Spendthrift Steve
REES, MATTHEW
Spendthrift Steve by Matthew Rees Everyone knows that Steve Forbes has mounted a major spending blitz in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, disbursing some $25 million since...
...It was carte blanche...
...He is devoting an estimated 80 percent of his campaign budget to advertising, double the norm...
...Two weeks from now, Alexander's words may look hopelessly naive...
...We've crossed the last bridge from organizational politics to media politics," opines Alex Castellanos, a media consultant for Phil Gramm...
...Republican pollster Fred Steeper points out that many voters actually prefer self-financed candidates, on the theory that "if you're super-rich, you're less corruptible...
...The formula is so well established that David Carney, a trusted Dole adviser in New Hampshire, said back in June, "If there's anyone out there stupid enough to think they can win the New Hampshire primary with TV ads and no organization, I think that's great...
...in giant California, four...
...Castellanos calls the Forbes effort "the campaign of the future...
...Demanding that dishonest ads be pulled, meanwhile, is a Catch-22...
...More recently, at the height of the costliest Senate campaign in American history, average television viewers were seeing 10 ads a week each for Dianne Feinstein and Michael Huffington...
...Nevertheless, the Forbes campaign is confirming two political truths: Negative advertising works, and the American people have nothing against multimillionaires' financing their own campaigns...
...As for personal campaigning, before the February 12 Iowa caucuses, Forbes spent about 20 days in the state...
...How did he do this...
...in New Hampshire, $600,000...
...Forbes has spent up to $20 million on radio and television ads alone, beaming into voters' homes so often they feel like he's a member of the family...
...Dole recently told the New York Times, "I've got to go out and sell Bob Dole and Bob Dole's ideas, and I can't do that if I'm spending half my time picking a fight with somebody else...
...Traditionally, candidates for the presidential nominations declare early, then devote huge amounts of time and personnel to key states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where voters supposedly insist on looking them over in person...
...Between half and two-thirds of Forbes's ads have been negative, and they've reinforced doubts about Dole...
...Mike Murphy, adman for Alexander, complains, "Federal law says [the primaries] will be a rubber-band fight, and Forbes has come with a machine gun...
...It had never happened to me before and never since...
...That's what they called it...
...Forbes didn't even set foot in New Hampshire between December 13 and January 18, yet he has catapulted to first in some New Hampshire polls...
...Forbes accepted the challenge and has been running strong ever since...
...During four days in January, front-runner Bob Dole beamed 118 ads to New Hampshire voters watching Boston television stations-a heavy ad buy for anyone but Forbes, who aired 384 ads in that market in the same four days...
...To put this in perspective, consider: At this point in the race in 1988, the six Republican presidential candidates' total combined spending was slightly more than $25 million...
...In South Carolina, which holds its primary March 2, Forbes has outspent Dole and Gramm on WIS, the most widely watched television station, by four or five to one...
...Until recent weeks, he had bare-bones staffs in Iowa and New Hampshire...
...They wanted tonnage, frequency, and they said, 'Here's the money and you help us work out the schedule...
...When Gramm challenged the Forbes campaign on an ad falsely claiming he had voted for the 1990 budget agreement, "not only did they never respond," he told Nightline on February 5, "they never pulled the ad off, and when we responded, they quadrupled the buy of the ad...
...And so they have...
...In New Hampshire, the average television viewer is seeing more like 34 ads a week for Forbes...
...Gramm, whose campaign has floundered, has devoted just 10 percent of his budget to television...
...McCarthy, who has worked for self-financed candidates Huffington, Lew Lehrman, and John Heinz, says personal spending has never been a liability...
...In both states, Forbes is spending at least three times the limit...
...Indeed, increasing numbers of candidates are financing their own campaigns...
...In Arizona, which has a February 27 primary, he has five full-time employees...
...A representative of WMUR-TV, the only statewide station in New Hampshire, told the Los Angeles Times about meeting with the Forbes campaign in September...
...The Arizona Republic estimates Forbes's broadcast and cable advertising in that state has cost him roughly $2 million...
...Wisconsin Democrat Herbert Kohl spent $7.5 million to win a Senate race using the slogan "Nobody's senator but yours...
...I encourage them to undertake that activity...
...Spendthrift Steve by Matthew Rees Everyone knows that Steve Forbes has mounted a major spending blitz in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, disbursing some $25 million since late September...
...Dole has run no television ads in Arizona...
...They wanted to do a megabulk buy," she said...
...Bob Dole had been there more like 40 days, Phil Gramm 70, and Lamar Alexander 80...
...Money is part of the answer...
...The reasons for the losses varied, but voter resentment of a candidate's trying to "buy an election" ? la Forbes was rarely an issue...
...Whether this brings success remains unclear: According to Ann McBride, president of Common Cause, only four of the 14 Senate candidates who spent over $1 million of their own money in 1994 were elected, and three of those were incumbents...
...He launched his campaign on September 22 and immediately started buying lots of media time...
...Of the 16 House candidates who spent over $400,000 of their own money, only two were elected...
...Alexander pleaded in a January Boston Globe interview: "I am trusting the voters to add up all the private conversations [I've had with them] and make that worth more than all the money spent on television...
...He might be right...
...They wanted to buy every stitch of advertising they could get...
...In the face of this barrage, the other candidates have found it increasingly difficult to convey their messages...
...Regardless of how he ultimately fares, Forbes has shaken up the presidential selection process in a way no one expected...
...In Iowa, candidates who accept public funds must observe a spending limit of $1.1 million...
...The voters may not resent it, but rival candidates, editorial writers, and many political professionals do...
...GOP media consultant Larry McCarthy predicts Forbes will "make it more acceptable for wealthy candidates to jump into politics...
...Because he is self-financed and doesn't have to spend on raising money, Forbes gets more bang for his buck...
...Speeches before coffee klatches and senior citizens groups are standard practice until about a month before the primary or caucus, when the candidates launch their television ads...
...While polls show that voters dislike negative ads, experience demonstrates they are effective...
Vol. 1 • February 1996 • No. 22
