Funding Liberty! Table of Contents
Funding Liberty!
Chapter 15
2000-Campaign Kickoff
For better or worse the Libertarian Party had chosen a candidate. It had had choices: Champion of local organization Don Gorman. Prominent Arizona activist Barry Hess. David Hollist, proponent of contract insurance. Champion of ethics Jacob Hornberger. The convention chose Harry Browne. The Party had several Vice Presidential contenders. There was a surprise draft movement for Don Gorman. Gorman declined the nomination. The convention nominated Art Olivier, who defeated Steve Kubby and Ken Krawchuk for the nomination.
Gorman drew enormous attention by appearing on the convention floor while the Draft Gorman effort was under way. To the author's eye—the author was a delegate—the Draft Gorman effort had enormous popular support among the delegates. Most Gorman supporters whom I questioned did not understand that in America you cannot give money to support a Vice Presidential candidate. Donations to support a Gorman Vice Presidential campaign were legally required to pass through Harry Browne's Campaign Committee, which would have been under no legal obligation to forward them to Gorman. To the astonishment and admiration of the delegates and some among the press, Gorman turned down the draft, saying that the delegates should select from the men who had spent the past months campaigning for the Vice Presidential nomination.
Did the National Convention generate publicity? Did the publicity help the Party or the candidate's standing in the polls? Northampton County (PA) LP County Chairman Ken Sturzenacker did a complete search of the Associated Press Newswire, and compiled information on other sources. An edited version of Sturzenacker's material appeared in the November 2000 Liberty magazine. The following draws from Sturzenacker's original research.
July began with CSPAN coverage of the National Convention. This was the most press coverage the National Party had received since 1998 and 1996. In an omen for the future, despite the TV coverage, membership in the National Party decreased during July. The decrease was not large, but it should have sent a warning to Libertarian activists. The Party had had its best shot for publicity over the Fourth of July weekend, during a period in which other campaigns were relatively quiescent. The snoozing libertarian masses that might have been drawn to the Party remained adoze.
Browne captured the nomination. The nearby major newspapers in California, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times, reported Browne's nomination as local, not national, news. The LA Times is extremely liberal; the Register inclines somewhat in our direction. Neither thought our convention was of nationwide importance.
Of greater import is the AP Newswire. The Associated Press is a unified subscriber/collector agency involving several thousand newspapers in the United States and around the globe. Its subscribers' readers, listeners, and viewers number many hundreds of millions of people. Prior to the National Convention, Browne had been mentioned twice on the AP newswire, once when he declared his candidacy, and once in coverage of the California primary, in which Browne did very poorly. Browne's third mention was when he took the nomination. The AP report went out in three versions, the first saying the LP is America's top third party, and the other two crediting Browne with hoping to revitalize an 'ailing' party.
For ten weeks, that would be the last mention of Browne by the AP. Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan typically had 2-3 stories per day on their campaigns. Browne was to have no more for many weeks. Browne's 1999 plan to be the leading third-party candidate, the one shown when 'third-party' was mentioned, had sunk without a trace. Third-party fundraising successes tracked other indicators of campaign success. For July 2000, Bush and Gore raised vast amounts. Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader received over $400,000; Pat Buchanan and Lyndon LaRouche each pulled in over $200,000; and Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin received $126,000. Browne's fundraising left him in seventh place at $111,000. Browne did collect more than Constitution Party candidate Howard Phillips, who raised just over $173,000 for all of 2000.
My usually reliable sources indicate another anomaly relating to the National Convention, this time involving the Convention Banquet. By highly reliable report the Convention Committee had intended to use Mark Tuniewicz and at least one other person as the banquet fundraisers: The people who gave the fundraising speech, worked the crowd, and incited giving money. By the same highly reliable report, National Chair David Bergland instead intervened—something he rarely did in party affairs—and directed that the fundraiser at the banquet should be led by his close associate Michael Cloud.
Early polling data on Browne's campaign was not encouraging. The Rassmussen Portrait of America poll, which had the most extensive coverage of Browne, showed a post-convention spike to 1.6%. This number led to some confusion, because polls are typically accompanied by a misleading "margin of error", often cited as 3-4%. On hearing the alleged 3-4% margin of error and Browne's 1% outcome, some commentators incorrectly inferred that the Browne polling numbers were statistically indistinguishable from zero.
The oft-quoted margin of error is an oversimplification appropriate for most major party candidates. For candidates in Browne's shoes, an alternative calculation gives a reasonable estimate for the margin of error: Multiply the number of people polled by the Browne percentage: The product is the number of Browne supporters in the poll. Take the square root of the number of supporters. Divide by the number of people polled and convert to a percent. That's the margin of error, which for Browne was typically 0.2-0.4 percentage points. This margin of error was usually smaller than Browne's polling performance.
On July 10, PRNewswire reported that Lorilei Communications, Inc (operating as "The Firm Multimedia") had announced that it would begin media placement for the Browne campaign. Lorilei estimated that the campaign would generate substantial revenues—upward of $1,000,000. The TV ad campaign began in late July, with almost $17,000 for airing the ads and $14,000 for their production costs.
On July 17, 2000 the Browne campaign announced that the FEC lawsuit would have to be dropped. They had a legal report, a legal strategy, and an estimated cost of litigation: above $500,000. "...that kind of expenditure for a project of this nature is no longer an option for the campaign." Once again, the campaign had raised money for a project and failed to follow through on the project. Once again, the Party's leadership failed to register concern about the candidate's fundraising tactics.
Media spending began with an announcement in the July 19th LibertyWire that the Browne Committee and the National Committee 'wrote checks for $40,000 for National TV advertising buys'. The FEC records paint a somewhat different picture. Browne's campaign spent $6936 on July 13 and $10,000 on July 19th. For the month, the National Committee reported spending $92,390 on "Coordinated Expenditures by Party Committee". The associated Form F, which would have itemized the LNC’s spending, does not appear on the FEC web pages. I confirmed from a member of the National Party staff that the coordinated spending reflected ad buys by the LNC for Browne TV ads. In the July 26th LibertyWire on the topic 'Another Update on TV Ads', Willis claimed 'We have just purchased another $22,390 worth of advertising.' No such purchase appears in the FEC reports. All considered, for the month the campaign spent $16,936 on advertising, and claimed another $45,454. From FEC reports, the additional $45,454 does not appear to have been spent by the Browne campaign.
The National Party's financial situation might have sent up warning flags. The Party began July with $288,000 cash on hand, had $323,000 in receipts, and disbursed $469,000. It had been the Party's intent to run the convention as a break-even affair. As reported in the December 2000 National Committee minutes, the convention lost "about $63,000". During July the National Party also spent well over $60,000 on petitioning. On July 31, $142,000 cash on hand was overmatched by $264,000 of debts and obligations. Money from the large-scale fundraising event at a well-attended National Convention had been spent on Presidential campaign ads. The Party ended July in the red to the tune of $122,000. Debts included $111,000 owed to the convention hotel, $49,000 to Brick Mill Studios for mailing services, and $20,454 to Mount Vernon Printing for printing. Major businesses commonly do bill for net within 30 days, so it is normal and healthy for there to be some debt as bills are rolled over month after month. The large increase in net debt is more serious.
One might have supposed that the Party would have recognized in January that on July 3 they would have a Presidential candidate, so on July 5 a fundraising letter invoking the Presidential nominee would go to the printer. In fact, not until the very end of July did the National Party try to raise money by invoking the Presidential Campaign. On July 29, four weeks after the nomination, an email went out from Party Headquarters, asking members to send money to pay for Browne television ads. It made sense for the Party to appeal to donors who had already given Browne their legal maximum. Those people could only support Browne further by supporting the Party. But why was the Party appealing to the general mass of Libertarians for support of Browne? Those people could equally well give their money directly to Browne. And if it were an appropriate appeal, why had it taken so long to go out?
The nominal objective of the fundraising letter was to push Browne ahead of Buchanan in the polls. On August 13, Buchanan would be formally nominated by his party. He would immediately receive $12 million in Federal campaign funds. Once the Federal money was in Buchanan's hands, there was no way that Browne could compete with Buchanan by spending money. Between July 3 and August 13 there was a window of opportunity, but it was a very narrow window. By waiting until July 29 to ask for money, the Party let the window slam most of the way shut before trying to climb through it.
As with other fund appeals from the National Party, the appeal was signed by the Party's paid National Director, Steve Dasbach. Newly-elected National Chair James Lark held himself aloof. He had just been elected. He could have asked the people who had just elected him Chair to come to his aid. He remained nearly silent. He continued this pattern through the first year of his term. Letters and editorials for Party members would continue to come largely from National Director Steve Dasbach and LP News Editor Bill Winter, not from the Party's elected leader.
During the General Election Campaign, Browne 2000 raised and spent nearly a million dollars. The table gives the monthly totals.
|
PRIVATEMONTH
|
INCOME
|
SPENDING
|
CASH ON HAND, END OF MONTH |
|
July |
$110,727 |
$133,896(m) |
$19,854 |
|
August |
$259,905 |
$229,680(n) |
$50,078 |
|
September |
$160,752 |
$188,857(p) |
$21,947 |
|
October 1-18 |
$167,165 |
$163,331(q) |
$25,781 |
|
October 19- November |
$264,944 |
$270,266(r) |
$20,460 |
|
December |
$ 43,369 |
$ 63,521 |
$ 309 |
|
January-March, 2001 |
$ 99,634 |
$ 94,410 |
$ 5,533 |
(m) $10,000 loan repaid to Browne
(n) $10,000 loan repaid to Browne
(p) $7,500 loan paid off to Browne
(q) $2,500 loan paid off to Browne
(r) $1,500 loan paid off to Browne
Despite opportunities at the convention, July was the candidate's worst financial reporting period before the election. Browne brought in $110,727, less than was raised in February or June. The post-convention fundraising spike came in August.
Where did the money go? For July 2000 there were eleven named associates at multiple locations. According to the FEC reports, spending for associates included:
Jim Babka (salary) $8,650
Robert Brunner (travel, supplies,...) $5,000
Erich Covey (salary) $ 630
Laura Carno (salary) $2,500
Robert DeVoil (printing, supplies, data entry) $2,865
Debra Greeson (salary) $1,471
Stuart Reges (phone, supplies, salary) $4,389
Jennifer Willis (salary) $4,000
Steve Willis (phone, office, payroll) $4,062
Perry Willis (campaign management) $4,400
Stephanie Yanik (administrative services) $1,000
TOTAL $38,420
In addition, firms connected with long-time Browne associates received for their labors:
New Media $4,000
Optopia $3,654
Web Commanders $1,422
TOTAL $9,076
Payments to outside vendors were reported to include
The Firm Multimedia (TV Ad Campaign) $16,936
Polaris Productions (TV Ads) $14,000
Hotels (catering) $12,888
Seabreeze (Travel) $ 7,700
Mount Vernon (printing) $ 6,919
Newman Communications (publicity) $ 4,666
Accumail (postage/mailing) $ 2,008
Call Center (answering) $ 2,000
Other payments covered rent on the campaign headquarters, telephone and computer services, and close to $2,000 for credit card services. In July, the campaign's associates received more than 28% of all spending. Together with their firms, they received more than 35% of everything spent by the campaign.