ELECTION 2008: RUNNING WITH AND AGAINST THE MONEY

In a political campaign, there is a way to lose an election because you have too little money. There is another way in which you can lose if you have too much. In an under-funded campaign (like every one in which I have been involved), you are well advised to run against the money; make your opponent’s profligate spending an indication of his/her fiscal irresponsibility—especially if you can show an ethical question about the source of your opponent’s campaign funds. Given the lamentable prevalence of such situations—as when construction contractors contribute heavily to the campaigns of City Commission members when they stand to lose or gain from Commission decisions about construction projects—such issues are unfortunately not hard to define.

While under-funding is a relative term, John McCain’s is definitely the under-funded campaign relative to that of Barack Obama, so he should be running against Obama’s money rather than simply trying to match it. He has some strong opportunities in that direction. The GOP campaign could be emphasizing at every opportunity that Obama (after earlier indicating his intention to abide by the campaign spending limits that go with federal funds matching) has shown, by later abandoning that restraint, a disdain for the decent opinion of the American people that entirely too much money is spent on political campaigns. By pushing this issue, McCain could be making a virtue out of the necessity of his inability to match Obama’s spending, as well as taking the higher ground of “campaign finance reform” on which both men claim to be advocates.

Beyond the amount of Obama’s campaign expenditures, McCain could be raising effectively the issue of the sources of some of Obama’s campaign funding. In a period of public anger about bailouts of Wall Street firms side-by-side with high unemployment and mortgage foreclosure rates, it is hardly helpful to Obama’s “populist” appeal when it is pointed out how many of his largest campaign contributors are toxic names of corporate malfeasance and/or incompetence like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and UBS. That the McCain campaign has not done this is perhaps attributable to the fact that the GOP itself has been heavily supported by these same firms, albeit in a lesser amount. If there is the implication that Obama has been “bought” by these firms, McCain could be charged with the same sale, except at a cheaper price.

The McCain campaign, for whatever reason, has not yet taken advantage of these opportunities. To a degree, it may not be necessary, as the Obama campaign seems to be making self-inflicted wounds by its campaign spending practices. In advertising there is such a thing as “overkill” in one’s attempt to sell one’s “product,” as when Proctor and Gamble once put individual messages on each chip in a can of Pringles. Some advertisers feel that, if they only run the same commercial often enough, back-to-back or close to it, they will achieve a higher level of public acceptance: repetition creates compliance. The campaign of Obama commercials makes me wonder about this. After I have seen about 12 times (and I’m not really a frequent TV watcher) the same ludicrous commercial that “explains” the defects in McCain’s health care plan by the image of an unraveling ball of string, I’m ready to scream “enough,” and tune out any remnants of attention to anything resembling substance in that commercial. It was announced last week that Obama had aired 1069 ads in the Tampa market between September 28 and October 4, and he plans now to pay CBS nearly a million dollars for a 30-minute infomercial on October 29. Is “overload” on the horizon for this campaign with “too much” money?

Having presumed to advise McCain (which advice the campaign is unlikely to take) on how to manage an under-funded campaign, I’ll now offer a piece of advice (which, again, probably won’t be taken) to the over-funded Obama one. Could the campaign use that surfeit of money in ways actually politically useful? I suggested such a way in my October 9 posting, “A Vote for Obama is a Vote for McCain” as an action that might actually draw me toward his support if he were to take it. My suggestion was that he pledge to expend all future campaign contributions in support of some worthy populist “cause” like housing for Katrina victims or, more pointedly today, toward a “relief” fund toward the assistance of people faced with mortgage foreclosures in the current housing crisis. In this Obama could take a page from the book of his most prominent celebrity supporter, Oprah Winfrey. She largely neutralizes popular outrage against “over-paid” Hollywood celebrities by making a very big deal of her charitable contributions, much as it is done by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in the business world. Of course the wealth being distributed in these and other philanthropic operations may result from activities in entertainment and business activities of dubious social significance. And of course the good deeds can be accomplished with a degree of self-congratulation that is approached in the Winfrey projects and goes over the top with the screaming, cheer-leading ones of Extreme Makeover (an Oprah spin-off) so that the philanthropies of these wealthy people may not have the effect they were designed to achieve. But, again, there is a smarter way of doing good deeds and reaping the bottom line benefits of public adulation, corporate profits and election votes, and Obama is nothing but smart in his public persona of a laid-back casualness that would “sell” this activity as an act of genuine civic concern. I don’t know, actually, whether the rules of the Federal Elections Commission on campaign expenditures would allow such a project but, where there is a will (and a good lawyer) there tends to be a way.

In making such a proposal to the Obama campaign, I know I skirt the edge of the “principled” progressivism that is the basis of this blog. I’ve had a life time of ambiguity about philanthropy, noting how its practitioners have found totally selfish reasons for their good deeds, including the use of tax exemptions for “charitable” expenditures that reduce the revenues on which much of the public support of social services is based. But I do recognize, for example, the value of the support of charitable groups for “the arts,” etc. We can at times, I think, be both progressive and pragmatic as we do “whatever it takes,” to fund a school band or a symphony orchestra. I might even argue myself back into the choice of Obama on a strictly pragmatic basis that he’s “the best we can get at this time.” But, not quite yet.

Jerry D. Rose – Editor, The Sun State Activist