Dean move hints at a crack in political financing system
Candidate weighs whether to break spending-cap pledge
Is it groundbreaking grass-roots democracy or a backdoor escape hatch from a campaign pledge?
In either case, Howard Dean's decision to let a plebiscite of supporters determine whether he will be the Democrats' first presidential candidate to forgo spending caps is the latest sign that the public financing system is breaking down.
Rivals for the Democrats' nomination slashed away at Dean yesterday, saying he is hiding behind his supporters as he prepares to abandon a commitment to abide by the mechanism that provides public funding for presidential candidates who accept spending limits.
Late yesterday, the campaign of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri was preparing to deliver a letter to the Federal Election Commission seeking an advisory opinion on the legality of a candidate dropping out of the public funding program. Dean's is the only one of the nine major Democrats' campaigns approved for public funding after the candidate personally agreed to spending limits.
Every Democratic presidential candidate since 1976 has participated in the system, enacted in 1974 and designed to curb the influence of special-interest money in response to the Watergate fund-raising scandals.
In a statement released yesterday, Dean said he will abide by the decision of 600,000 supporters who will receive ballots by e-mail and first-class postal service, and solicited by telephone.
He will also have the support of the 1.6-million member Service Employees International Union, according to the Associated Press. The AP said top officials from the SEIU told at least three Democratic campaigns last night that Dean will get the endorsement today. The announcement will come after the union's 63-member executive board meets with Dean, the AP said.
Yesterday, Dean made clear he thinks opting out of public funding is the best way to compete with President Bush, who is setting fund-raising records outside of the system. The result will be announced Saturday, Dean said.
"Unfortunately, despite the law's best intent, it will hinder our reform efforts while rewarding the Bush campaign's attempts to further increase the power of special interests," the former Vermont governor said. "It will cap our spending at $45 million, giving the Bush campaign a spending advantage of $170 million, which they will use to define and distort us from March to August."
Under the law, publicly funded candidates may spend up to $45 million during the nomination process. Bush, who is unopposed for the Republican nomination, expects to raise up to $170 million. Other estimates put the figure at $200 million.
Jano Cabrera, a spokesman for Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, called the Dean poll "gimmickry" and said Dean "is using his supporters as political cover for changing his position on public financing."
Kelley Benander, spokeswoman for Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, said Dean "was certainly a passionate supporter of the matching-fund system before, when his campaign wasn't raising quite so much cash. This is more politics of convenience, more politics as usual."
But Dean's campaign manager, Joe Trippi, said the fact that opponents are questioning the move "is proof that the rest of the campaigns still don't understand what we are. Our supporters are our campaign. That's what makes us different from the rest of them. That's why we're willing to take the risk by putting it in the hands of our supporters."
Trippi has estimated that through September, Dean had already qualified for up to $19 million in funds that matched the first $250 given by each donor.
Because of the Democrats' front-loaded system of primaries and caucuses, the nominee will probably emerge in March. A candidate who agreed to the spending cap probably would have little or no money to spend until the formal nomination at the Democratic convention in Boston at the end of next July. Both major party candidates will receive about $74 million upon their nomination. Bush will be officially nominated during the GOP convention, Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 in New York City.
Since agreeing to spending limits, Dean has set fund-raising records for a Democrat. Through Sept. 30, he had raised $25.4 million, more than $5 million more than his nearest rival, Kerry, and roughly double the amount other major Democratic contenders had collected.
Bush had raised $85.2 million.
Meanwhile, Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said Dean, if he opts out of the system, should abide by all the spending caps through the nomination process, to "ensure a relatively equal playing field among the Democrats." If he becomes the party nominee, then he would have funds to compete with Bush, said Claybrook.
By opting out of the public financing system, Dean would magnify his money advantage over his eight Democratic opponents, because he would not be bound by spending caps in the critical early voting states, which begin to pare the field.
In response to the Dean announcement, rival campaigns of Kerry and retired Army General Wesley K. Clark said they were "keeping their options open." The campaigns of Gephardt, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut said they planned to adhere to their pledges and accept public funding and spending limits. 