntly. "At the end of the season, there is a column with an 'L' and one with a 'W.' I want to be in the 'W' column," he said.
At the same time, however, ideological positions also play a significant role in helping potential donors decide upon their candidate:
Ron Kaufman, who is supporting Romney, made up his mind on a flight with the Massachusetts governor over South Carolina not long ago.
Kaufman, political director in the George H.W. Bush White House, had picked up a copy of Thomas L. Friedman's "The World Is Flat" and planned to give it to Romney. "Before I could even mention the book, he waxed eloquently in a soliloquy that I call 'The World Is Flat: The Oral Edition,' " Kaufman recounted. That episode about Friedman's treatise on globalization "cinched" his support for Romney, he said.
To return to the title, right now, John McCain is focusing on recruiting donors, not voters:
McCain and Romney are mimicking the Bush model not only in terms of the individuals they are courting but also in the approach they are taking to their pitch: a heavy emphasis on personal attention, meeting one-on-one with prospective donors, inviting them on trips and even soliciting them in that old K Street favorite: at sporting events.
And it's working.
So far, Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain are well ahead among the Republican contenders, though neither yet has come up with monikers like "Pioneer" or "Ranger" to flatter the biggest donors....
Both Romney and McCain now count more than two dozen Pioneers and Rangers as supporters and have sought commitments from many others.
The Young Turks suggested that McCain is ahead of Romney, although I can't find anything in the W. Post article to confirm or deny that.
So, to summarize, why is McCain moving to the right? Why is he behaving so erratically? It's not because of voters. He's already ahead in the polls. It's because of donors. If there's one lesson he -- like all Republicans -- have taken from 2000, it's that the person with the most money is going to win the election. And he's determined to be that man.
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