Cross-posted from michiganliberal.com
Today we present the text of a three-part interview I did last week with Rich Robinson, Executive Director of the
Michigan Campaign Finance Network. The MCFN has received a considerable amount of attention recently for
uncloaking the connection between contrubtions from the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association and legislative passage of the inane wine-by-mail ban. That information was disclosed in MCFN's annual
Citizen's Guide to Michigan Campaign Finance report issued last month. Yesterday, Robinson was the subject of
another piece yesterday from the Associated Press in which he called for changes to Michigan Campaign Finance laws.
In tomorrow's segment, Robinson talks about some of the major contributors to Michigan state legislators and their policy priorities.
Today, Robinson gives us a brief postmortem on the 2004 Michigan presidential campaigns, as well as a look at the involvment of casinos in last year's campaign.
MF: For
people who don't know anything about the
Michigan Campaign Finance
Network...you're non-partisan, right?
RR: We're
non-partisan, we're non-profit, we do research and public education on money in
Michigan politics.
MF: Who pays
for you?
RR: Well,
free-will love offerings from people in Michigan who support our work and we
also get some pretty generous support from the
Joyce Foundation in Chicago.
MF: In the
news recently, we heard that the state Republican Party has started
running
radio ads critical of Governor Granholm on a number of different things. Here
we are in July of 2005 and we already have negative attack ads already on the
radio. Are we headed towards a climate where we just have attack ads running
nonstop, 365 days a year, regardless of whether there's an election coming up
or not.
RR: We might
be. I guess if people feel that they're effective, they'll do it. There doesn't
appear to be any shortage of money to put into this kind of stuff. The
interesting thing about this is, as I understand it, (and I have not heard the
ads) is they don't say "vote against Granholm" or "vote for Dick
DeVos." They just say "Granholm bad." And so, I'm sure they'll
never disclose who put the money up to buy these ads. It'll all be secret.
MF: Just
last month you came out with
a report that shows that $120 million was raised
for Michigan political campaigns in 2004. Give us some perspective. How does
that compare to previous elections? I would assume that it's more.
RR: It is
more. Typically, the state House campaigns in presidential years are better fed
than they are in gubernatorial years - because in gubernatorial years there's
competition for state campaign dollars from the Senate campaigns and the
statewide office campaigns. So, 2004 was just slightly less expensive for House
campaigns than 2000, but more expensive than 2002.
There were
$38 million worth of presidential TV ads (in 2004). The $120 million figure
doesn't include any of the ground campaign at all or for that matter, radio or
direct mail, or any of that. I had no way to really get a handle on that.
Essentially what it came down to was, I think, $84 million in state campaigns,
including the undisclosed issue ads and another $38 million on presidential TV.
MF: Is most (of
the $84 million) also for TV?
RR: Well, an
awful lot of it is. Really, out of $84 million on the state side, $27 million
of it was tied up just in the
Proposal 1 campaign...
MF: That was
the casino thing that no one could really figure out.
RR: Well, if
people we're looking for a good guy, there really wasn't one. I mean it was
just a question of who was going to control what share of the market as far as
gambling dollars went. The issue was: could racetracks have slot machines or
not? And of course, as it turned out, they're not going to have slot machines.
So, there were some very expensive, very
slick direct mail in that campaign. It was enormous as a television campaign.
In mid-October, really the height of the season, here we are a presidential
battleground state - there was twice as much spent on Proposal 1 TV in the
Detroit market as presidential TV. That tended to save the advertising season
for the television broadcasters. It made them very happy.
MF: Saved
the broadcasters? You mean they thought they weren't getting enough
presidential money?
RR: They
felt like it was kind of a lackluster year. It was not meeting expectations.
You could see it early on, throughout the early stage of the campaign, prior to
Memorial Day, then again in the soft months in the summer, and then after Labor
Day - the Kerry side was outspending the Bush side by a fair margin, all the
way through. In the early months, they needed the help from 527 organizations.
But after that, just comparing party and candidate, they were outspending Bush
by a fairly wide margin on TV ads. This suggested to me, fairly early on, that
this was kind of a soft concession. I mean, the Bush campaign wasn't going to
walk away all together early on and just concede Michigan, allowing Kerry to
spend money elsewhere. But it seemed as though it was a relatively decided
issue. Then there was some late polling in October, and the race appeared to be
closer than expected, and the television advertising accelerated for a brief
period...and it ended up the way it ended up.
MF: So the
casinos came to the broadcasters' rescue?
RR: That was
it. As I went around and visited the sales managers at the TV stations before
proposal 1 heated up, they were kind of in the doldrums about a soft season. And
then that heated up and saved their season.
MF: We've
had at least two casino issues on the ballot that I can think of now. Are you
seeing any kind of trend coming out of that?
RR: In this
one, when you consider that more was spent on Proposal 1 than was spent
by all
parties and candidates combined - for all of those on the November
ballot, for
all state offices, the judgeships, the Board of Education, the
university
boards, the state House - Proposal 1 alone exceeded everybody else as
far as
spending. To me, that was absolutely remarkable and one of the
interesting
features was that the Saginaw Chippewa tribe was into that campaign for
almost
$10 million. This is a tribe that was taken for, I think, $12 million
by
(Washington lobbyist)
Jack
Abramoff.
After the
Saginaw Chippewa tribe, the MGM-Grand casino, which was trying to protect its
sale price, was in it for about $8 million. The other casino owners were not in
nearly as heavily. I mean the Sioux tribe and the Greektown casino together was
less than a half million. Marian Illich, who is now the full-owner of Motor
City (casino), was in it for about $200,000. So I thought maybe Sterling
Corporation should get the Jack Abramoff award for consulting services to the
tribes on this one. They also took the Little River band of Ottawas in Manistee
pretty heavily. They were in it for over a million dollars.
MF: What
about casino contributions to candidates? Where do casinos rank among the list
of political donors?
RR: It's
absolutely illegal. They can't give money to candidates. They can't give money
to parties.
MF: Well,
corporate contributions are illegal too. But we know they find ways to deal
with that.
RR: Sure -
for "non-election purposes", like issue ads, corporate money works
it's way in. Inasmuch as those contributions don't exist anywhere in the public
record, I have no way to say that we succeed in keeping gaming money out of the
process or not. Of course, members of a tribe, like corporate officers or union
members can contribute to a PAC, which can give money to political candidates.
MF: Are we
seeing anything like that going on (with casinos)?
RR: No, as
far as I know, none of the tribes has a PAC. And certainly I haven't seen any
PAC for casinos. There's nothing visible, at least, of gaming money.
MF: So if
it's there, they're doing a good job of hiding their tracks.
RR: I guess
one would say that, yeah.