The Change Election : Money, Mobilization, and Persuasion in the 2008 Federal Elections [1 ed.] 9781439903407, 9781439903384

Citation preview

The Change Election

The Change Election Money, Mobilization, and Persuasion in the 2008 Federal Elections

Edited by

David B. Magleby

Temple University Press

Philadelphia

Temple University Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 www.temple.edu/tempress Copyright © 2011 by Temple University All rights reserved Published 2011 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The change election : money, mobilization, and persuasion in the 2008 federal elections / ​edited by David B. Magleby. p. cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-1-4399-0338-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-0339-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4399-0340-7 (e-book)   1. Campaign funds—United States. ​2. Elections—United States. ​3. United States. Congress—Elections, 2008. ​4. Presidents—United States—Election—2008. ​ 5. United States—Politics and government—2001–2009. ​I. Magleby, David B.   JK1991.C43 2010   324.973'0931—dc22 2010019341 The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Printed in the United States of America 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1

In working on this book, as in so many other parts of my life, I have been the beneficiary of the support and patience of my wife. I dedicate this book to her.

Contents

List of Figures and Tables Preface 1 A Change Election David B. Magleby 2 How the 2008 Elections Were Financed David B. Magleby 3 Elections as Team Sports: Spending by Candidates, Political Parties, and Interest Groups in the 2008 Election Cycle David B. Magleby 4 Voter Mobilization in the 2008 Presidential Election Michael P. McDonald and Thomas F. Schaller

ix xiii 1

27

52

87

5 The Conditional Party Teams of the 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

108

6 Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change from Largely Republican to Largely Democratic over Two Election Cycles Dante J. Scala

140

7 The Battle for Ohio in 2008: The Politics of Pragmatism Daniel Coffey, David B. Cohen, John C. Green, Diana Kingsbury, Monica C. Schneider, Barry L. Tadlock, and Dustin Carnahan 8 Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base and Win Unaffiliated Voters Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

172

212

viii  /  Contents

9 Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Presidential, Senate, and First Congressional District Races Michael S. Rocca, Lonna Rae Atkeson, Yann Kerevel, and Lisa A. Bryant

248

10 Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections David B. Magleby

282

Appendix A: List of Studies

297

Appendix B: List of Interviews

299

Contributors

305

Index

307

Figures and Tables

Figures Figure 1.1

George W. Bush Approval Rating, ABC News/Washington Post Polls

2

Figure 2.1 Receipts Coming from Unitemized Contributions to Presidential Candidates

29

Figure 2.2

DNC and RNC Total Receipts, 1994–2008

37

Figure 2.3

DSCC and NRSC Total Receipts, 1994–2008

42

Figure 2.4

DCCC and NRCC Total Receipts, 1994–2008

Figure 10.1 Interest Group Spending

44 284

Tables Table 1.1 National Congressional Party Committee Receipts, 1996–2008

16

Table 2.1

Overall Spending in Federal Elections, 2000–2008 (in Millions of Dollars)

28

Table 2.2

Congressional Candidate Receipts, 1998–2008

33

Table 2.3

Hard Money, Soft Money, and Combined Receipts, 1996–2008

36

Table 2.4 Receipts from Individuals to National Party Committees, 2000–2008

40

Table 2.5

47

2008 America Votes Partners

Table 3.1 Presidential Candidate Visits and Events in Five Sample States after the Party Primaries

62

Table 3.2 Number of Obama and McCain Offices in Five Sample States, 2008

63

Table 3.3

Congressional Candidate Expenditures, 1998–2008

64

Table 3.4

Candidate Expenditures for 2008 Congressional Sample Races (in Millions of Dollars)

65

Table 3.5 National Party Committee Expenditures, 1996–2008 Table 3.6 Table 3.7

67

Hard Money Contributions to Candidates by Party Committee, 1994–2008

68

Coordinated Expenditures by Party Committee, 1994–2008

68

x  /  Figures and Tables

Table 3.8 Independent Expenditures by Party Committees, 1996–2008

69

Table 3.9 Independent Expenditures by Party Committee for Sample Races, 2007–2008

71

Table 3.10 Groups Spending More than $100,000 on Aggregate Internal Communications, 2007–2008

72

Table 3.11

Top Section 527 Committees in Receipts, 2007–2008

75

Table 3.12 Groups Spending More than $1,000,000 on Aggregate Independent Expenditures, 2007–2008

77

Table 4.1 Percentage of Votes Cast Early in 2004 and 2008

98

Table 5.1

Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, North Carolina Congressional Races, 2007–2008

113

Table 5.2

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, North Carolina Senate Race, 2007–2008

114

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in North Carolina, 2007–2008

120

Table 5.3

Table 5.4 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in North Carolina, 2007–2008

122

Table 5.5 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, North Carolina Senate Race, 2007–2008

126

Table 5.6

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, North Carolina Eighth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

129

Table 5.7 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, North Carolina Eighth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

130

Table 6.1 Voter Registration Totals in New Hampshire, by Party, 2002–2008

143

Table 6.2

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in New Hampshire, 2007–2008

Table 6.3 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in New Hampshire, 2007–2008

147

148

Table 6.4

Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, New Hampshire Senate Race, 2007–2008

154

Table 6.5

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Hampshire Senate Race, 2007–2008

156

Table 6.6 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Hampshire Senate Race, 2007–2008

158

Figures and Tables  /  xi

Table 6.7

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Hampshire First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

Table 6.8 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Hampshire First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Table 7.1

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in Ohio, 2007–2008

Table 7.2 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in Ohio, 2007–2008 Table 7.3 Table 7.4

175

177 188

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio Sixteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

189

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio Fifteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

Table 7.7 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio Fifteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Table 7.8

164

Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, Ohio Congressional Races, 2007–2008

Table 7.5 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio Sixteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Table 7.6

163

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

Table 7.9 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

190

193

195

198

200

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio Eighteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

204

Table 7.11 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio Eighteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

205

Table 8.1 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in Colorado, 2007–2008

217

Table 7.10

Table 8.2

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in Colorado, 2007–2008

220

xii  /  Figures and Tables

Table 8.3 Table 8.4

Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, Colorado Senate and Fourth Congressional District Races, 2007–2008

224

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Colorado Senate Race, 2007–2008

226

Table 8.5 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Colorado Senate Race, 2007–2008

229

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Colorado Fourth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

237

Table 8.7 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Colorado Fourth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

240

Table 8.6

Table 9.1

Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, New Mexico Congressional Races, 2007–2008

Table 9.2 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Mexico Senate Race, 2007–2008 Table 9.3

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Mexico Senate Race, 2007–2008

Table 9.4 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in New Mexico, 2007–2008

252 254 256

260

Table 9.5

Candidate Visits to New Mexico, 2000, 2004, and 2008

Table 9.6

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in New Mexico, 2007–2008

263

Table 9.7

Changes in Voter Registration by County, 2000–2008

266

Table 9.8 New Mexico Statewide Election Statistics 2000, 2004, and 2008

267

Table 9.9 People Encouraged to Vote across Different Voting Modes, by Party Identification, New Mexico, 2008

268

Table 9.10

The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Mexico First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

263

273

Table 9.11 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Mexico First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008

274

Table 10.1 Congressional Candidate Receipts in Competitive versus Uncompetitive Races, 2007–2008

286

Preface

T

his book is about how the 2008 federal general elections were financed and conducted. When my proposal to study 2008 was funded, I did not know that the election would be such a dramatic departure from past elections. It was the first election in which a major party nominee did not accept the general election public funding, and there was a surge in individual contributions with an unusually large number of individuals contributing less than $200 in the aggregate to any one candidate or party committee. Also, in a departure from the actions of prior Democratic nominees, Barack Obama invested heavily in the “ground game” of personal voter contacting, field offices, and voter mobilization. While the broad theme of the 2008 Obama campaign was about change in public policy, this book looks at what did and did not change in 2008 in the financing and conduct of campaigns. Using the same methodology from the five previous elections, the book’s research team tracked how money was raised and spent by candidates, party committees, and interest groups in competitive electoral environments. Such a comprehensive approach is necessary to the understanding of the role and interplay of the multiple players involved in campaign finance and electioneering. A focus on the candidates alone fails to consider the substantial activity of the political party committees and interest groups. The approach of this study is to look at all campaign activity, regardless of its source, and to assess the impact of spending, taking into account its source. It is clear from past studies that campaign spending and electioneering are greatest in competitive environments. I selected five states that offered competitive contests for the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, or both and that were competitive in the presidential general election contest (see Appendix A). Some of the states selected also afforded opportunities to track the impact of the 2008 campaign on African Americans and Hispanics, two populations of particular interest in 2008. All five states had been part of prior studies in this series, offering the additional advantage of allowing a comparison between campaign finance and electioneering over time. Careful observation of the campaign, including visiting events, campaign offices, and the like, is one of the ways that elections are monitored. In this study I was fortunate to be able to visit four of the five states between Labor Day and Election Day. On these visits I not only coordinated activity with the researchers conducting the study in each state but also conducted interviews with campaign officials and visited campaign offices. I am grateful to have had this opportunity to see democracy in action. In light of the significance of voter registration and mobilization in 2008, this study integrates these questions into the case studies and features a chapter by two established authorities on voter turnout. These experts participated in the ­ongoing ­communication among investigators about the dynamics of the election cycle as

xiv  /  Preface

they were developing and provided a national perspective on the questions of turnout and other forms of participation. The legal and regulatory environment of federal elections has undergone substantial change since the latter half of the 1990s. Between 1996 and 2002, campaign spending by interest groups through “issue advocacy” and by political parties through soft money grew dramatically in competitive contests. Passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) in 2002 banned soft money and defined interest group electioneering more narrowly than had previous legislation or court decisions. BCRA also increased contribution limits for individuals giving money to candidates and political party committees and indexed those limits to inflation. Court decisions and rulings by the Federal Election Commission since BCRA have broadened the electioneering communications provision and struck down other facets of BCRA, but the soft money ban remained in force for 2008. One aim of the research in this study is to inform future legislative and judicial decisions in this dynamic policy area. For this reason, the research team conducted on-the-record interviews with key campaign participants and observers. The study draws heavily from these interviews and from published accounts of the 2008 election. This book would not have been possible without the generous support of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which also funded studies of the five previous cycles. I am grateful for the support of Michael G. Caudell-Feagan, Deputy Director, and Carolyn Race, Manager of Operations, at the Pew Center on the States. I also thank Pew Charitable Trusts President and Chief Executive Officer Rebecca W. Rimel for her interest in this work. The Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University provided space and collegial support for this research undertaking. I am grateful to Director Kelly Patterson for his leadership and friendship. Integral to the research strategy for the book is involving experienced scholars with a keen interest in campaigns and elections who are located in the states and congressional districts being studied. Over the dozen years that I have conducted these studies, I have had the good fortune to work with 141 scholars who have gathered and analyzed data in a collaborative manner. Together we have monitored one or more contests at the state-wide level in 22 states and in 52 congressional districts, often more than once. Their perspective, informed by their knowledge of their corresponding states, their interviews with participants in the contests, and other varied data that they collected, has enhanced this book and its predecessors. In the synthesis and summary across the case studies comes a greater richness of understanding than is possible when an election is studied only at the local or the national level or in only one state. This kind of work requires a willingness to cooperate and collaborate. Scholars are often accustomed to working in relative isolation from one another. But this was not the course of action taken here. Another important aspect of this research is its reliance on interviews with major participants on all sides of the contests and with informed observers. Key participants have given generously of their time by granting interviews and often by providing additional data on their activities or perspectives. A listing of the individuals and their professional roles in the election and the dates of the inter-

Preface  /  xv

views is provided in Appendix B. I have learned a lot from these interviews, and I am grateful for the willingness of these individuals to participate in the research. Many interviewees provided copies of the ads or mailings prepared by their affiliates in the races under study. These items supplement the reconnaissance networks set up in each contest to collect political mail and e-mail and to track personal contacting carried out by telephone and in person. Researchers in each contest built a reconnaissance network designed to tap into a wide range of groups and across both major parties. In 2008, as in the past, I invited Brigham Young University alumni in the state to forward their political mail. An unusual feature of this book and these studies is its incorporation of non-television communication into the research design. The research team gathered data from two different sources on television advertising spending. The researchers studying each contest gathered data from television and radio stations on advertising purchased by candidates, party committees, or groups. At the same time the team acquired for the sample states the estimates of television advertising expenditures by all participants from the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG). I am especially grateful to Evan Tracey, President of TNS Media/CMAG, for his assistance in providing the data and insights into the meaning of changes in spending over time. A beginning point for a book such as this is the body of data provided by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Special thanks go to Bob Biersack, Special Assistant to the Staff Director for Data Integration, and Paul Clark, Disclosure Systems Analyst, of the FEC. Both Bob and Paul are political scientists who have gone the extra mile to assist in this research. For this project, as she has for others, Stephanie Perry Curtis produced the tables of FEC data and provided key oversight of the data set of campaign communications developed in cooperation with all of the case study authors and their research assistants and reconnaissance networks. Stephanie has been knowledgeable, careful, and wonderful to work with. Over the course of this project, Kaeli McCall, Jill Vaughn, and Brad Jones worked as research associates. They helped gather data for the key sampling decisions; oriented the researchers once the sample was decided; scheduled interviews for me to conduct in Washington, D.C., and by telephone; and generally assisted on the project. Hilary Hendricks provided a helpful edit of the entire manuscript. During my visits to Washington to conduct interviews, I was a visitor at the American Political Science Association Centennial Center for Political Science and Public Affairs, where I had the benefit of invaluable access to a computer and work space between interviews and in the evenings. I thank Robert Hauck, Deputy Director; Allison Desrosiers, Development and Programs Assistant; and the staff at APSA for their hospitality and assistance. The research and writing of this book have also benefited from the work of a team of extraordinary undergraduates at Brigham Young University. Their willingness to track down citations, verify facts, and generally assist in the hard work of research has made it possible for me to complete this book while also serving as Dean of the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences. I thank Aaron Anderson, Rebecca Eaton, Jeff Edwards, Bret Evans, Maren Gardner, Eric Hoyt, David Lassen, Virginia Maynes, Haley McCormick, Kristen Orr, Greg Skidmore, Russell Thacker, and Case Wade.

xvi  /  Preface

The skilled editors and staff at Temple University Press have been great to work with and have made the book stronger. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and to Alex Holzman, Director, and Joan Polsky Vidal, Senior Production Editor, at Temple University Press. Peggy M. Gordon and her associates provided a thorough copyedit.

The Change Election

1

A Change Election David B. Magleby

C

hange was the major theme of the 2008 election. The pool of serious presidential candidates in 2008 itself marked a change, with a woman, an African American, a Mormon, and a septuagenarian all serious contenders. The absence of a sitting or former president or vice president seeking the office was a change from the past thirteen elections. A major theme of this book is the change in the way the election was financed, including a surge in individual contributions to the candidates and political parties, the importance of the Internet in fundraising, and the demise of the presidential public financing system. Change was featured as a single word on one of the more memorable Barack Obama campaign signs and was a recurrent theme in the Democrat’s advertising, speeches, and debate remarks. The campaign’s frequent references to the “failed policies of George W. Bush” irritated John McCain, the GOP standard bearer. During the third presidential debate, after Obama asserted that McCain was the same as Bush in terms of economic policy, McCain stated, “I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”1 McCain had a point. Neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney was seeking office in 2008. Try as McCain did to change the subject, the issue agenda in the 2007– 2008 election centered on change. George W. Bush and his presidency provided the context for the election and were motivating factors for some who donated money to candidates and groups. As is typical of presidents, Bush’s popularity diminished over his two terms in office; unlike his predecessors, however, his approval rating hit an historic low of 29 percent by June 2007 and trended even further down (Figure 1.1). 2 The Democrats successfully kept the campaign focused on George Bush’s unpopular policies at the congressional level as well in 2008. Advertising by the national party congressional campaign committees linked Republicans, even non-incumbents, to Bush and his policies. For example, in the New Hampshire U.S. Senate and First Congressional district race, the Republican candidates faced the same challenge John McCain did in differentiating themselves from Bush. This pattern was also found in several other contests examined in the book. The resulting distance that Republican candidates attempted to place between themselves and the sitting president was a far cry from the playbook the party had used in 2002 and 2004. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, provided a rallying point for Bush and helped Republicans take control of Congress in 2002 as the thenpopular Bush busily stumped for GOP Congressional candidates across the country. 3 The War on Terror probably helped secure him a second term in 2004 and continued GOP majorities in Congress as well.4 However, by 2006, the out-of-favor Iraq War and declining presidential approval helped the Democrats

2  /  David B. Magleby 100 90

Percentage approving

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

01

/20

5 2/2

02

/20

5 2/2

03

/20

5 2/2

04

/20

5 2/2

05

/20

5 2/2

06

/20

5 2/2

07

/20

5 2/2

08

/20

5 2/2

Figure 1.1  George W. Bush Approval Rating, ABC News/Washington Post Polls Source: Polling Report, Inc. “President Bush: Job Ratings,” available at http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob1.htm (accessed May 29, 2009).

raise money and win narrow majorities in both houses of Congress. 5 As is the norm, Democratic interest group teammates were active in 2006. They took the lead in exploiting various administration and congressional scandals and helped elect Democrats.6 These interest group teammates entered 2008 feeling that it was their turn to win back the White House. It was not surprising that Democrats wanted to make the 2008 election a referendum on Bush. The unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan gave Obama a clear way to differentiate himself from Bush and McCain, and, in the nomination phase of the campaign, from Clinton. More than half of Democratic primary voters who said that Iraq was the most important issue of the campaign favored Obama, while only 42 percent supported Clinton, a surprise to many who believed that foreign policy was Clinton’s strength.7 Obama, however, unlike Clinton, McCain, and Edwards, “staked out the earliest, clearest, and most eloquently expressed opposition to the war.”8 His early and consistent opposition to the war in Iraq was very different from John Kerry’s equivocal position in 2004, when he was lampooned for saying, “I actually did vote for the $87 billion [for the war] before I voted against it.”9 In one sense, then, change meant not only a change in national leadership but also a change from Bush’s increasingly unpopular policies (see Figure 1.1). On September 15, 2008, the day investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, the focus of the election abruptly shifted primarily to the economy but did not alter the broad debate on the need for change. That same day, in a ­remark he would later regret, McCain said, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.”10 That appeared not to be the case, and the remark reinforced the public perception that McCain and Congressional Republicans were not well equipped to deal with economic policy. The economic issues only reinforced negative public perception of Bush in the final weeks of the campaign, with more focus on his treasury secretary as manager of the crisis than on the president.

A Change Election  /  3

Obama and Democratic congressional candidates used the issue to reinforce the case for new and different policies and more effective regulations and to showcase Obama as a presidential figure who could calmly manage the crisis.11 By Election Day, the failing public view of President Bush became the most telling sign of the campaign’s outcome. As Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser observed, “With the single exception of Missouri, which barely went for McCain, Obama won every state where Bush’s approval rating was below 35 percent in the exit polls, and he lost every state where Bush’s approval rating was above 35 percent.”12 Following the tenor of the campaign, change is a major theme of this volume. Another theme is the reality that American electoral politics is now a “team sport,” with the two sides consisting of general election candidates, party committees, and allied interest groups. The two teams share the common objective of electing their team’s standard-bearer and defeating the other party’s nominee. The participants in this process raise and spend money to elect or defeat candidates, communicate with voters about the candidates, and work to mobilize voters to participate. More specifically, the Obama campaign was a departure from past presidential campaigns in its success in raising money from individuals (both max-out donors and through smaller contributions), in its use of new media (especially the Internet), and in its integration and large-scale use of field offices and volunteers.

The Presidential Election Contest: An Open Field in Both Parties The 2008 presidential election marked the first time in more than half a century when a sitting or former president or vice president was not on the ballot of one or both parties. Holding aside Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who benefited from former President Bill Clinton’s donor base,13 all other candidates entered the fray without the benefit of the national visibility and donor pool that comes from having been president or vice president. The open-seat contest for the presidency meant that a wide array of candidates in both parties sought the nomination. Many of these candidates had path-breaking candidacies. In Senator Clinton, the country had its most serious female candidate to date for the presidency. The gender barrier was also reduced on the Republican side when John McCain selected as his running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the first female Republican nominee for the vice presidency. (In 1984, Walter Mondale and the Democrats selected a female vice presidential nominee, Representative Geraldine Ferraro of New York.) In Barack Obama, the nation had its most serious African American candidate to seek the presidency. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was the most serious Mormon candidate to run for the White House, and his religion became an issue in Iowa and in other nomination contests. And John McCain, at 71, made history as the oldest candidate ever to secure the presidential nomination of a major political party.

The Democratic Presidential Nomination Goes to Overtime There were many surprises along the way in 2008. One was the fact that the Democratic nomination contest went the distance and then some. Rarely do voters in nomination contests in April or May have a real say in who will be the

4  /  David B. Magleby

party’s nominee, but for the Democrats in 2008, all contests mattered. Indeed, there was no confirmed winner until credential disputes involving the Florida and Michigan primaries were resolved and enough Superdelegates declared their support for Obama. This topic is explored in greater detail in Chapter 5. Another surprise was the success of a little-known junior senator from Illi­ nois, Barack Obama, in mounting a serious national campaign against the much more established and better-known Senator Hillary Clinton and former senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards. Other Democrats who started the race with more experience in presidential politics than Obama included fellow U.S. Senators Joe Biden (Obama’s eventual vice presidential pick) and Chris Dodd. Obama’s surprising victory in the Iowa caucuses became a harbinger of his success in later nomination and general election contests. He raised money in innovative ways, including using events and victories along the way to build visibility and to continue pressing for more campaign contributions and volunteers. Another element of the Iowa caucus strategy that became common practice in the Obama campaign was the large number of local offices staffed mostly by volunteers. For example, in North Carolina, the Obama campaign applied its Iowa caucus strategy to a late primary and then retained the model in the general election. As described in Chapter 5, in North Carolina, in the general election phase of the campaign, Obama had forty-seven field offices compared with McCain’s twenty. This decentralized structure, focused on individual voter contact and tracking, was especially important in caucus states, such as Iowa and Texas. As blogger and strategic consultant Zach Exley reported, a program of three-day volunteer trainings was key: “Trainees left the events organized into teams by congressional district, charged with building an organization that reached all the way down to the precinct level.”14 Just as Obama’s success in Iowa showcased his dynamic approach to fundraising and campaigning, Senator Clinton’s victory five days later in New Hampshire showed that she was not to be counted out—and neither were her donors. In the “Clinton Memo on Iowa,” the campaign mapped out their strategy to win: “We have the opportunity to change the focus of the campaign from a traditional process (Iowa first) to a campaign that favors us. . . . [W]e will focus the campaign on states that are beneficial to her strategy.”15 Iowa and New Hampshire started what became the first truly national nomination battle in either party since Gerald Ford beat Ronald Reagan to secure the 1976 Republican nomination. Obama and Clinton would challenge and compete for each vote and delegate from Iowa’s January 3 caucus until the June 3 primaries in Montana and South Dakota, the last in the country. In the end, Obama won 15 state primaries and, importantly, 13 state caucuses, demonstrating his strong organizing capacity, while Clinton won only one state caucus (Nevada), but displayed her own strengths by winning in 21 state primaries. While taxing in both time and energy and seemingly endless to some voters, the protracted contest for the nomination helped Obama refine his campaign skills and allowed him to build a national campaign organization that helped him in the general election. For example, Indiana and North Carolina, both states that George W. Bush had easily carried twice by double-digit margins, became battlegrounds in the general election after Obama’s extensive primary efforts. As Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser observed, “North Carolina’s Dem-

A Change Election  /  5

ocratic primary fell in May and it turned out to be one of Hillary Clinton’s two last stands (the other was Indiana). The Obama camp knew it would win North Carolina in the primary but it needed a big win. And that need meant the campaign went overboard in its attempt to register new voters. The early organizational work in the primary paid real dividends in the general.”16 In contrast to Obama, McCain had taken North Carolina for granted. As documented in Chapter 5, Obama had 400 paid staff working the ground in North Carolina compared with 35 for McCain. Obama had a substantial advantage in television, and McCain, unlike Obama, was silent on the radio. The North Carolina general election is discussed in detail in Chapter 5.

Decided Early in the Game: The Republican Presidential Nomination The Republican nomination contests generally had lower levels of turnout and enthusiasm for candidates than did the Democratic caucuses or primaries. The early front-runner in Iowa was Mitt Romney, who lost the race to former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the strength of a large turnout of evangelical Christians.17 McCain had been the early leader in the polls nationally and in raising and spending campaign money. In July 2007, however, the campaign admitted that it was in “a political and financial crisis.”18 McCain’s initial approach in 2008 was a departure from his leaner, publicly financed 2000 campaign. In 2008, his approach was more like Bush’s in 2000: During the nomination phase, McCain bypassed federal matching funds and the spending limits that come with them, and he built a larger and more expensive organization than he had in 2000. When his campaign fell on hard financial times, he reversed himself, applying for a bank loan and saying that he would be willing to “reapply in the future for federal matching funds, and would agree to use the FEC [Federal Election Commission] certifications for those funds as collateral.”19 McCain won New Hampshire, then South Carolina and Florida, and on Super Tuesday he had victories in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, and Oklahoma, without the matching funds. By early March he had secured the nomination. 20 Interest group opposition to McCain was minimal in 2008 in comparison to their opposition during his 2000 campaign, when non-candidate campaign groups were especially harsh in their criticism of him. Pro-life, conservative Christian, and tobacco groups attacked McCain during the 2000 South Carolina primary; in addition, Republicans for Clean Air, a front group funded by a Texas billionaire supporter of George W. Bush, criticized McCain’s environmental record to sway the voters in the California, Ohio, and New York primaries. 21 By contrast, the 2008 nomination had fewer groups attacking particular candidates in both the primaries and general elections, even with a 2007 Supreme Court ruling making candidate-specific issue ads again permissible. 22 As discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3, FEC fines of groups after the 2004 election cycle and the beginnings of a global recession may have had something to do with groups’ lesser presence in 2008. Having secured the nomination early, McCain’s campaign faced the challenge of keeping their candidate visible while the Democrats continued to generate news coverage with their protracted nomination battle. With the Democratic

6  /  David B. Magleby

convention coming first, McCain also needed to find a way to shift the focus to his candidacy. His surprise selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate the day after Obama’s acceptance speech served that purpose. It also energized the Republican base, as evidenced by fundraising and by the crowd size and enthusiasm at campaign events. According to Chuck Cunningham, director of federal affairs at the National Rifle Association, “If it were not for McCain picking Palin . . . ​there would have been no enthusiasm whatsoever from the party base.”23 Palin helped motivate donors to give not only to the Republican National Committee (RNC), and indirectly to the McCain/Palin candidacy, but also to Barack Obama, according to Joe Rospars, who directed new media for the Obama campaign. Rospars described donor activity among Democrats the night of Palin’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention: When she questioned Obama’s qualifications for office as limited to being only a community organizer the Obama campaign saw a spike in on-line donation. . . . The first line of the email to supporters or staff from David Plouffe was ‘I was not planning on writing to you tonight but I cannot believe what I just saw’ and outlined what had happened. Rospars reported that the Obama Campaign received “about $12 million” over the 24 hours after Palin’s acceptance speech, the largest amount in any single day of the campaign. 24 In a change from the 2004 election, John McCain’s campaign “was forced to hire part-time workers, paying them $12 an hour to canvass voters,”25 according to scholar Dennis Johnson, and in the final stage of the campaign, relied more on robocalls rather than live calls from volunteers for voter contact. Another marker of the enthusiasm gap is the public’s response to a question about how enthusiastic they were about their candidate. In late August, 52 percent of people who said that they would vote for Obama said that they were very enthusiastic about their candidate, compared with 28 percent for McCain, resulting in a gap of 24 percentage points. After McCain selected Palin as his running mate, the gap narrowed to 18 percent with 46 percent of McCain voters saying that they were very enthusiastic about his candidacy compared with 64 percent who reported being very enthusiastic about Obama. 26

Change and the 2008 Congressional Elections Declining presidential approval scores, unpopular wars, and expanding economic problems were also important in the 2008 congressional elections. In 2002 and 2004, Republicans had successfully focused on the need for greater national security, and they and their interest group allies had put the Democrats on the defensive on that issue. 27 In 2006, the security issue had lost traction for Republican candidates, and Democrats picked up six seats in the Senate, returning by the narrowest of margins to majority control while also winning back control of the House of Representatives for the first time since 1994. Their 2006 victories gave Democrats hope that they could expand their majorities in 2008 and perhaps achieve the 60 Senate seats needed to stop filibusters.

A Change Election  /  7

One indication of the negative mood for Republicans in 2007–2008 was the much higher rate of retirements among their incumbents than among Democrats. When a party loses power, incumbents in subsequent election cycles are less likely to run for reelection, in part because of the loss of power that comes with being in the minority. In 2008, of the five sitting U.S. senators who decided to retire, all five were Republicans, including Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Wayne Allard of Colorado, John Warner of Virginia, Larry Craig of Idaho, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Democrats won three of these contests: New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia. Democratic incumbents running for the Senate were all reelected, while in contrast, five sitting Republican senators were defeated (Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Gordon Smith of Oregon, Ted Stevens of Alaska, and Norm Coleman of Minnesota). Among members deciding to retire in the House of Representatives, twenty-three of twenty-six were Republicans; overall, nine Republican seats shifted to Democrats, while no Democratic seats shifted to Republicans. Earlier in the decade, Republicans had used substantial fundraising, a large voter mobilization effort, and concerns about national security to help congressional Republicans. 28 In competitive contests, they had also sought to raise concerns about a Senate headed by Nevada Senator Harry Reid and a House of Representatives headed by California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. By 2006, those tactics were no longer successful. As progressive consultant Michael Lux described: At the beginning of the cycle there was a real strong sense among the punditry . . . that there was no way in hell that the Democrats could win the House or the Senate. That there was too much, as Rove likes to call it, structural advantage. I think what helped to change that wasn’t only Republican screw-ups, and obviously they had a lot of them between Social Security and Katrina and Iraq, and just sort of the general wave of corruption. They gave themselves huge problems. But I think what created the wave was only partly that. . . . There were some very thoughtful and strategic discussions created to help advance on what can we do to increase the wave. 29 Ironically, even though Democrats had won control of both houses of Congress in 2006, it was the Democrats running for Congress in 2008 who more successfully used the change theme. This was due in part to the fact that in most competitive Senate and House races Republican incumbents were on the defensive against Democratic challengers. Case studies in this volume that illustrate this include Ohio’s First Congressional District, where Republican incumbent Steve Chabot was defeated by Democrat Steve Driehaus, and Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, where Republican Incumbent Marilyn Musgrave was defeated by Democrat Betsy Markey. Because there were more GOP than Democratic retirements in 2007–2008, the Democrats could again run on the need for change in party representation for their district in Congress. Examples in this volume include the Fifteenth Congressional District in Ohio, where Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy narrowly defeated Republican Steve Stivers for the seat previously held by Republican Deborah Pryce, and the First Congressional District

8  /  David B. Magleby

of New Mexico, where Democrat Martin Heinrich defeated Republican Darren White in a seat that had been held by Republican Heather Wilson. It is not unusual in presidential elections for the focus to be primarily on the top of the ticket, but in 2008, that was especially the case. On the Democratic side in 2008, there was more consistency in messaging among the congressional and presidential levels, especially after the issue of the economy took center stage, making the need for change a simple and easily communicated reason to vote Democratic. Political teammates can help in multiple ways. Sometimes they can say something about the candidates that it is hard for candidates to say themselves. For example, in states like Ohio there was a continuing undercurrent that Obama was not Christian. Ohio Governor Ted Strickland was featured in one ad telling voters of Obama’s Christian faith. Also in Ohio, organized labor mounted a telephone campaign to counter the perception that Obama was Muslim. Both of these examples are discussed in Chapter 7. The Democrats also played “team ball” on voter registration and mobilization, even more than they did in 2004, which had far more interest group coordination than previous election cycles. 30 What was different about 2008 for the Democrats was a presidential candidate who had ample resources to mount his own voter registration and mobilization effort and who applied a broad array of innovative technologies as targeting tools to identify, persuade, and turn out voters who were likely to vote for him. Regarding turning out the early vote, Jon Carson of the Obama campaign noted that the campaign “knew exactly who had and who hadn’t voted already.” Carson believed that “when you’re talking about early vote to a community that’s incredibly motivated to vote for your candidate,” the voters just needed to know where to go. 31 As the case studies in this volume demonstrate, the Obama campaign’s large number of field offices, paid staff, and volunteers also benefitted the entire ticket in competitive states.

Changes in Campaign Finance and Electioneering since 1996 To put the 2008 election in context, we need to begin with 1996. The 1996 election marked a turning point in the way that campaigns were financed and conducted. Between 1976 and 1994, the ways in which money was raised and spent in campaigns were quite stable. The legal regime was the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), as amended in 1974, after Watergate. During these two decades of stability, presidential candidates operated within the FECA public financing system. Political action committees (PACs) were the major means through which interest groups participated, and by giving largely to congressional incumbents, PACs reinforced incumbent advantages. 32 Moreover, groups and party committees generally operated within the limits and intent of FECA. One action of FECA was to specify the amounts of money that candidates, party committees, and interest groups could raise from individuals and groups. Because of the difficulty in raising this money and the limits on it, this money came to be known as “hard money.” In 1979, FECA was amended and interpreted by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to allow political parties to

A Change Election  /  9

raise unlimited funds from individuals and groups, including corporations and unions giving from their general treasuries, for generic party-building advertising and activities. 33 Between 1980 and 1996, such party-building spending included voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts and generic “Vote Republican” or “Vote Democratic” appeals. Because this money was easier to raise, it became known as “soft money.”

Party Soft Money, 1996–2002 In 1996, candidates and party committees placed an even greater emphasis on raising and spending soft money than they had in the past. The most visible example of this was President Bill Clinton, who hosted White House coffees and overnight stays in the White House Lincoln bedroom for large soft money donors. 34 Starting with the Democratic National Committee on behalf of the Clinton/Gore campaign in 1996 and soon also used by the RNC on behalf of the Dole/Kemp campaign and other party committees in 1996, soft money was used in candidate-specific ways. Party spending capacity dramatically increased: In the 2000 election and again in the 2002 election, both major parties’ national committees combined to raise and spend more than $500 million in soft money. The soft money did not affect all campaigns equally; soft money was largely spent in the most competitive races. Much of the money was spent on broadcast advertising, but both parties mounted large-scale voter identification and mobilization efforts, relying mainly on direct mail and telephone contacts that were funded in part, through soft money donations. 35

Issue Advocacy by Groups In addition to candidates and party committees, any examination of money in federal elections must include interest groups. As in the past, groups invest in elections by making direct contributions to candidates and by spending on behalf of candidates through independent expenditures and other means. Membership groups also have the advantage of being able to communicate with their members about the candidates and parties. The 1996 election marked a turning point in a second way: through electioneering masked as issue advocacy. A strategy initiated by the Christian Coalition in the 1994 cycle, issue advocacy became a method for spending undisclosed and unlimited amounts of money on advertising to defeat or elect particular candidates. 36 In other words, interest groups ran expensive issue ads (not prohibited under FECA) to send an electioneering message (expressly prohibited). Justification was based on a footnote in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on FECA, Buckley v. Valeo. In that decision, the court ruled that FECA restrictions applied to electioneering communications but not to issue advocacy. A footnote in the opinion defined electioneering as “communications containing express words of advocacy of election or defeat, such as ‘vote for,’ ‘elect,’ ‘support,’ ‘cast your ballot for,’ ‘Smith for Congress,’ ‘vote against,’ ‘defeat,’ ‘reject.’”37 Communications lacking these “magic words”—even when obviously supporting a certain candidate—were considered permissible as issue advocacy. Because, by definition, they fell outside the scope of FECA, they were

10  /  David B. Magleby

not subject to ­regulation by the FEC, meaning that there was no disclosure as to the source of funds, composition of the group, or expenditure. The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) took the lead in candidate-specific issue ads in 1996, spending more than $35 million, with most of the money targeted to defeat freshmen Republicans in the House of Representatives. 38 Groups aligned with Republicans, including a consulting firm named TRIAD, Coalition for Our Children’s Future, Citizens for Reform, and the Christian Coalition, quickly followed suit, supporting Republican candidates in twenty-nine House and Senate races with televised ads costing an estimated $3 million. 39 When the FEC did not limit this activity after the 1996 election, the era of more intense party soft money and group issue advocacy electioneering had dawned. In competitive races during the 1998, 2000, and 2002 election cycles, spending on electioneering expenses from party soft money and group issue advocacy in competitive contests approximately equaled spending by the candidates.40 Communications funded through soft money and issue advocacy were in many ways indistinguishable from candidate-sponsored ads, with voters perceiving issue ads as candidate ads most of the time.41 The spending by groups, parties, and candidates is discussed in Chapter 3. In 2004, even after the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 had attempted to reform the way in which groups could raise and spend money on electioneering, outside groups were important in defining candidates, both negatively and positively. On the negative side, a group calling itself Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ran ads and sent mail questioning John Kerry’s heroism and patriotism.42 Kerry waited two weeks to respond, and by then, serious damage had been done to his candidacy.43 In the same election, a group named Progress for America ran ads praising George Bush for his efforts to protect America. In ways that the campaign could not have communicated without appearing overly self-serving, the group ran an ad titled “Ashley’s Story” that used positive symbols and messages about the incumbent Republican president. These groups and many others organized under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Service Code, placing themselves partially outside BCRA limits. The 2008 presidential election marked a change from recent presidential elections in that there was much less spending by Section 527 groups, while spending by Section 501(c) groups rose substantially. Interest groups also gave much more in PAC contributions in 2008 than they did in 2004. Group spending is addressed in greater detail in Chapter 3. Some ads that mimicked the techniques of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth arose in the campaign on topics such as Obama’s connection to William Ayers, a college professor who founded the radical left Weather Underground Organization that bombed public buildings in opposition to the Vietnam War. Ads also appeared on Obama’s connection to his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whose extreme public language about the United States had been well publicized by the media. Both McCain and Obama made clear their desire that groups stay out of the presidential race, at least in mounting attack ads. However, groups continued to actively communicate with voters through the mail, on the phone, at the workplace, and in person. Groups mounted more visible advertising campaigns in competitive House and Senate races in patterns similar to those of recent election cycles.

A Change Election  /  11

BCRA and the 2008 Regulatory Environment Widespread criticism of parties’ and candidates’ ability to raise unlimited soft money and innocuous groups that mounted attack “issue ads” led to the most important change in the regulation of money and politics since the post-Watergate reforms of 1974: the BCRA of 2002. BCRA banned party soft money in most forms, forcing parties to rely on hard money. The effect of BCRA was to provide a new definition of what constituted an electioneering communication: “any broadcast, cable, or satellite communication that refers to a candidate for federal office and that is broadcast within thirty days of a federal primary election or sixty days of a federal general election in the jurisdiction in which that candidate is running for office.”44 BCRA also changed the rules for candidates running against self-financed candidates spending more than $350,000 of their own money in a House campaign and, in a Senate campaign, above a threshold determined according to the state’s population. Under the amendment, individuals contributing to the campaign of the non-self-financed candidate had a higher contribution limit, and under certain conditions, the political party committees could make unlimited coordinated party expenditures on behalf of the candidate running against the heavily selffinanced candidate, a provision sometimes called the Millionaires’ Amendment. Since the passage of BCRA in 2002, there have been important court cases to determine its constitutionality and administrative procedures to define many of its provisions, including some important changes leading up to the 2008 elections. The BCRA issue advocacy provisions were modified by a Supreme Court decision in 2007. In Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC, the court ruled that banning issue ads in the month preceding the primary and the two months preceding the general elections was unconstitutional. The court argued that those limitations on ads were a violation of free speech, but upheld the earlier McCon­ nell v. FEC ruling that Congress could regulate ads with electioneering-only messages in the few months preceding federal elections. Thus, issue advertising could again mention candidates in 2007–2008. Chief Justice John Roberts’s opinion provided yet another definition of electioneering: when a broadcast, cable, or satellite ad is “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.”45 However, the most important provision of BCRA, the party soft money ban, remains in place and, as discussed in this book, has not led to the demise of the political parties. In another 5–4 decision about BCRA, Davis v. FEC, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the Millionaires’ Amendment. Jack Davis, a three-time candidate for New York’s Twenty-sixth Congressional District seat and wealthy businessman, brought the suit against the FEC. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Davis and declared this provision an unconstitutional violation of First Amendment rights.46 The FEC is charged with drafting regulations to implement new legislation such as BCRA. Their efforts have been subject to litigation brought by the two principal sponsors of the House version of BCRA, Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT) and Representative Martin Meehan (D-MA).47 One of several disputed regulations has to do with what constitutes coordination between a candidate and interest groups operating in the campaign.48 While the FEC regulations

12  /  David B. Magleby

have not done well in court in the past, for much of the 2008 presidential nomination period (January through June, 2008), the FEC played little role in rule making whatsoever. As a result of partisan gridlock between Congress and the president over the appointment of commissioners, the commission operated with only two of six members—too few to function. However, FEC actions after the 2004 election cycle influenced individuals and groups in 2007–2008. The FEC issued rulings about Section 527 groups and imposed fines on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,49 MoveOn.org’s Voter Fund, the League of Conservation Voters Fund, and America Coming Together (ACT). 50 These fines may have had a chilling effect on individuals contributing to Section 527 groups in 2008. As Bob Bauer, legal counsel to the Obama campaign, said, “There is no question. What the FEC did in 2004 and more specifically how they wrapped up those cases with League of Conservation Voters, Progress for America and others did have an effect” on donors to such groups in 2008. 51 One group activity, compiling large-scale voter files, was substantially augmented in 2008 by a Democratic-leaning group. One of the most important possessions of any campaign is its voter file. Historically, the RNC led the way in assembling lists of Republican voters and donors, while left-leaning interest groups and others kept their membership lists to themselves. But as an extension of the massive voter registration efforts of ACT in 2004, efforts that reflected the principle of electoral politics as team sport, 52 Democratic Party regular and Hil­lary Clinton supporter Harold Ickes started a limited liability corporation to build a data file on voters. The file has political and consumer information on more than 220 million U.S. citizens to rival the Republicans’ “Voter Vault” file.53 The corporation included an array of individuals and groups, many of whom were part of the 2004 ACT effort. The Catalist file allowed groups to share some information while not sharing other information. Catalist also encouraged and facilitated the sophisticated modeling of data to allow more precise targeting of voter persuasion and mobilization efforts. Because Catalist was a new entity, its activities have not been scrutinized by the FEC nor challenged in court. Catalist is discussed in greater detail in Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 4, discusses changes in voter registration and mobilization in 2008. Through the 2000 election, Democrats were perceived as having the better ground game in identifying, registering, and turning out voters. In 2002 and 2004, Republicans invested heavily in matching and exceeding Democrats and their allies (especially unions) in this area. In 2004, Democratic allies largely managed voter registration and mobilization through a Section 527 organization known as ACT. 54 In 2008, the Obama campaign expanded voter rolls by about 12 million voters in a dozen key states—Ohio, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. The names of these new voters were included in the Obama and Catalist databases.

Change in Campaign Finance Under BCRA, in 2008, individuals could give a maximum of $2,300 to a candidate for the nomination phase and the same amount during the general election, for an aggregate limit to a candidate of $4,600. An individual’s overall

A Change Election  /  13

aggregate contribution limit under BCRA rose to $108,200 in 2008, more than double the old FECA limits. Within this individual aggregate limit, an individual could give candidates $42,700 per two-year election cycle. If donors wanted to “max out” in 2007–2008, they would have to give the remainder of their funds to party committees or PACs. Under BCRA, PAC contribution limits were not increased as they were for individuals, nor were they indexed for inflation. Each PAC may contribute up to $10,000 to any candidate in an election cycle— $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general election. 55 Before the court and FEC rulings on BCRA, there was widespread speculation about what, if any, effect BCRA would have on the ability of candidates, political parties, and interest groups to finance their activities. One school of thought was that BCRA would severely damage the political parties’ ability to remain important in electoral politics. 56 For example, when BCRA was first being challenged in court, University of Virginia political scientist Sidney Milkis said, “The sudden and dramatic loss of funds on so large a scale will necessarily cause a pronounced reduction of party operations.”57 Others argued that candidates and parties would successfully adapt to the new rules by raising more hard money, which BCRA encouraged with its higher aggregate contribution limits indexed to inflation. 58 In ways that likely exceeded even the reformers’ most optimistic expectations, hard money contributions surged in 2004 and 2006 and grew again overall in 2008. Candidates and party committees in the aggregate have directed their efforts to raising hard money. For some candidates in 2008, there was also an increase in the number of individuals contributing relatively small amounts of money, totaling $200 or less per contributor (per candidate and election cycle). The 2008 election underwent change in other aspects of campaign finance as well. As demonstrated in this book, the way in which candidates such as Ron Paul and Barack Obama funded their campaigns was a change from the way major candidates of the past raised money. The Obama campaign used the Internet not only for fundraising but also to communicate targeted messages to potential supporters. The Obama Online Operation, or Triple O, numbered about thirty staff employees59 and had strong support from the candidate and senior campaign staff.60 As campaign manager David Plouffe explained, “Technology, like the grassroots focus, would be at the core of the campaign from the start. . . . ​It was clear that the only way to get to scale quickly enough was to use the power of the Internet to sign people up and ask them to get involved.”61 The campaign used technology in numerous ways, including communication through text messaging, social networks, an innovative personalized Web site named My.BarackObama, and voter mobilization reminders (with information on polling places, locations, and times) for caucuses, primaries, early voting, and Election Day. Some candidates and groups had relied on small contributions and the Internet to raise money in the past. The Howard Dean campaign in 2004, MoveOn in 2004 and 2006, and even John McCain, to a lesser extent, in 2000 had introduced some of these techniques. However, in 2008 the Obama campaign took these approaches to new levels and achieved a strategic advantage in fundraising that was important to victory. As discussed later, the use of these approaches was not limited to the Obama campaign. On a smaller scale, Ron Paul’s ­campaign

14  /  David B. Magleby

saw similar success, and outside groups such as ActBlue helped raise $60 million for Democratic Senate and House candidates in 2008.62 Barack Obama’s decision to finance his campaign entirely from money he raised, turning down the public grant that all other general election candidates since Watergate have accepted, marked another change in 2008. Early on, Obama had committed to accept public funding for the general election, adding risks to his later decision. Would voters punish him for reversing himself on this issue? Should his supporters, who would generally be expected to be more supportive of public financing of elections, see this as a departure from his core principles? Would donors continue to donate to his campaign in sufficient amounts—such that he would exceed what he could get if he stopped raising money for himself, accepted public financing, and directed donors to give to his party instead? Would spending time raising money in the last two months of the campaign distract him from more important campaign functions? Whatever risk Obama ran by reversing his position on accepting public financing was low compared with the potential strategic advantages that came with his financial juggernaut.63 Obama’s resource advantage was so substantial that he could compete in ways and in places that other candidates in recent memory had not. The money advantage changed the strategic calculus of the election by allowing Obama to compete in states such as North Carolina, Virginia, and Indiana, where absent the money advantage, Obama would likely have conceded. Expanding the battlefield meant that McCain’s campaign faced tradeoffs that Obama’s did not. McCain could not seriously contest Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida and at the same time defend states he should have easily won (e.g., North Carolina, Indiana, and Virginia). The money advantage also meant that Obama could afford to have an aggressive air game on television and radio while also mounting the largest-scale ground game of volunteers and field offices in modern American history.64 According to one media expert, “Obama spent more on television advertising than any candidate in the history of presidential campaigns.”65 Both the ground and air games are expensive, and campaigns often must choose to do less of one if they do more of the other. Obama could afford to do both. By not accepting public funding, Obama was free to manage his advertising and voter mobilization efforts. In contrast, McCain ran his voter mobilization and some of his advertising through the RNC–McCain joint activity, what Republicans call the Victory Committee. However, efforts funded in this way must include the party and the candidate. As Christian Ferry, the deputy campaign manager in the McCain campaign, reported: The disadvantage is that victory operations cannot be candidate specific and they can’t be just about the presidential campaign. They need to be about the entire ticket, and in an election where the Republican party brand was damaged, where the incumbent president was a Republican and was incredibly unpopular, where the right track/wrong track number was, prior to September 15, around 30 percent and then after September 15 around 8 percent, being a Republican is not necessarily the way you want to brand yourself if you want to win the campaign. We had no choice. We had to do things with our entire ticket. We had to do things under the banner of the Republican party.66

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Public Financing for Presidential Elections Public financing of presidential elections was one part of FECA that had operated largely unchanged from its inception in 1976 until the 2008 election cycle. FECA provided for a system of partial matching funds for presidential candidates in the nomination phase, with state-by-state spending limits for those who accepted the public matching funds. Candidates opted to accept public matching funds, with a few exceptions: Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000, John Connally in 1980, and George W. Bush in 2000. In 2008, McCain, Romney, Huckabee, Obama, and Clinton all declined to accept matching funds and their state-bystate spending limits. McCain equivocated on accepting matching funds in 2008, with the FEC eventually ruling that he was free to reverse his position. The FEC vote to approve McCain’s withdrawal of his application for matching funds, which he submitted February 6, after sweeping the Super Tuesday contests, could not occur with only two of the six commissioners serving. Finally, on June 24, the Senate confirmed the new commissioners, and on August 21, they voted to grant McCain’s request that he not be required to accept matching funds and their related spending limits. The delay did not hamper the McCain campaign’s activities and was not a result of presidential campaign politics. Rather, it was an outgrowth of the longstanding partisan deadlock for which the FEC is known. In addition, FECA provided for a general election grant for major party nominees who agreed to use the grant to fund their campaign in lieu of additional fundraising. All major party presidential general election nominees from 1976 through 2004 accepted the public grant. Even Ronald Reagan, seen by many today as a bastion of conservatism, accepted public financing in his 1976, 1980, and 1984 presidential campaigns. As it turned out, Obama did not pay a price with voters for reversing his position on public financing. Issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, later, the declining state of the economy were much more salient. Obama explained his reversal with a video message on his Web site: “Instead of forcing us to rely on millions from Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs, you’ve fueled this campaign with donations of $5, $10, and $20, whatever you can afford. . . . ​A nd because you did, we’ve built a grassroots movement of over 1.5 million Americans.”67 The conventional wisdom after the 2008 presidential election was that the system of public financing is not likely to be needed in the future by serious candidates in either party.68

Changing Patterns of Fundraising At the congressional election level, Republicans once had a large advantage in hard money raised from individuals. Democrats had a much greater dependency on soft money, and when soft money was banned by BCRA in 2002, the money advantage was presumed by many to reside with the Republicans. That too has changed. In 2008, the Democratic campaign committees for the Senate and House together outraised the Republican congressional campaign committees by more than $125 million (Table 1.1). How did the Democrats do this? They substantially increased their fundraising efforts with both small and exceptionally large donors. To a much greater extent than their Repub­l ican counterparts, Democratic Party committee leaders, such as New York Senator

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Table 1.1 National Congressional Party Committee Receipts, 1996–2008

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

DSCC

$30,798,424 $35,645,188 $40,488,666 $48,391,653 $88,655,573 $121,376,959 $162,791,453

DCCC

$26,623,493 $25,180,286 $48,394,476 $46,436,093 $93,168,931 $139,891,645 $176,210,540

Total D

$57,421,917 $60,825,474 $88,883,142 $94,827,746 $181,824,504 $261,268,604 $339,001,993

NRSC

$64,541,312 $53,423,388

$51,475,156 $59,161,387 $78,980,487

NRCC

$74,224,879

$97,314,513 $123,615,586 $185,719,489 $179,549,131 $118,324,756

Total R

$72,708,311

$88,812,386 $94,424,743

$138,766,191 $126,131,699 $148,789,669 $182,776,973 $264,699,976 $268,361,517 $212,749,499

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/ 05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed July 22, 2009).

Chuck Schumer, Illinois Democratic Congressman Rahm Emanuel, and Maryland Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen, targeted donors who are willing to give the maximum allowable to a party committee and to their own incumbent colleagues. In the past, incumbents in both parties sat on war chests in case they might need them in some future election and expected their party committees to make the maximum allowable contributions to them for their campaigns. That approach to party committee involvement has clearly changed for the Democrats; the culture is now to invest in each other by giving large amounts to the party committee. Such is not the case with the Republicans.

Change in How People Vote A major change that was seen in 2008, but was independent of the other changes discussed in this chapter, is the movement in many states toward allowing early voting and “no-excuse” absentee voting. Growing out of the vote counting challenges in Florida69 in 2000 and the long lines in some states (e.g., Ohio in 2004),70 many states changed their election laws to permit voters to cast absentee ballots without explanation.71 Several states also provided for voters to vote as early as 42 days before Election Day on November 4, 2008. In 2008, voters in 46 states were allowed to cast ballots early. Early voting varied by state in the number of days it was offered (ranging from 3 to 42 days)72 as well the number of voting places open, with some states allowing early voting only at a single location per county.73 Candidates, party committees, and interest groups often communicated with voters about when and how to vote early. As Jon Carson said, “Reporters would ask, ‘How did early vote change your strategy?’ It didn’t change our strategy. It was our strategy.”74 No-excuse absentee voting saw increased use in 2008 as well. The implications of these changes are discussed in Chapter 4 and in the case studies.

Methods and Sample The data for this book come not only from campaign contribution and expenditure data reported to the FEC and Internal Revenue Service but also from data on television advertising from the Campaign Media Analysis Group. In addition, experienced academics gathered data on campaign finance and electioneering from the ground up in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Colorado, and

A Change Election  /  17

New Mexico. They closely monitored the election in their state, collecting mail using a reconnaissance network of politically, socially, and economically diverse individuals who shared their political mail and e-mail and logged personal contacts at their workplaces, homes, and elsewhere. Data were also acquired from radio and television stations on advertising purchased by candidates, political party committees, and interest groups. During the course of the campaign, I visited four of the five states included in the sample to conduct additional interviews and facilitate the research. At the national level, interviews were conducted with decision makers in candidate campaigns, interest groups, and political parties regarding their objectives and strategies; I also talked with pollsters and campaign consultants involved in crafting these communications to determine the strategies used and their effectiveness. Overall, I conducted more than 200 interviews with candidate consultants, political party committee staff, interest group leaders, and other informed observers, virtually all of them on the record. (See Appendix B for a full list of national-level interviews.) Additional interviews were conducted at the state and congressional district levels by the participating academics. The research for this volume draws from a systematic monitoring of candidate and non-candidate fundraising and campaigning in seventeen competitive federal contests in five states. Competitiveness is a key variable for us in sample selection because previous studies found it to be predictive of overall levels of fundraising and spending by candidates and because it is a good predictor of party committee and interest group investment. In addition, the presidential election was studied in five battleground states— North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Colorado, and New Mexico. Of these, U.S. Senate contests were monitored in all but Ohio. (Ohio did not have a U.S. Senate race in 2008.) Eight U.S. House races were also monitored, again in these same five states. Had we had more resources the next state we would have added would have been Minnesota. The sample was drawn after extensive interviews with party and interest group campaign professionals as well as with input from three independent entities that assess contests and identify the most competitive. Independent observers who were consulted in the sample design included Stu Rothenberg of the Rothenberg Political Report, Jennifer Duffy and David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, Amy Walter of Hotline, and Greg Giroux and others at Con­ gressional Quarterly Weekly Report, as well as a panel of pollsters and interest group campaign professionals.75 The sample states were selected because they had competitive contests at two or more of the following levels: presidential, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House. We also sought a mix of races so as to have contests with incumbents but also open seats. An added benefit of the five states selected is that previous studies had been done in each of them, allowing comparison of campaigns over time. North Carolina had been studied in 1998, 2002, and 2004; New Hampshire in 2000 and 2002; Ohio in 1998, 2004, and 2006; Colorado in 2002, 2004, and 2006; and New Mexico in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Many of the academics performing the case studies in 2008 had participated in previous studies. Academics with strong research reputations were recruited to closely monitor the sampled contests in their states and collect data on campaign communications, including television and radio advertising buys, print advertising,

18  /  David B. Magleby

direct mail, and telephone contacts. In addition, the investigators tracked data provided by the FEC on candidate, party, and PAC campaign fundraising and spending. The field observers also monitored media polls and, after the election, obtained from candidates, where possible, tracking polls on these races. All participating academics also conducted additional research, including postelection interviews with candidates, party and interest group campaign managers, consultants, and local political reporters. Important campaign activity in the most competitive races is aimed at individual voters and may not be broadcast in ways that are known to others, so the study method sought to gather those communications both from voters and from groups sending the communications. To attempt to learn about all forms of campaign communications, the investigators created a reconnaissance network in each contest to monitor campaign communications. Approximately three weeks before the November election, the academics invited participants, including members of the League of Women Voters, alumni of participating universities, Brigham Young University Alumni in the five competitive states, and individuals with diverse interests and politics reunited by the academics, to forward to the academic investigators their political mail. Participants were also asked to fill out forms documenting television ads, radio ads, and phone calls they observed, as well as person-to-person contact they received. Because not all competitive contests arise in large media markets, and because radio is not covered by television advertising tracking services, the investigators also acquired the advertising cost data from radio, television, and cable stations. This information was supplemented with data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group. Where possible, campaign consultants were also asked to estimate the costs of mailers, telephone banks, and other campaign material involved in their races.

North Carolina North Carolina, like Virginia and Indiana, had not been a presidential battleground state in decades. As it turned out, all three states were highly competitive in 2008. A southern state with a substantial African American population (again, like Virginia), as part of the Voting Rights Act, North Carolina is required to report the racial composition of voter registration and turnout data. Given the unusual nature of the 2008 election, access to such information was another reason to include the state in the study sample. North Carolina, coming late as it did in the presidential nomination contest, also made it possible to assess the effect of that contest on the organization of the general election campaign. The North Carolina U.S. Senate contest was anticipated to be highly competitive, and it lived up to that billing. Like nearly all competitive U.S. Senate races in 2008, this contest had a vulnerable Republican incumbent painted by opponents as an absent senator running against a strong challenger. In this case, both general election candidates were female. As a result, it was possible to assess the role of gender-based interest groups. Despite rumors that she would retire in 2008, Elizabeth Dole decided to run for reelection. Polls showed that her campaign was negatively affected by Barack Obama’s decision to campaign aggressively in the state and by her close ties to President Bush. Democrat chal-

A Change Election  /  19

lenger Kay Hagan was aided significantly by outside Section 527 groups and especially by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which poured more money into the North Carolina contest than any other.76 Before 2008, Democrats had mounted competitive statewide races in North Carolina, but they had not won a U.S. Senate seat in a presidential year since 1968. The investigators previously studied a North Carolina Senate race in 2004.77 Finally, the contest for U.S. Representative in North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District meant that it was possible to simultaneously assess campaign finance and communications in one state at all three levels. As predicted by Brian Walsh of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), this district was going to be competitive. I mean you’ve got a higher-than-average African American population so it’s a good test of what the Obama effect will be, but you’ve got a lot of blue-collar, white, southern voters. . . . ​ [Republican incumbent] Robin [Hayes] has significantly more resources than [Democrat Larry] Kissell has at this point, and my opinion is the DCCC is just going to try to buy the seat.78 Both the North Carolina Senate and North Carolina Eighth District races showed vividly the way politics can be played as a team sport. The investigators also studied this district in 2002.79 The North Carolina voting process has an added twist that makes efforts to orient and mobilize voters more challenging. Like fifteen other states, North Carolina allows voters to mark one box on the ballot and cast a straight-party ticket for all candidates from the chosen party. However, in North Carolina, voters who do this must also vote separately for a presidential candidate. 80 How the candidates and party committees would deal with this complexity while also wanting to maximize their vote posed an interesting additional research question.

New Hampshire New Hampshire is another state that has long been Republican at the presidential level, but has been trending more Democratic in recent years. Its prominence in the nomination process means that voters in New Hampshire are accustomed to intense campaigns, with a great deal of personal contact. The state therefore is an interesting laboratory in which to assess the effect of a highly charged general election campaign. In New Hampshire, as in the race generally, there was an enthusiasm gap that favored Obama and hurt McCain. Dante Scala, who studied the New Hampshire contests, quoted an observer who saw two busloads of volunteers sent by states all across New England to canvass New Hampshire on behalf of Obama. This effort was demoralizing to the dozen self-reliant Republican workers canvassing for McCain (see Chapter 6). The U.S. Senate race in New Hampshire was a rerun of an open-seat race studied six years ago.81 In the 2008 contest, Republican John Sununu (now the incumbent senator) again faced Democrat Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire’s governor from 1997 to 2003). The New Hampshire First Congressional District race was also a rematch of the previous election, but this time the roles

20  /  David B. Magleby

were reversed. In 2006, Democrat Carol Shea-Porter challenged incumbent Jeb Bradley and won; in 2008, Bradley tried unsuccessfully to unseat the incumbent Shea-Porter. Shea-Porter did not receive national Democratic money in 2006. She capitalized on an increasingly left-leaning state. New Hampshire, which has been viewed as an enclave of conservatism in the Northeast, shifted left beginning in 2006 in many of its key offices, including governor and its two U.S. Representatives. Shaheen’s 6.5 percent victory in 2008 marked a further Democratic swing. In 2002, when Sununu defeated Shaheen, President Bush’s popularity and the security concerns after September 11, 2001, helped Sununu. On Election Day 2002 Bush’s approval rating was 63 percent, but on Election Day 2008 it was 28 percent. In a change election such as 2008, Sununu attempted to distance himself from Bush. The Democrats’ ground game in New Hampshire helped Obama, Shaheen, and Bradley. Early on, Brian Walsh of the NRCC felt positive about Republicans’ chances of winning the House seat: I think New Hampshire 1 is one of our best picks of opportunities in the country. I think Jeb Bradley has [gone] through a difficult primary, but performed well, and I think his greatest asset in this race is the Democrat incumbent who defeated him last cycle but has not performed very well. I think McCain and Sununu should run strong in that district, which is going to give him an advantage. . . . ​I’d say we’re probably feeling fairly bullish about that race.82

Ohio Of the competitive industrial states like Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, Ohio has consistently been pivotal and had the advantage of as many as four competitive U.S. House races. In the 2008 presidential election, as in 2004, Ohio was widely seen as the epicenter of the presidential election (see Chapter 7).83 Rich in electoral votes and closely matched in partisan identification, the state had been the focus of interest group and party committee efforts to register and turn out voters. Both campaigns invested heavily in Ohio television advertising. Ohio was the third-highest state in estimated spending in the presidential race, with an estimated $48 million spent by the two campaigns, and it was ranked number one in the number of television spots run.84 During the pre-election period in Ohio and Pennsylvania, considerable speculation surrounded working-class white voters: Could Obama secure this demographic? Economic issues, while important across the nation, were especially important in Ohio. Going into the election, Ohio had its highest unemployment rate in sixteen years.85 Of the competitive House races in Ohio, the study focused on the First, Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Eighteenth Congressional Districts. The Fifteenth became one of the most competitive contests in the United States, with an outcome decided by only 2,311 votes and disputed until December 8, 2008. The Fifteenth District had an open seat because of the decision of Republican incumbent Deborah Pryce to not seek reelection. Republican candidate Steve Stivers, who narrowly lost the race to Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy, narrowly outperformed John McCain in his district by a slight percentage, with Stivers winning 45.18 percent and McCain winning 45 percent of the district’s vote.

A Change Election  /  21

Colorado Long before the nation’s attention focused on Denver as the host city for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Colorado had become a more competitive two-party state. George W. Bush carried the state by fewer than 5 percentage points in 2004.86 However, the state elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2006, and going into the 2008 election, Colorado was widely perceived as a key battleground. Because of its substantial Hispanic population, Colorado provided an opportunity to see the two parties compete for this increasingly important group of voters. Colorado had also experienced large shifts in partisanship in voter registration toward Democrats and Independents. A Colorado Senate seat was open because of a Republican retirement. Given the state’s political history, Republicans were likely to work aggressively to retain the seat, but Democrats also had good reason to hope for victory. The Colorado Fourth Congressional District provided a highly competitive contest between two female candidates, the Republican incumbent Marilyn Musgrave and the Democratic challenger Betsy Markey. Outside groups that had been important in Colorado’s 2004 U.S. Senate election were again active in the Fourth Congressional District in 2008.

New Mexico In both the 2000 and 2004 elections, New Mexico had highly contested presidential races. In 2000, George W. Bush and Al Gore each received 48 percent of the vote, with Gore winning by just 365 votes. In 2004, Bush received 50 percent of the vote compared with Kerry’s 49 percent. In 2008, it was assumed John McCain, from neighboring Arizona, would capitalize on his support for immigration reform to do well among New Mexico’s large Latino population. However, Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, had every incentive to work hard for Obama. Like Colorado, New Mexico provided an excellent vantage point from which to assess efforts to secure Hispanic voters. Michael S. Rocca, Lonna Rae Atkeson, Yann Kerevel, and Lisa A. Bryant describe the specific targeting of this subgroup in Chapter 9. The retirement of six-term Republican U.S. Senator Pete Domenici led all three of New Mexico’s U.S. House incumbents to seek that office, creating three open seats in the House. Democrat Tom Udall secured an uncontested Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate after his opponent withdrew from the race, but the divisive contest between the two Republican House incumbents seeking the GOP Senate nomination ended with Steve Pearce’s defeat of Heather Wilson, 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent. Pearce came out of the primary at a fundraising disadvantage compared with Udall, who did not face a primary challenger. Outside groups were heavily involved in New Mexico’s U.S. Senate race, which may have contributed to Pearce’s general election defeat. The First District seat vacated by Heather Wilson had been hotly contested in the past and was again in 2008.87 The more Republican-leaning Second Congressional District, which Steve Pearce had represented, became more competitive as the election progressed. In the end, Democrats won the open Senate seat and all three open House seats.

22  /  David B. Magleby

Conclusion Some aspects of federal campaign finance have not changed as a result of the surge in soft money and issue advocacy in 1992–2002 or with the implementation of BCRA. For example, campaign contributions to candidates, PACs and party committees continue to be limited, which means that raising more money requires an effort to enlist more donors and raise more money per contributor up to the contribution limits. For most candidates, the starting point remains a donor network that provides early contributions to launch their campaigns. Another key element has not changed: Electoral politics remains a team sport. Candidates still rely on support from political party committees and allied interest groups. Although fundraising approaches have shifted, especially with the BCRA party soft money ban, the objective has not changed: working as a team to elect particular candidates and defeat their opponents. By many standards, the 2008 election was unusual. This book explores the dramatic increase in individual contributions. The way in which money was raised in 2007–2008 is the focus of Chapter 2. The focus on small donors in 2007–2008 was not unrelated to a growing commitment by candidates, groups, and party committees to spend campaign money on direct voter contact and mobilization, a theme developed in Chapters 3 and 4. The role of technology, including the Internet, in fundraising, spending, and GOTV efforts is a focus of Chapters 2, 3, and 4. More broadly, in Chapter 4, Michael P. McDon­ald and Thomas F. Schaller examine voter registration, voter mobilization efforts, and turnout in 2008. As noted, states gave voters more options for when they could vote, and both teams invested a great deal in encouraging voter participation. The varying success of these efforts may help us determine whether 2008 constituted a one-time change or whether it begins of a period of expanded (or contracted) participation for particular segments of the votingeligible population.

Notes 1.  Andrew Malcolm, “Complete Final Debate Transcript: John McCain and Barack Obama,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2008, available at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/ 2008/10/post.html (accessed January 26, 2010). 2.  Gallup, Inc., “Bush Approval,” Gallup Poll, available at http://www.gallup.com/ video/28096/Bush-Approval.aspx (accessed May 21, 2009). 3.  David B. Magleby, “Executive Summary,” in The Last Hurrah? Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 7. 4.  Katharine Q. Seelye, “The 2004 Elections: The Electorate, The Voters,” New York Times, November 4, 2004, available at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE7D7173C F937A35752C1A9629C8B63&scp=14&sq=Bush%20%202004%20election%20War%20on%20 Terror&st=cse (accessed March 11, 2009). 5.  David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson, The Battle For Congress: Iraq, Scandal, and Campaign Finance in the 2006 Election (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007), 3–12. 6. Ibid., 6–8. 7.  Jon Cohen, “Election Trends in the 2008 Cycle,” keynote address, Jack E. and Marilyn H. Roberts Family Post-Election Conference, Provo, UT, November 21, 2008. 8. Roger Simon, “Obama Beats Hillary over Head with Iraq,” Politico, January 31, 2008, available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8248.html (accessed January 26, 2010).

A Change Election  /  23 See also Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordi­ nary Election (New York: Viking, 2009), 22. 9.  David Paul Kuhn, “Kerry’s Top Ten Flip Flops,” CBS News, February 10, 2009, available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/29/politics/main646435.shtml (accessed January 26, 2010). 10. Robert Barnes and Michael D. Shear, “McCain: Fundamentals of Economy Are ‘Strong’ but ‘Threatened,’” Washington Post, September 15, 2008, available at http://voices. washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/15/mccain_fundamentals _of_economy.html (accessed January 26, 2010). 11. Media observer Evan Tracey commented that the 30-minute advertisement run by Obama late in the campaign presented the candidate as calm and “presidential.” See Evan Tracey, telephone interview with David Magleby, May 20, 2009. 12.  Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser, How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election (New York: Vintage, 2009). 13.  Daniel Nichanian, “Bill Clinton: Hillary’s Rainmaker,” Huffington Post, November 19, 2007, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/off-the-bus-reporter/bill-clinton-hillarysr_b_73419.html (accessed January 26, 2010). 14.  Zach Exley, “Obama Field Organizers Plot a Miracle,” Huffington Post, August 27, 2007, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/obama-field-organizers-pl_b_61918.html (accessed January 26, 2010). 15. Mike Henry, “Clinton Campaign Memo on Iowa,” New York Times, May 21, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/23/us/politics/23text-clinton.html?pagewanted=1&_ r=1 (accessed January 26, 2010). 16.  Todd and Gawiser, How Barack Obama Won, 84. 17.  Zev Chafets, “The Huckabee Factor,” New York Times, section 6, December 16, 2007, 68. 18.  Carl Hulse and Adam Nagourney, “Short on Money, McCain Campaign Dismisses Dozens,” New York Times, July 3, 2007, A1. 19. Matthew Mosk, “McCain Got Loan by Pledging to Seek Federal Funds,” Washington Post, February 16, 2008, A10. 20. Election 2008, “Primary Season Election Results,” New York Times, February 9, 2009. 21.  David B. Magleby, Financing the 2000 Election (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), 10. For a period of three days it was a mystery who Republicans for Clean Air was. In fact, the group was funded by Sam Wyly, a Texan billionaire with connections to candidate George W. Bush. 22.  Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007). 23.  Chuck Cunningham, director of federal affairs, National Rifle Association, interview by David Magleby, Washington, DC, November 13, 2008. 24.  Joe Rospars, Obama for America New Media Director, telephone interview by David Magleby, January 28, 2009; for a lower estimate of the money raised in that period, see Ben Smith, “Palin Raises $8 Million—For Obama,” Politico, September 4, 2008. 25.  Dennis Johnson, “An Election Like No Other” in Campaigning for President 2008: Strategy and Tactics, New Voices and New Techniques, ed. Dennis Johnson. (New York: Taylor and Francis, Routledge, 2009), 20. 26.  Jon Cohen, “Election Trends in the 2008 Cycle.” 27.  David B. Magleby, “Outside Money in the 2002 Congressional Elections,” in Last Hur­ rah? (ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 1–35. See also Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties and Interest Groups Interact in New Campaign Finance Environment, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2005); Electing Congress: New Rules for an Old Game, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall). 28.  David B. Magleby, “Outside Money in 2002,” 24–25. 29.  David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson, “War Games: Issues and Campaign Finance in the Battle for Control of Congress,” in The Battle for Congress: Iraq, Scandal, and Campaign Finance in the 2006 Election, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008), 13. 30. Magleby, Monson, and Patterson, eds., Dancing without Partners, 28; Electing Congress.

24  /  David B. Magleby 31.  Jon Carson, Obama Campaign, telephone interview by David Magleby, December 11, 2008. 32.  Gary C. Jacobson, Money in Congressional Elections (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1980). See also David B. Magleby and Candace J. Nelson, The Money Chase: Congressio­ nal Campaign Finance Reform (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1990), 18. 33.  Anthony Corrado et al., The New Campaign Finance Sourcebook (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), 28–30. 34.  David B. Magleby, The Other Campaign: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2000 Congressional Elections (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 36. 35. Magleby, “Outside Money in 2002,” 2. 36.  Anthony Corrado et al., New Campaign Finance Sourcebook, 75. 37.  Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976), footnote 52. 38.  David B. Magleby, Outside Money: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 1998 Con­ gressional Elections (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 46. 39. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Investigation of Illegal or Improper Activ­ ities in Connection with 1996 Federal Election Campaigns, 105th Cong., 2d sess., 1998, S. Rep. 105-167, Part 5. See also Diana Dwyre, “Interest Groups and Issue Advocacy in 1996” in Financ­ ing the 1996 Election, ed. John C. Green (New York: M. E. Sharp), 205. 40. Magleby, Other Campaign; David B. Magleby, Outside Money; Magleby and Monson, eds., Last Hurrah? 41.  David B. Magleby, Dictum without Data (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2000), 7–10. 42.  On September 29, 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth changed its name to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. Throughout this book we continue to use Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to avoid confusion. For a press release from the group announcing the change, see http://horse. he.net/~swiftpow/article.php?story=2004092911015589. 43.  David B. Magleby, “Introduction,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Par­ ties and Interest Groups Interact in New Campaign Finance Environment, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2005), 2. 44.  Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, Public Law 107-155, 107th Cong., 2d sess. (March 27, 2002). 45.  Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007). 46.  Davis v. Federal Election Commission, 128 S. Ct. 2759 (2008). 47.  Shays v. Federal Election Commission, 337 F. Supp. 2d 28 (D.D.C. 2004); Shays v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 414 F. 3d 76 (D.C. Cir. 2005). 48.  Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007). 49.  On September 29, 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth changed its name to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. Throughout this book we continue to use “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” to avoid confusion. For a press release from the group announcing the change, see http://horse. he.net/~swiftpow/article.php?story=2004092911015589. 50.  Kate Phillips, “527 Smackdown,” New York Times, December, 13, 2006, available at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/527-smackdown/ (accessed January 27, 2010). See also David D. Kirkpatrick, “Group Fined by F.E.C. for Campaign Violations,” New York Times, August 30, 2007, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/washington/30donate. html?scp=3&sq=FEC%20fining%20527s&st=cse (accessed May 14, 2009). 51.  Bob Bauer, legal counsel, Obama Campaign, interview by David Magleby, July 14, 2008. 52. Magleby, Monson, and Patterson, eds., Dancing without Partners, 16–18. 53.  Jeanne Cummings, “Religious Left Rallies for Democrats,” Politico, November 2, 2008. 54.  David B. Magleby, “Change and Continuity in the Financing of Federal Elections,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), 15. 55. Magleby, Financing the 2000 Election, 6. 56. Ray La Raja, “Sources and Uses of Soft Money,” in A User’s Guide to Campaign Finance Reform, ed. Gerald C. Lubenow (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001); Sidney M. Milkis, “Parties versus Interest Groups,” in Inside the Campaign Finance Battle: Court Testimony on

A Change Election  /  25 the New Reforms, ed. Anthony Corrado, Thomas E. Mann, and Trevor Potter (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), 40–49. 57.  United States District Court for the District of Columbia, “Rebuttal declaration of Sidney M. Milkis,” Civ. No. 02-874. 58.  Diana Dwyre and Robin Kolodny, “National Political Parties After BCRA,” in Life After Reforms: When the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act Meets Politics, ed. Michael J. Malbin (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield), 83. 59.  Johnson, Campaigning for President 2008, 13. 60. Rospars, interview. 61.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking, 2009), 21. 62. Erin Hill, ActBlue, telephone interview by David Magleby, March 18, 2009. 63.  Adam Nagourney and Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Forgoes Public Funds in First for Major Candidate,” New York Times, June 20, 2008. 64. Nate Silver, “Obama Leads Better than 3:1 in Field Offices,” FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right blog, August 9, 2008, available at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/obamaleads-better-than-31-in-field.html (accessed May 13, 2009). 65. Lynda Lee Kaid, “Videostyle in the 2008 Presidential Advertising,” in The 2008 Presi­ dential Campaign: A Communication Perspective, ed. Robert E. Denton Jr. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 210. 66.  Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager, John McCain for President, The Change Election Press Event, Washington, DC, June 23, 2009. 67. Nagourney and Zeleny, “Obama Forgoes Public Funds.” 68. Michael J. Malbin, “Small Donors, Large Donors, and the Internet: The Case for Public Financing After Obama” (working paper, Campaign Finance Institute, April 2009), available at http://www.cfinst.org/president/pdf/Presidential WorkingPaper_April09.pdf (accessed May 13, 2009). 69.  Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000). 70. Michael Powell and Peter Slevin, “Several Factors Contributed to ‘Lost’ Voters in Ohio,” Washington Post, December 15, 2004, A1. 71. Early Voting Information Center, October 23, 2008, available at http://www.earlyvoting. net/states/abslaws.php (accessed May 14, 2009). 72. Ibid. 73.  Office of the Secretary of State, “Analysis of Early Voting Laws,” available at http:// maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/voter_info/appE-other-states-additional.doc (accessed May 26,2009). 74.  Jon Carson, “Campaign Management and Field Operations,” in Electing the President 2008: An Insider’s View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 44. 75.  Others consulted in designing the sample included pollsters Mark Mellman, Ed Goas III, and Geoff Garin; and interest group professionals Bernadette Budde of BIPAC, Chuck Cunningham of NRA, Bill Miller of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mark Longabaugh of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, Steve Rosenthal of the Atlas Project, and Linda Lipson of the Alliance for Justice (Trial Lawyers). 76.  Harold Meyerson, “Is the Southern Strategy Dead?” The American Prospect, October 24, 2008, available at http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=is_the_southern_strategy_dead (accessed January 27, 2010). 77.  Brian Walsh, NRCC national field director, interview by David Magleby, September 23, 2008. 78.  Walsh, interview, November 10, 2008. 79. Eric S. Heberlig, “North Carolina’s Eighth and Ninth Districts,” in The Last Hurrah: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2003), 255. 80.  “This Year’s Butterfly Ballots,” New York Times, October 27, 2008, A22. 81.  J. Mark Wrighton, “The 2002 New Hampshire Senate and First Congressional District Races” in The Last Hurrah: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elec­ tions, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2003), 141.

26  /  David B. Magleby 82.  Walsh, interview. 83. See Stephen T. Mockabee et al., “The Battle for Ohio: The 2004 Presidential Campaign,” in Dancing without Partners, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quinn Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 143. 84.  “2008 Campaign Overview” by TNS Media Intelligence, data file in author’s possession. 85.  Todd and Gawiser, How Barack Obama Won, 89. 86. Election Results: Presidential Map, New York Times, available at http://elections. nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html (accessed May 22, 2009). 87. Lonna Rae Atkeson and Nancy Carrillo, “De Ja Vu 2002: The New Mexico 1st Congressional District,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties and Interest Groups Interact in the New Campaign Environment, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 299. See also Lonna Rae Atkeson and Lorraine Tafoya, “Close, but Not Close Enough: Democrats Lose Again by the Slimmest Margin in New Mexico’s First Congressional District,” in The Battle for Congress, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm), 142.

2

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed David B. Magleby

R

unning for federal office is expensive. For example, in the Minnesota U.S. Senate race, the two major party candidates raised a combined $46,175,432, with only a little more than $1 million separating Republican incumbent Norm Coleman, who raised $23,673,308, from Democratic challenger Al ­Franken, who raised $22,502,124.1 Other U.S. Senate contests in 2008 in which substantial amounts were raised by candidates include Kentucky and Georgia as well as the contests in North Carolina, Colorado, New Hampshire, and New Mexico, which are the subjects of case studies in this book. In the 2008 presidential election, a total of $1.8 billion was spent by all candidates seeking the presidency (see Table 2.1). However, it is not only the candidates who raise money to influence the outcome of elections. The political party committees raise hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle, and in 2007–2008, party committees raised $1.2 billion. Interest groups are also actively fundraising to finance their electioneering efforts. In 2007–2008, interest groups spent an estimated $1.2 billion to influence federal elections. This estimate includes political action committee (PAC) contributions, as well as Section 527 and Section 501(c) organization spending. The 2007–2008 election cycle set new records for amounts of money raised and spent in federal elections. Table 2.1 provides a summary of total spending by candidates, party committees, groups, and individuals acting independently in 2007–2008. When all spending on federal elections is tallied, more than $5.9 billion was spent in 2007–2008. Candidates raised nearly $3.1 billion of this money, but the role of political parties and interest groups in campaign finance and electioneering is also an important part of the story. American electoral politics today is best understood as a “team sport,” with candidates and supporting political party committees and allied interest groups forming two sides in elections. This theme is developed further in Chapter 3, which explores how money was spent by the two sides in 2007–2008, and in Chapter 4, which examines the successes and failures of the two sides in their efforts to register and mobilize voters. How the money was raised is the primary focus of this chapter.

Candidate Fundraising Money to finance federal campaigns comes from individuals, interest groups, and the candidates themselves. Candidates may give or loan their campaigns unlimited amounts of their own money. Political parties help fund candidates, but they raise money from individuals, groups, and candidates. Party committees spend the money they have raised by contributing to candidates needing their help or by spending independently on their behalf. Interest groups of all

28  /  David B. Magleby

Table 2.1 Overall Spending in Federal Elections, 2000–2008 (in Millions of Dollars)

2000

2004

2008

645 978 544 498

958 1,099 1,214 —

1,829 1,297 1,219 —

171 201 State parties (nonfederal) f 330 67 PACsg 320 532 527s 101h 442i j 501(c)s 10 60k l Issue advocacy 248 — Individual expendituresm 4 2

318 94 767 258i 196k — 2

candidatesa

Presidential Congressional candidatesb National parties (federal) c National parties (nonfederal) d State and local parties (federal) e

  Total

3,849

4,575

5,980

Sources: Compiled from Federal Election Commission data and Campaign Media Analysis Group data; see www. opensecrets.org/527s/index.php and www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=221. a Includes

all presidential election–related spending in the prenomination, convention (including the convention grant and spending by host committees), bridge, and general election periods. Candidate transfers to party committees are deducted from the total to avoid double counting.

b Includes

all spending by congressional candidates. Candidate transfers to party committees are deducted from the total to avoid double counting.

c Includes

all spending by national party committees, including independent expenditures and coordinated expenditures on behalf of candidates. Contributions to candidates are deducted from the total to avoid double counting.

d Transfers

among party committees are deducted from the total.

e Includes

all spending by state and local party committees, including money contributed to candidates, independent expenditures, and coordinated expenditures on behalf of candidates. The national party transfers were deducted from the Democratic and Republican state and local party disbursements. f Includes the nonfederal (soft) share of state party expenses that must be paid with a mix of federal (hard) and some soft money during the election cycle. g Total includes independent expenditures and internal communication costs made by political action committees (PACs). PAC contributions to federal candidates are deducted from the total to avoid double counting. h Major

transfers were removed. The estimate is much lower than the actual amount because Section 527 spending was only disclosed as of July 2000 because of the adoption of the new disclosure law.

i Total

includes spending by groups that were either thoroughly committed to federal elections or were heavily involved in federal elections but were also doing substantial state and local work. Total includes electioneering communications made by Section 527 organizations.

j Total

includes independent expenditures made by 501(c) groups.

k Total

includes groups spending at least $200,000 and consists of independent expenditures, electioneering communications, and other expenditures (including internal communication costs) made by 501(c) groups. l This

money was spent on broadcast ads in the top seventy-five media markets between March 8 and November 7, 2000. This figure may include some money reported by parties, PACs, 527s, or 501(c) groups shown elsewhere in the table.

m Total

includes independent expenditures made for or against candidates by individual donors.

sorts are important donors to candidates and party committees. As discussed in Chapter 3, interest groups also spend substantial amounts independently of the candidates. The same is true of party committees. Of course, not all candidates are equally successful in raising money: The competitiveness of particular contests often determines how much individ­uals,

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  29

political party committees, and interest groups invest, and coming full circle, one marker of competitiveness is candidate fundraising. If, for example, an incumbent has had lower rates of fundraising and if the challenger has had success in raising money, this only further encourages opposing interest groups and political party committees to invest in the contest.

Presidential Candidate Receipts In the 2008 presidential election, candidate fundraising was a major part of Barack Obama’s success. While there were many reasons for this success, as longtime McCain confidant Rick Davis stated, “Let’s not fool ourselves. One of the reasons that Barack Obama’s campaign has been so successful is because of Barack Obama.”2 As William Flanigan and Nancy Zidale have observed, “Obama’s campaign strategy was to contest every caucus and primary nationwide—and he had the Internet fund-raising and organization to implement this strategy successfully.”3 His ability to raise money through the donors who gave at or near the maximum allowed and through small donors was a phenomenon not seen since records have been kept. By the Obama campaign’s own accounting, nearly four million people contributed money to the campaign—more than twice as many as donated to any candidate in the past.4 Small or unitemized donors are individuals who gave under $200 in aggregate to a candidate; their identities are undisclosed. Obama raised more money in small individual contributions in 2007 than Bill Bradley or Al Gore raised in 1999 from individuals contributing at any level or than John Edwards or John Kerry raised from all individual donors in 2003. Evidence of that can be seen in Figure 2.1. Obama began the cycle with a substantial advantage over McCain in small contributions, and that advantage widened during the nomination phase. Once Obama (percent unitemized)

McCain (percent unitemized)

45 Percentage of receipts

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

08 07 07 07 08 08 07 08 07 08 08 07 /20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 /1/20 7 5 3/1 5 1 7 9 1 3 1 9 1 1

/20

1/1

Figure 2.1 Receipts Coming from Unitemized Contributions to Presidential Candidates Note: The vertical line near the beginning of September 2008 indicates the approximate date of the national party conventions. Source: Bob Biersack, Deputy Press Officer, Federal Election Commission, e-mail communication with David Magleby, March 4, 2009.

30  /  David B. Magleby

McCain effectively secured the nomination in March 2008, small contributions to his campaign rose to a point of near parity with Obama’s in July 2008. Christian Ferry, McCain’s deputy campaign manager, framed it this way: In the post primary environment obviously the Republican field was clear, so it became a one-man game. Republicans rallied around John McCain. We saw improvement in our fundraising across the board, which is a very natural development at the end of the primary process. We were able to start investing more into list development and online advertising that drove small-dollar contributions. We had folks from Mitt Romney to Rudy Giuliani to Mike Huckabee emailing their lists and letting their supporters know that John McCain was the guy to get behind and rally around.5 McCain’s proportion of money coming from small donors then dropped more than Obama’s did, so that, in the end, Obama had about a two-to-one advantage in the proportion of donors giving $200 or less. As Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group observed, “Obama correctly leveraged the Internet, incorporating donors.”6 As discussed more fully in Chapter 4, the Obama campaign engaged individuals in a range of activities, including but not limited to making financial contributions. The network of contacts drew on friendships and social networks on a much larger scale than any campaign before. As Joe Rospars reported, the campaign tried to enable folks to take control of the process as much as they were willing at every stage. So if you made phone calls using the my.BarackObama sound system or you made a donation or you sent a letter to the editor or joined a grassroots volunteer group . . . ​at each step you are prompted to not just tell someone but to upload your whole address book and tell everyone you know.7 Once individuals had made a contribution or otherwise become involved in the campaign, they were invited to help in other ways. The ease of making contributions over the Internet meant that well-timed messages could reap substantial additional contributions. Having developed a broad base of financial supporters, many of whom had not initially contributed the maximum allowable, meant that he could go back to them for support over and over again. Obama was not the only candidate to use these tactics. Ron Paul’s campaign used Federal Election Commission (FEC) reporting deadlines as a motivation for supporters to surprise the competition and the media.8 The Obama campaign used a similar strategy in the primaries, delaying the release of numbers to maximize their effect. David Plouffe reported, “Obama had outraised Clinton in primary money by $7 million. . . . People who had been on the fence, waiting to see if we could really put together a viable campaign, were now convinced we could and jumped on board.”9 It is uncertain how applicable the approaches used by Paul and Obama will be with other candidates in the future, but no doubt their efforts will be closely studied, and many will try to replicate them. More research needs to be done on the dramatic increase in donors to candidates and party committees in 2008, but for Obama, at least, there was a combination of a charismatic candidate and a compelling message. Early on, Obama’s

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  31

opposition to the Iraq war allowed him to separate himself from Edwards and Clinton on a salient issue and tap into a motivated constituency. As his campaign gained credibility, some were likely drawn to the opportunity to participate in an historic election. The protracted nomination contest with Senator Clinton gave followers additional reasons to contribute and to invite friends to do so as well. In addition to a charismatic candidate and a compelling message, the Obama campaign had the advantage of skillful use of technology. David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, noted that “technology was core to our campaign from Day One and it only grew in importance as the primary went on.”10 During the election, the campaign skillfully used YouTube, video games, social networking sites, and text messaging both to raise money and to organize supporters. The net effect was to draw people to the campaign who likely had not been involved in campaigns before and then to subsequently keep them engaged. As Jon Carson, the Obama campaign field director explained, “Our online efforts were a net, they weren’t the engine. . . . ​W hat the online efforts allowed us to do was grab . . . ​people quickly.”11 Part of the success of this approach is seen not only in fundraising but also in mobilizing voters for caucuses, early voting, and Election Day.12 Just as important to Obama’s success were donors at higher levels and especially large donors. Of Obama contributions that were over the required aggregate reporting threshold of $200, more than half came in amounts larger than $2,000, the former Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) contribution limit for primary and general elections combined. McCain, who raised less than Obama overall, did proportionally even better among this group, raising more than two-thirds of his receipts in amounts exceeding $2,000.13 For the 2007–2008 cycle, John McCain had a relatively successful campaign finance effort, raising $346 million—an amount only slightly behind Bush’s 2004 total of $367 million. When the “victory committees” are included, he outpaced Bush by nearly $100 million.14 (Victory committees are party committees that help raise money for the party’s presidential nominee. These committees have been especially active when nominees have accepted public financing and the associated limitations on fundraising.) Other successful fundraisers in 2007–2008 included former Massachusetts governor and Republican Mitt Romney, who relied on a network of business, civic, and religious contacts as well as his own money to raise $105 million,15 and Republican Congressman Ron Paul, who used viral fundraising schemes and real-time displays of donor names to raise $34.5 million.16 Other candidates, such as former U.S. senator and Republican Fred Thompson ($23.4 million) and New Mexico Governor and Democrat Bill Richardson ($22.4 million), did not do well in the presidential race, in part because their fundraising lagged. In other respects, 2008 resembled past elections in how money was raised. Candidates provided recognition to bundlers, individuals who raise contributions in substantial amounts. Examples include McCain’s Trailblazers, who each bundled $100,000, and Innovators, who bundled $250,000. Individuals who bundled $100,000 or more for Hillary Rodham Clinton were called HillRaisers. Barack Obama did not have titles for his bundlers who reached certain thresholds. Candidates may spend unlimited amounts of their own money, which they either loan or give to their campaigns. In 2008, the candidate with the most

32  /  David B. Magleby

self-financing was Romney, who had given or loaned his campaign $44.5 million, or 40 percent of his total campaign receipts.17 This set a new record for a presidential candidate in self-funding, exceeding Steve Forbes’s $37.9 million in 1996 and $38.7 million in 2000.18 Romney’s self-funding clearly irritated some of his Republican opponents. In Iowa, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee remarked, “When they see people spending that much of their own money in that way, they think, ‘my gosh, what would they do if they had the taxpayers’ money?’ So I think that people are looking for somebody who demonstrates, even in a campaign, some level of fiscal restraint.”19 Romney was not the only 2008 presidential candidate to give or loan substantial amounts of money to his or her own campaign. After her defeat in Iowa, Senator Hillary Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million during the build-up to Super Tuesday in an effort to compete with Obama; by the end of the campaign, she had loaned herself a total of $13.2 million. 20 Her campaign debt, much of it owed to herself, was a source of some irritation between the Clinton and Obama camps after Obama secured the nomination, 21 and it arose again as a concern as she was appointed secretary of state, a position from which she could no longer raise funds to pay back the loans. 22 There was further tension when Clinton’s donors were slow to convert to Obama donors. 23

Congressional Candidate Receipts Overall, candidates for the U.S. Congress raised nearly the same amount in their campaigns as candidates did in 2006, raising in the aggregate $1.420 billion in 2008 compared with $1.440 billion in 2006. Table 2.2 presents congressional candidates’ receipts for the period 1998–2008. As is the norm, congressional incumbents raise the most money, with challengers and open-seat candidates lagging behind. In 2008, House incumbents had more than a two-to-one edge over challengers, raising 57.9 percent, with challengers raising only 24.8 percent. In contrast, Senate incumbents had a less substantial advantage over challengers, raising 53.9 percent, with challengers raising 31.0 percent. The fundraising patterns by incumbents, challengers, and open-seat candidates have not varied much over time. Comparing aggregate U.S. Senate candidate receipts over time requires us to account for the different sample of states and contests up for election in any given election cycle. For example, the senators running for office in 2000 saw high candidate receipts, a situation that was repeated in 2006. Senate candidate fundraising in 2008 in the aggregate fell below candidates’ fundraising in both 2006 and 2004. Senate Democratic candidates in 2006 raised about $46 million more than Senate Republican candidates. In 2008, the margin was slightly more than $41 million. In 2000, the Senate Democrats had less of a margin over Senate Republicans ($27 million) and much less in 2002 ($200,000). Senate Republicans had a slight fundraising advantage in 1998, while Democrats out-raised Republicans in Senate races in 2004 by about $4.4 million. In 2008, Democratic Senate incumbents enjoyed in the aggregate more than a four-to-one advantage over their Republican challengers. In contrast, Senate Republican incumbents only had about a 1.3-to-1 advantage over Democratic challengers. Important to the Democrats’ winning the Senate majority in 2006 and holding it in 2008 was Democratic challengers’ success in rais-

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  33

Table 2.2  Congressional Candidate Receipts, 1998–2008

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

Senate

$287,558,984 $436,974,083 $326,129,953 $497,552,011 $564,570,423 $436,237,242

  Democrats

$134,102,990 $230,359,011 $162,853,859 $250,584,207 $291,812,147 $239,545,296

  Incumbents

$66,941,216

$43,730,128

$90,985,155 $104,390,824

   Challengers

$43,616,521

$75,618,573

$38,846,764

   Open seats   Republicans

$23,545,253 $111,010,310

$139,051,926

$84,264,906

$21,682,139 $109,302,306 $117,423,832

$33,021,940 $124,511,244

$43,457,915

$37,856,558

$153,028,494 $203,801,884 $162,677,420 $246,106,883 $245,812,007 $196,026,120

  Incumbents

$68,577,760

$86,856,550

$53,995,589

$67,296,994 $120,303,223 $150,247,204

   Challengers

$70,258,720

$21,916,180

$70,313,677

$57,018,961

$75,639,245

$18,738,549

   Open seats

$14,192,014

$95,029,154

$38,368,154 $121,790,928

$49,869,539

$27,040,367

House

$493,781,882 $610,366,228 $643,346,638 $708,521,445 $875,369,023 $983,776,750

  Democrats

$233,383,187 $286,733,602 $314,241,603 $307,367,059

  Incumbents

$128,722,292 $169,725,663 $174,481,270 $198,159,597 $210,153,848 $331,261,285

   Challengers

$44,484,497

$73,158,562

$62,778,999

$59,999,962

   Open seats

$60,176,398

$43,849,377

$76,981,334

$49,207,500

$417,571,225 $539,584,022 $136,112,213 $123,680,021 $71,305,164

$84,642,716

  Republicans

$255,848,990 $317,681,341 $326,262,190 $399,248,418

  Incumbents

$164,944,830 $189,902,984 $194,616,852 $253,571,439 $322,419,094 $248,255,685

$453,616,186 $440,759,677

   Challengers

$48,349,114

$52,284,153

$43,333,093

$57,105,696

$50,083,624 $106,825,975

   Open seats

$42,555,046

$75,494,204

$88,312,245

$88,571,283

$81,113,468

$85,678,017

Total congressional  Republicans

$408,877,484 $521,483,225 $488,939,610 $645,355,301 $699,428,193 $636,785,797

 Democrats

$367,486,177 $517,092,613 $477,095,462 $557,951,266 $709,383,372 $779,129,318

 Incumbents

$429,885,757 $492,456,524 $514,817,068 $624,255,161

  Challengers

$210,495,003 $227,037,602 $216,730,694 $197,634,291 $375,276,926 $369,828,213

$791,928,091 $814,029,080

  Open seats

$140,960,106 $327,846,185 $237,928,829 $384,184,004

Total

$781,340,866 $1,047,340,311 $969,476,591 $1,206,073,456 $1,439,939,446 $1,420,013,992

$253,737,740 $236,156,699

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Congressional Candidates Raised $1.42 Billion in 2007–2008,” press release, December 29, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/2009Dec29Cong/2009Dec29Cong. shtml (accessed January 29, 2010). Note: Figures include receipts for all House and Senate campaigns. Figures are as reported by the campaigns, minus any money transferred between committees of the same campaign.

ing money. This group raised $109 million in 2006 and more than $115 million in 2008. Senate candidates’ receipts in open seats for the two parties were at near parity in 2004. Democratic open-seat candidates had aggregate fundraising advantages in 2000 and 2008, while Republicans enjoyed the edge in 2002 and 2006. Going into the 2008 general election, Republicans had controlled twentynine of the thirty-six open House seats, and in these contests, Democrats substantially out-raised the Republicans. Democrats won nineteen of these contests. In 2008, it was the House Democrats who raised $120 million more than Republicans. As discussed later, this deficit in candidate fundraising for House Republicans was compounded by the difficulties their party campaign committee experienced in raising money. In the House, Republican candidates in the aggregate have out-raised Democrats in 1998 through 2006 (see Table 2.2). In

34  /  David B. Magleby

2004, they raised in the aggregate nearly $92 million more than House Democratic candidates did.

Party Fundraising in 2007–2008 Political parties play several different roles in U.S. federal elections. While they emphasize some of these functions more than others, the parties assist in recruiting and training candidates, do research on opposing candidates, seek to build party infrastructure at all levels (local, state, and national), help orient the electorate, organize government, and help elect candidates from their party and defeat candidates from the opposing party. All of these activities take money, so an additional key party function is fundraising. 24 American political parties are largely organized around the units of competition. Historically, this has made state parties more important than national parties because it is the state parties that elect the president, U.S. senators, governors, and other statewide partisan offices. Each major party has a national party committee that is in some ways a federation of state parties, with its primary purpose to assist in electing the president and, more broadly, to help state and local parties. 25 The two major parties each have a national committee, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC). In addition, each chamber of Congress has its own set of party committees— for the U.S. House, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and for the U.S. Senate, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The party congressional campaign committees focus almost exclusively on electing fellow partisans to their chamber of Congress. They are led by a U.S. senator or U.S. representative who is elected or appointed by fellow partisans in the chamber. Leadership of the congressional campaign committees has in the past been a stepping-stone to other party leadership positions. For example, George Mitchell (D-Maine), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), and William Frist (R-Tennessee) all chaired their campaign committees before being elected to higher party office in their chambers. In recent years, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-Illinois) have received credit for revitalizing their committees in fundraising and candidate recruiting. 26

History of the Party Committees The party committees have different fundraising histories. The RNC, for example, has been seen as a leader in cultivating small individual contributions. In the wake of the Watergate scandal, RNC Chair William Brock invested in the expanding area of direct mail fundraising. 27 This laid the foundation for the RNC to build the largest base of individual donors—many making small contributions—of any party. 28 Marian Currinder recently described Brock’s efforts in this fashion: Former Senator Bill Brock was named chair of the RNC in 1977 and is credited with reviving the party organization. Brock believed that mod-

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  35

ernizing the national Republican Party committees was the key to electoral success, and he focused on raising the money needed to realize this goal. He envisioned the national party committees as political action groups that would offer financial, technical, and campaign-planning assistance to other Republican Party groups, particularly to those at the state and local levels. By 1979, the RNC had expanded its financial assistance to local and state candidates, extended its mass direct-mail fundraising programs, and initiated a number of technical assistance programs. 29 All three Democratic committees became more dependent on soft money than their GOP counterparts. This was due in part to the fact that for the twenty years between 1974 and 1994 Democrats had the majority in the House and, for most of this period, in the Senate. Because of their Congressional advantage, Democrats had more ready access to interest group money in the form of PAC contributions and soft money from corporations, labor unions, and wealthy individuals. Democratic allies such as labor unions, other interest groups, and wealthy individuals, who during this time could make unlimited soft money contributions, also provided funding for the Democrats. All three Republican committees came to have their own soft money base, and they also drew funds from corporations and wealthy individuals. By increasing the aggregate contribution limits for individuals wishing to contribute to parties and indexing these contributions to inflation, the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) encouraged the parties to raise money from individuals. This was thought to be especially useful in light of the fact that most individuals prefer to contribute to candidates rather than political parties. BCRA doubled the amounts that individuals could give to any single candidate and indexed those limits to inflation, but BCRA also capped individual contributions to candidates in the aggregate at $42,700—leaving, for those wanting to give the maximum overall, an additional $65,500 that could go to political party committees, with no more than $25,000 going to any single party committee. By banning unlimited soft money contributions from individuals and groups, and especially from unions and corporate general funds, BCRA added another reason for parties to emphasize raising money from individuals (see Table 2.3).

Coordinate or Compete? The congressional campaign committees often solicit funds from the same partisan donors, who can give more or less to a particular party committee. Thus, the competition is not only with the other party’s candidates, party committees, and allied groups but also with the other two party committees within each party. Even before the election of George W. Bush in 2000, the three GOP committees had achieved closer coordination and sharing of tasks such as voter mobilization than had been the case for the three Democratic committees. By contrast, the tension between the two Democratic congressional campaign committees (DCCC and DSCC) and the DNC increased, reaching the level of becoming news in 2006. 30 Table 2.3 provides a summary of party hard and soft money fundraising for the period 1996–2008. While the party committees had raised soft money

36  /  David B. Magleby

Table 2.3 Hard Money, Soft Money, and Combined Receipts, 1996–2008 Hard Money Receipts DNC

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$108,372,562 $64,779,752 $123,997,509 $67,497,257 $394,411,997 $130,821,232 $260,111,657

DSCC

$30,798,424 $35,645,188 $40,488,666 $48,391,653 $88,655,573 $121,376,959 $162,791,453

DCCC

$26,623,493 $25,180,286 $48,394,476 $46,436,093 $93,168,931 $139,891,645 $176,210,540

RNC

$193,029,129 $104,048,689 $212,798,761 $170,099,094 $392,413,393 $243,007,131 $427,558,768

NRSC

$64,541,312 $53,423,388

$51,475,156 $59,161,387 $78,980,487

NRCC

$74,224,879

$97,314,513 $123,615,586 $185,719,489 $179,549,131 $118,324,756

$72,708,311

$88,812,386 $94,424,743

Total D

$221,613,028 $159,961,869 $275,230,680 $217,245,185 $678,759,807 $483,141,404 $763,340,182

Total R

$416,513,249 $285,007,168 $465,840,139 $424,140,589 $782,410,369 $602,256,988 $792,867,579

Soft Money Receipts DNC

1996

1998

2000

2002

$101,905,186 $56,966,353 $136,563,419 $94,564,827

DSCC

$14,176,392 $25,880,538

DCCC

$12,340,824

RNC

$113,127,010 $74,805,286 $166,207,843 $113,928,997

NRSC

$29,395,329 $37,866,845 $44,652,709 $66,426,117

NRCC

$63,717,982 $95,049,520

$16,865,410 $56,702,023 $56,446,802

$18,530,773 $26,914,059

$47,295,736 $69,677,506

Total D

$123,877,924 $92,811,927 $245,202,519 $246,061,149

Total R

$138,199,706 $131,615,116 $249,861,645 $250,032,620

Total of Hard and Soft Money Receipts 1996 1998 2000 2002 DNC

2004 (Hard Only)

2006 (Hard Only)

2008 (Hard Only)

$210,277,748 $121,746,105 $260,560,928 $162,062,084 $394,411,997 $130,821,232 $260,111,657

DSCC

$44,974,816 $61,525,726 $104,206,648 $143,441,173 $88,655,573 $121,376,959 $162,791,453

DCCC

$38,964,317 $42,045,696 $105,096,499 $102,882,895 $93,168,931 $139,891,645 $176,210,540

RNC

$306,156,139 $178,853,975 $379,006,604 $284,028,091 $392,413,393 $243,007,131 $427,558,768

NRSC

$93,936,641 $91,290,233 $96,127,865 $125,587,504 $78,980,487 $88,812,386 $94,424,743

NRCC

$92,755,652 $99,622,370 $144,610,249 $193,293,092 $185,719,489 $179,549,131 $118,324,756

Total D

$345,490,952 $252,773,796 $520,433,199 $463,306,334 $678,759,807 $483,141,404 $763,340,182

Total R

$554,712,955 $416,622,284 $715,701,784 $674,173,209 $782,410,369 $602,256,988 $792,867,579

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/ press2009/05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed July 22, 2009). Note: The totals for each party do not equal the sum of the party committee receipts because the numbers provided by the Federal Election Commission have been adjusted to account for transfers between party committees so as not to double count money in the total receipts. The totals also include state and local hard money receipts, which are not shown.

before 1996, that election, as noted, marked a turning point in the partisan use of soft money. The top of Table 2.3 isolates hard money receipts for all six national party committees. At the bottom of each column is the total money raised by all three committees for each party. In 1996, 2000, and 2002, the GOP had a large aggregate hard money advantage over the combined Democratic committees, sometimes a nearly two-to-one advantage. In 2004 and since,

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  37

the aggregate receipts for the two parties have been much closer, but with the Republicans consistently out-raising the Democrats in the aggregate. The second set of data in Table 2.3 provides soft money receipts for the 1996–2002 elections. For the 1996 and 1998 election cycles, all of the Republican committees raised more soft money than their Democratic counterparts. This remained true for the RNC compared with the DNC in 2000 and 2002. However, the DCCC and DSCC raised more soft money than the GOP congressional committees in 2000, and in 2002, the DSCC raised more than the NRSC. Finally, Table 2.3 provides total party receipts, adding soft and hard money for the period when both types of fundraising were legal. Adding soft and hard money together, as is done at the bottom of Table 2.3, shows that the Democratic surge in soft money fundraising in 2000 and 2002 helped them reduce the very large fundraising advantage of the GOP. This reliance on soft money made some Democratic partisans question the wisdom of so many Democrats voting for BCRA.

DNC and RNC Receipts Figure 2.2 plots the total receipts for the two national party committees (DNC and RNC) over time. Holding aside the 2004 election cycle, the RNC has consistently raised more money than the DNC. The RNC–DNC gap widened in 2008. The receipts were nearly equal in 2004, in part because Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry urged donors to give to the DNC once he accepted public funding for the general election and could no longer accept campaign $450 $400

Millions of dollars

$350 $300 $250

DNC

$200

RNC

$150 $100 $50 $0

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004 (hard only)

2006 (hard only)

2008 (hard only)

Figure 2.2 DNC and RNC Total Receipts, 1994–2008 Note: For 1994–2002 the data points include both hard and soft money. Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009 (available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/ 05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml [accessed July 22, 2009]).

38  /  David B. Magleby

contributions. 31 When taking public funds, candidates can also transfer any remaining campaign funds to their party committees, as Bush and Kerry did in 2004. National Republican committees gained $11.2 million from Bush’s transfer, while Democratic committees received $40.4 million from Kerry ($29.5 million went to the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC, and $10.9 million went to Democratic committees in 21 states). “To put these figures in context,” wrote John Green, “the national parties were allowed $16.2 million in coordinated expenditures in the 2004 general election. Thus Kerry more than ‘paid for’ the costs of party-coordinated expenditures on his behalf.”32 John McCain’s 2008 campaign followed the Bush and Kerry examples from 2004 and urged individual donors to give to the respective party committees. McCain transferred about $18 million from his campaign to the RNC, but did not transfer funds to the NRCC or NRSC. 33 Obama did not transfer funds to the DNC, but transferred $3.5 million each to the DSCC and DCCC after the election was over. 34 For the RNC, party receipts steadily increased after the BCRA soft money ban, climbing from $364 million in 2000 (soft money included) to totals of $384 million in 2004 and $417 million in 2008 (hard money only). The rate of growth in campaign receipts increased slightly, with 5.5 percent growth from 2000–2004 followed by 8.6 percent growth from 2004–2008. This fits with the RNC’s continued growth pattern in campaign receipts over the 1996–2008 period. Democrats, as noted, enjoyed a surge in hard money in 2004, in part due to the Kerry campaign’s emphasis on donors’ giving to the DNC. While not as successful in 2008 as in 2004 in hard money fundraising, the DNC raised as much hard money in 2008 as it raised in 2000 with hard and soft money combined. In 2008, the RNC had nearly $216 million more in receipts than the DNC. This provided important help to John McCain against the very successful candidate fundraising of Barack Obama. The longstanding RNC advantage in resources has affected the strategies of both parties. The RNC, for example, invested more and was ahead in voter databases and get-out-the-vote efforts. Concerns about the DNC’s less ample funding and commitment to voter files and voter mobilization prompted individuals and groups to form America Coming Together (ACT) in 2003–2004 to provide the kind of large-scale voter mobilization that the Republicans had invested heavily in during the 2001–2002 and 2003–2004 election cycles. 35 Individuals and groups allied with the Democrats entered the 2008 election cycle again concerned about the DNC’s ability to match the GOP’s voter data files and mobilization efforts. Some of this concern was directed against DNC Chair Howard Dean and what some of these groups thought was a misguided investment in the “50-State Strategy.”36 As discussed more fully in Chapter 3, in 2008, individual and group allies of the Democrats, many of whom had invested in ACT, instead became partners in Catalist, a corporation that provides voter file data to liberal organizations, for a fee. 37 Catalist’s list of clients and stakeholders reads like a Who’s Who of progressive groups. Among them in 2007–2008 were the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), National Education Association (NEA), Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Defenders of Wildlife, NARAL Pro-Choice America, EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, America Votes, and Rock the Vote, as well as the DCCC, DSCC, and Obama for America.

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  39

The way in which party committees raise money has changed over time. BCRA and technology both help account for this change. The large GOP advantage in small individual donors discussed previously is partially captured in what the FEC calls unitemized contributions. These are contributions to a party committee that in the aggregate do not exceed $200 in an election cycle. The RNC had a large lead in 2002 in unitemized donations ($103 million in contributions) compared with the DNC, which had $38 million. By 2004, the DNC reversed this, having $166 million from small donors compared with $157 million for the RNC. The RNC again outperformed the DNC in the 2006 midterm election ($113 million vs. $73 million) and retained its advantage with small donors in 2008, raising $152 million compared with nearly $83 million for the DNC. This again suggests that the 2004 DNC increase was in part due to John Kerry’s encouraging small donors to give to the DNC. The DNC success with small donors in 2004, along with Obama’s very strong showing among small donors in 2008, suggests an area where the DNC can improve its fundraising in the future. Large donors, sometimes called max-out donors, are also part of the story. In 2002, a max-out donor could give a total of $25,000 per year or $50,000 in a two-year election cycle to federal candidates and committees, including party committees. After BCRA, during the 2007–2008 election cycle, an individual could give $108,200, of which $42,700 could be given to candidates and $65,500 to party committees and PACs. Donors prefer giving to candidates because they can choose whom to invest in and perhaps later claim credit from. However, BCRA created an incentive for party committees to court individuals who might contribute to them in addition to giving to candidates. The maximum amount that an individual could give to any single party committee in 2007–2008 was $28,500. A person who wanted to give more to a party would give to two or to all of the party committees. Party committees, to varying degrees, went after these max-out donors. Table 2.4 presents the individual contributions (hard money) to party committees at the unitemized level ($200 and less), at the max-out level, and in the aggregate. When all party committees are aggregated, as in Table 2.4, it is clear that the GOP overall advantage has declined. Over time, the three Democratic committees have reduced the aggregate GOP advantage from $153 million in 2000 to $81 million in 2004 and $41 million in 2008. 38 Most of the money raised by the party committees comes from individuals. In 2007–2008, for example, 88 percent of money raised by the DNC and RNC came from individuals, while a majority to two-thirds of the money raised by the congressional campaign committees came from individuals. Max-out contributions have risen substantially since 2000, especially for the DNC, RNC, NRSC, DSCC, and DCCC, and to a lesser extent, the NRCC. In 2004, the RNC out-raised the DNC in money from max-out donors ($61 million for the RNC compared with $43 million for the DNC). As is normal, these numbers dropped in both parties in the 2006 midterm election, but in 2008, they climbed again to $37 million for the RNC and $41 million for the DNC (see Table 2.4). This meant that the DNC did about as well in raising money at the maximum allowable level in 2008 as it did in 2004, but the RNC raised $23 million less from max-out donors in 2008 than it did in 2004. Why? Some speculate that, unlike Bush, who was known as the corporate executives’ president,

40  /  David B. Magleby

Table 2.4  Receipts from Individuals to National Party Committees, 2000–2008 DNC Total receipts  Total contributions from individuals   Unitemized   Unitemized as % of total from individuals   Contributions at the maximum permitted   Maximum as % of individual total

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$123,997,509

$67,497,257

$394,411,997

$130,821,232

$260,111,657

$112,157,217 $59,491,349

$55,623,021 $37,820,051

$356,975,734 $165,774,626

$117,948,743 $73,197,298

$229,657,004 $82,724,020

53.04%

67.99%

46.44%

62.06%

36.02%

$11,040,000

$680,000

$43,350,000

$3,756,200

$41,284,632

9.84%

1.22%

12.14%

3.18%

17.98%

DSCC Total receipts  Total contributions from individuals   Unitemized   Unitemized as % of total from individuals   Contributions at the maximum permitted   Maximum as % of individual total

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$40,488,666

$48,391,653

$88,655,573

$121,376,959

$162,791,453

$17,506,809 $8,408,898

$20,168,297 $9,723,282

$57,756,029 $21,179,393

$87,232,426 $24,506,860

$104,966,958 $24,614,931

48.03%

48.21%

36.67%

28.09%

23.45%

$1,640,000

$2,020,000

$12,175,000

$10,016,700

$26,163,500

9.37%

10.02%

21.08%

11.48%

24.93%

DCCC Total receipts  Total contributions from individuals   Unitemized   Unitemized as % of total from individuals   Contributions at the maximum permitted   Maximum as % of individual total

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$48,394,476

$46,436,093

$93,168,931

$139,891,645

$176,210,540

$21,844,053 $9,932,524

$19,393,788 $11,201,482

$50,690,882 $25,141,719

$83,158,357 $32,013,707

$90,729,507 $30,873,707

45.47%

57.76%

49.60%

38.50%

34.03%

$1,040,000

$800,000

$6,675,000

$5,265,950

$15,618,000

4.76%

4.13%

13.17%

6.33%

17.21%

­McCain had a history of bucking the party, which in this case may mean that he was less comfortable courting the traditional political high rollers. 39 Small donors were emphasized by the Republicans in the period after the FECA was amended in 1974 and thereafter. Democrats were more reliant on large donors, especially in the soft money peak period of 1996–2002. The data in Table 2.4 show that the RNC maintains an advantage among donors of $200 or less to national party committees, the exception being 2004.

Table 2.4  Continued RNC Total receipts  Total contributions from individuals   Unitemized   Unitemized as % of total from individuals   Contributions at the maximum permitted   Maximum as % of individual total

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$212,798,761

$170,099,094

$392,413,393

$243,007,131

$427,558,768

$193,181,420 $91,052,511

$157,825,892 $102,927,710

$350,368,907 $157,091,853

$213,453,376 $112,849,192

$403,891,774 $152,211,824

47.13%

65.22%

44.84%

52.87%

37.69%

$12,660,000

$2,980,000

$60,850,000

$801,000

$37,422,200

6.55%

1.89%

17.37%

0.38%

9.27%

NRSC Total receipts  Total contributions from individuals   Unitemized   Unitemized as % of total from individuals   Contributions at the maximum permitted   Maximum as % of individual total

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$51,475,156

$59,161,387

$78,980,487

$88,812,386

$94,424,743

$33,999,707 $19,292,125

$41,533,725 $20,231,352

$60,811,444 $29,998,982

$65,214,270 $24,525,559

$71,035,209 $29,240,612

56.74%

48.71%

49.33%

37.61%

41.16%

$180,000

$320,000

$6,125,000

$2,132,600

$12,454,000

0.53%

0.77%

10.07%

3.27%

17.53%

NRCC Total receipts  Total contributions from individuals   Unitemized   Unitemized as % of total from individuals   Contributions at the maximum permitted   Maximum as % of individual total

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$97,314,513

$123,615,586

$185,719,489

$179,549,131

$118,324,756

$67,010,001 $34,703,962

$79,175,374 $39,673,242

$145,858,047 $49,789,260

$112,066,248 $42,369,374

$74,929,413 $32,121,271

51.79%

50.11%

34.14%

37.81%

42.87%

$480,000

$180,000

$3,775,000

$186,900

$2,394,000

0.72%

0.23%

2.59%

0.17%

3.20%

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/052 82009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed October 4, 2009). Note: This table includes federal, or hard, money only. Contributions from individuals include proceeds from joint fundraising efforts with presidential campaigns in 2004 and 2008. Note that it is not possible to determine precise values for unitemized contributions transferred from joint fundraising committees, but information in filings suggests little if any unitemized contributions in this form. Unitemized contributions from individuals are those that total $200 or less in a calendar year from a single person. The maximum contribution from individuals was changed from $20,000 per year to $25,000 per year for the 2004 election cycle and $26,700 in 2006 and $28,500 in 2008.

42  /  David B. Magleby

Senate Party Committee Receipts (DSCC and NRSC) As with the DNC and RNC, hard and soft money donations to the four congressional party committees trended upward until 2002. Then the soft money ban and, presumably, dissatisfaction with Republican leadership contributed to a Democratic congressional committee lead. Figure 2.3 plots the total receipts of the senatorial committees (NRSC and DSCC) for the period 1994–2008. In the 1994–1998 period, the NRSC raised substantially more money than did the DSCC. The DSCC soft money surge in 2000 and 2002 put them ahead of the NRSC in total dollars raised. Both senatorial campaign committees saw total receipts drop in 2004, but by 2008, the DSCC had more than made up for the lost soft money with increased hard money fundraising. In 2008, the DSCC raised more than $156 million, compared with $143 million in hard and soft money combined in 2002, the last hurrah for soft money. It makes some sense to compare the 2002 and 2008 cycles because, due to the six-year length of senators’ terms, the same states had contested U.S. Senate races in 2002 as in 2008. As illustrated in Figure 2.3, the two party senatorial committees were at near parity in funds raised in 2000, 2002, and 2004. Both parties saw increased receipts in 2000 and 2002, in part because of the surge in soft money contributions. In 2000, for example, 46 percent of NRSC receipts were soft money contributions, and in 2002, that proportion rose to 53 percent. The DSCC was even more dependent on soft money in 2000 (66 percent) and 2002 (61 percent). By 2008, the DSCC had overcome the loss of soft money, while the NRSC had not (see Figure 2.3). In 2002, the NRSC raised a total, in hard and soft

$180 $160

Millions of dollars

$140 $120 $100

DSCC

$80

NRSC

$60 $40 $20 $0

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004 (hard only)

2006 (hard only)

2008 (hard only)

Figure 2.3 DSCC and NRSC Total Receipts, 1994–2008 Note: For 1994–2002 the data points include both hard and soft money. Source: Federal Election Comsmission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009 (available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/ 05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml [accessed July 22, 2009]).

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  43

money combined, of $124 million, or about $19 million less than the DSCC total. The NRSC saw total receipts drop to $75 million in 2004. Since then, its total receipts rose to $88 million in 2006 and to $93 million in 2008. The DSCC surpassed the NRSC in fundraising among both large and small donors in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. In 2006, the DSCC raised $10 million from max-out donors who gave $26,700 each, compared with the NRSC, which raised only a little over $2 million from such max-out donors (see Table 2.4). The NRSC had raised $6.1 million from this type of donor in 2004, which was still only about half as much as the DSCC had raised from max-out donors ($12.1 million). In 2008, the DSCC saw another substantial increase in money raised from these large donors, raising more than $26 million from this group. The NRSC made up ground from 2006, raising over $12 million. However, the Democratic advantage among large donors provided an important foundation for their electoral success in 2006 and 2008. Like the RNC, the NRSC had a “small donor” advantage. In 2002, for example, the NRSC raised more than $20 million from individuals who contributed $200 or less to the committee. This amount was more than double the money raised by the DSCC from this small donor category. The DSCC made headway among small donors in 2004, raising $21 million from small donors. In 2006, the NRSC and DSCC were about even in money raised from small donors, both raising $24 million. The NRSC had a slight edge over the DSCC among small donors in 2008, raising about $4.5 million more from this group, or $29.2 million.

Candidate Giving To varying degrees, incumbents have come to invest their own campaign resources in the team of fellow partisans seeking office. Generally, in recent elections, Democrats have been more willing to contribute to their party committees. In the last two election cycles, Democratic incumbents gave $27 million to the DSCC, more than triple the donations of Republican incumbents, who gave $7.5 million to the NRSC. A similar pattern was noted for the House, where Democratic incumbents gave the DCCC a combined $75 million in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles and Republican incumbents gave the NRCC $54 million. Party leaders in each chamber emphasize member giving to their party committees. Democrats, while in the minority, especially stressed this theme as a way to help regain the majority. DSCC Chair and New York Senator Chuck Schumer and DCCC Chairs Rahm Emanuel of Illinois and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland have been especially effective in securing member contributions.40

Party Committee Receipts in the House (DCCC and NRCC) Just as the Senate Democrats have emerged as the more successful party in fundraising in recent years, the House Democrats after 2008 can make that claim. Figure 2.4 plots total receipts for the DCCC and NRCC for the period 1994–2008. The 2008 election cycle marked the first time in the 1978–2008 period that the DCCC raised more money than the NRCC. More typically, it has been the NRCC that raised more money.

44  /  David B. Magleby $200 $180 $160 Millions of dollars

$140 $120 DCCC

$100

NRCC

$80 $60 $40 $20 $0

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004 (hard only)

2006 (hard only)

2008 (hard only)

Figure 2.4 DCCC and NRCC Total Receipts, 1994–2008 Note: For 1994–2002 the data points include both hard and soft money. Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009 (available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/ 05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml [accessed July 22, 2009]).

The upward slope for the House Republicans is greatest after they gained the majority in the House in the 1994 midterm elections and then again in the 2000 and 2002 elections. The sharp increases for the House Democrats came with the 2000, 2006, and 2008 elections. Both committees saw a dip in receipts in 2004, although the decline was not as great for the NRCC as for the DCCC. However, in 2006 and again in 2008, DCCC fundraising took off, climbing from $92 million in 2004 to $137 million in 2006, and then to $171 million in 2008. In contrast, the NRCC raised $175 million in 2004 and $176 million in 2006, and then donations precipitously dropped to $117 million in 2008. By 2006, the DCCC was raising more in hard money than it had raised in hard and soft money combined in 2002. Like its counterpart in the Senate, the DCCC has done much better than the NRCC among max-out donors since 2004. The committee raised $15.6 million from these high-end donors in 2008 compared with the NRCC’s nearly $2.4 million (see Table 2.4). Among the small donors who each contribute $200 or less to a congressional campaign committee, the NRCC long had a substantial edge over the DCCC—through 2004, almost a two-to-one advantage—with the NRCC raising nearly $50 million from small donors that year. Since then, the NRCC has seen total dollars raised from small donors decline. At the same time, the DCCC saw an increase in 2006 and a slight drop in 2008. In 2008, both committees raised between $31 million and $32 million from this type of donor. The challenge for the NRCC is clear: Reclaim small donors and more successfully tap into large donors.

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  45

Interest Group Fundraising in 2008 In addition to candidates and political party committees, interest groups raise and spend money to influence the outcome of federal candidate elections. Groups often form PACs for the purpose of political activity at the federal level. The first PAC organized under federal law was part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and was formed in 1943. Frank Sorauf noted that “PACs proliferated slowly and somewhat silently until their sudden growth coinciding with the first years of the post-Watergate reforms,” which set contribution limits to PACs five times higher than those to individual candidates.41 Chapter 3 explores how PAC money was spent in 2008. As noted, beginning in the 1996 election cycle, interest groups expanded their electioneering activities through what was called issue advocacy. This was in addition to money that the AFL-CIO spent in these races in other ways, such as PAC contributions and union-to-member communications. Issue advocacy can be financed through contributions to a group organized under one of several different sections of the Internal Revenue Service Code. Some groups are organized under Section 527 and others under Section 501(c). For the period before BCRA, spending by these groups was often difficult to track. In 2007– 2008, groups raising funds as Section 527 or 501(c) organizations encountered some challenges in fundraising. Early in the cycle, there were press reports about groups forming with substantial spending goals, but several of these groups were significantly less active than anticipated. Among the groups that either disbanded or spent much less than expected were Fund for America, Campaign to Defend America, the Alliance for a New America, and Progressive Media USA. These groups had varying reasons for not playing a larger role in the campaign. For example, early in the cycle, Fund for America had reported that it was planning on raising and spending in excess of $100 million.42 In 2007, the group enjoyed substantial support from supporters such as billionaire George Soros and the SEIU, each giving multi-million-dollar contributions to the group.43 As time progressed, however, the organization struggled to raise more money and, in the end, only spent about $12 million.44 Other groups, such as the Alliance for a New America, were organized around support for a particular candidate (John Edwards in their case) and largely stopped spending when that candidate dropped out of the race.45 On a larger scale, however, the question remains: Why was raising money for these groups different in 2007–2008? One reason is that candidates McCain and Obama made clear that they did not want groups to form and campaign.46 McCain’s longstanding effort to limit outside groups was also a factor.47 Carla Eudy, finance advisor to McCain, asserted that “on our side . . . ​I think that a lot of people who are out there who probably would have normally done a 527 know how the senator feels about them.”48 Senator Obama had similar feelings. Cecile Richards stated, “I think it was very clear from the outset, once Senator Obama had the nomination, that they were not looking for that kind of campaign.”49 Another reason was a change in the legal environment for donors in the wake of the FEC fines against the League of Conservation Voters 527 group, MoveOn.org Voter Fund, and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth Fund after the 2004 election. 50 The actual fines imposed by the FEC were relatively modest

46  /  David B. Magleby

and for some wealthy donors, under other circumstances, may not have been a deterrent. For others, the warning from the FEC vice chair in 2008 that penalties could be larger, given the 2004 precedent, may have created concern. 51 The recession may have meant that large donors were less likely to give to these groups. Even among groups that were active, such as America Votes, raising money in 2007–2008 was challenging. As the leader of America Votes in 2007– 2008, Martin Frost, said, “The FEC ruled that they [ACT] were raising money for the presidential campaign in 2004. We weren’t doing that. We were raising money for progressive efforts across the board in our target states.”52

Alliances There are also important interest group alliances that raise and spend money to help elect candidates they like or defeat those they dislike. Over recent election cycles, the interest group alliances supporting Democratic candidates have been more energized and better funded than those supporting Republicans. Examples include the America Votes coalition, which consisted of 51 groups in 2007–2008 that shared information and resources for a common goal of electing Democrats. Their stated goal is to work “together to increase progressive voter registration and turnout.”53 America Votes spent $24,491,324 in the 2007–2008 election cycle, or about $21 million more than it spent in 2003–2004. 54 Table 2.5 provides a list of the groups that were part of America Votes in 2008. Unions are among the most important participants in the America Votes coalition. After the SEIU and the Teamsters split off from the AFL-CIO in 2005, some speculated that the union divide would lessen overall spending by unions, but that does not appear to be the case. Another important union that typically supports Democrats is the American Federation of Teachers, who along with the teachers who belong to the state associations of the National Education Association forms an important Democratic ally. Participation in America Votes was one of the ways in which the NEA and these different unions coordinated their activity in 2008. In 2006, Mike Lux of Progressive Strategies saw the aggregate union effort of the AFL-CIO, the coalition Change to Win (SEIU and six other unions), and the National Education Association as “more than in any earlier year.”55 In 2008, the union effect was again record-setting.56 Union alliances, including the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, in turn, often ran coordinated campaigns at the state and congressional district level.57 Competing unions are not the only Democratic-allied interest groups that have come to cooperate with each other through coordinating mechanisms such as America Votes. An array of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Clean Water Action, have overlapping agendas and may compete for financial support of individuals. The same is true of pro-choice groups such as Planned Parenthood, EMILY’s List, and NARAL Pro-Choice America. Other important regular participants under the Democratic tent include the trial lawyers, African American and Latino groups, and issue groups such as MoveOn. Interest groups can play an important role in steering donors toward particular candidates. For example, in 2007–2008, ActBlue used the Internet to

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  47

Table 2.5  2008 America Votes Partners 21st Century Democrats ACORN AFL-CIO AFSCME Alliance for Retired Americans American Association of Justice American Federation of Teachers American Hunters and Shooters  Association Americans United for Change Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Campaign for America’s Future Campaign for Community Change Change to Win Clean Water Action Communities for Quality Education Defenders of Wildlife Democracia Ahora Democracy for America EMILY’s List Health Care for America Now Hip Hop Caucus Human Rights Campaign INDN’s List International Brotherhood of Teamsters

League of Conservation Voters League of United Latin American Citizens League of Young Voters MoveOn.org My Rural America NAACP Voter Fund NARAL Pro-Choice America National Association of Social Workers National Democratic Network National Education Association National Jewish Democratic Council National Stonewall Democrats People for the American Way Planned Parenthood Action Fund Progressive Future Progressive Majority ProgressNow Action SEIU Sierra Club USAction Vote Vets We Are America Women’s Campaign Forum Women’s Voices Women’s Vote Working America Young Democrats of America

Source: America Votes website; see http://www.americavotes.org/site/partner_summaries/ (accessed June 8, 2009).

inform voters about progressive candidates and to collect donations in excess of $20 million on candidates’ behalf. Among the sample races, ActBlue raised $2.4 million for Kay Hagan in the North Carolina U.S. Senate race, $430,000 for Tom Udall in the New Mexico U.S. Senate race, and $660,000 for Martin Heinrich in the New Mexico First Congressional District U.S. House race. 58 Other groups who help link donors to candidates include EMILY’s List and the American Association for Justice (trial lawyers). New to the 2007–2008 cycle was Slatecard.com, the Republican version of ActBlue, raising a combined amount of nearly $650,000 for the 60 Republican candidates who used the service to process their contributions. 59

Conclusion The numbers of individuals involved in contributing to candidates rose substantially in 2008. Explanations for this increase include an historic contest for the presidency, a charismatic candidate in Barack Obama, and important policy issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, later in the campaign, the economy. Technology was also a factor in the surge in individual contributions. The Obama and Paul campaigns made the most extensive use of the Internet to date in fundraising, organizing, and mobilizing. Outside groups such as ActBlue and MoveOn also used the Internet to raise money. Whether online fundraising

48  /  David B. Magleby

will extend to more and more candidates in the future is unknown, but it appears likely. Before its passage in 2002, BCRA was much debated, and some predicted that its ban on soft money would spell the demise of the party system. That has not proven true. To the contrary, the Democratic Party committees, which had been more dependent on soft money before BCRA, have turned to individual donors to out-raise the Republicans, at least at the congressional campaign committee level. As important as the surge in numbers of individuals contributing to candidates was in 2008, another part of the story is the ability of candidates and parties to raise money from max-out donors. These high-level contributors were very important to Obama’s early candidacy and remained important throughout the cycle. Their contributions allowed the Democratic Party committees to compete with the Republican Party committees. The higher individual contribution limits provided through BCRA, both for contributions to candidates and, in the aggregate, for party committees, have meant that candidates and party committees aggressively cultivate max-out donors. When the cultivation is successful, these donors provide a substantial percentage of the overall funding. Chapter 3 examines how the record amount of money raised in 2007–2008 was spent.

Notes 1.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Congressional Races for 2008: Minnesota,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/capital_eye/inside.php?ID=122 (accessed May 12, 2009). 2.  The Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, “The Internet and Presidential Politics,” in Campaign for President: The Managers Look at 2008, ed. Daniel M. Shea and F. Christopher Arterton (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 101. 3.  William H. Flanigan and Nancy Zingale, Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 12th edition (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2000), 3. 4.  “Obama Amassed $745M for Campaign,” CBS News, March 24, 2008, available at http:// www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/05/politics/main4649880.shtml (accessed January 26, 2010). 5.  Christian Ferry, McCain campaign deputy manager, telephone interview by David Ma­ gleby, May 27, 2009. 6. Evan Tracey, TNS Media chief operating officer, telephone interview by David Magleby, May 20, 2009. 7.  Joe Rospars, Obama for America new media director, interview by David Magleby, January 28, 2009. 8.  Jesse Benton, Ron Paul campaign communications director, interview by David Magleby, December 11, 2008. 9.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking, 2009), 53. 10. Ibid., 237. 11.  Jon Carson, “Campaign Management and Field Operations,” in Electing the President 2008: An Insider’s View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 42. 12.  Ben Adler, “Can McCain Compete with Obama Online?” CBSNews.com, June 15, 2008, available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/16/politics/politico/main4183930. shtml (accessed May 28, 2009). 13.  David B. Magleby, Bradley Jones, and David Lassen, “Turning the Tables: Individual Contributions, Member Contributions, and the Changing Campaign Finance Environment,” The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics 7, no. 1 (2009), available at

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  49 http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1300&context=forum (accessed June 15, 2010). 14. Ibid. 15.  Federal Election Commission, “Presidential Campaign Finance: Contributions to All Candidates by State,” available at http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapApp.do (accessed June 3, 2009). 16.  Jonathan Bydlak, Ron Paul campaign fundraising director, telephone interview by David Magleby, September 25, 2008. 17.  Federal Election Commission, “Presidential Campaign Finance: Contributions to All Candidates by State.” 18.  Jake Tapper, “Romney Surpasses Steve Forbes’ Self-funding Pace,” ABC News, October 10, 2007, available at http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3714738&page=1 (accessed June 3, 2009). 19.  Jonathan Martin, “Huckabee Finally Breaks out Fightin’ Words,” Politico, August 21, 2007, available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0807/5462.html (accessed June 3, 2009). 20.  Federal Election Commission, “Hillary Clinton for President: September 2008 Monthly Report of Receipts and Disbursements,” available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/ forms/C00431569/373447/ (accessed March 6, 2009). 21. Patrick Healy, “Obama Supporters Resist Clearing Clinton Campaign Debt,” New York Times, July 9, 2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/world/americas/09ihtdems.1.14360637.html (accessed June 3, 2009). 22. Matt Kelley, “Hillary Clinton Asks Supporters to Help Settle Debt,” USA Today, December 3, 2008, available at http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-12-02-clinton-funds_ N.htm (accessed June 3, 2009). 23. Michael Luo and Griff Palmer, “Some Clinton Fund-Raisers Resist Effort for Obama,” New York Times, August 27, 2008, A16. Luo and Palmer reported: “The Times’ analysis of campaign finance records found fewer than 50 out of the more than 300 “Hillraisers”—who have bundled more than $100,000 for Mrs. Clinton—contributed to the Obama campaign in July, up from about 10 the month before. Just over 70 Hillraisers have contributed to Mr. Obama, meaning the vast majority of Hillraisers have not.” 24. Peter L. Francia et al., The Financiers of Congressional Elections: Investors, Ideologues, and Intimates (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). See also Frank J. J. Sorauf, Inside Campaign Finance: Myths and Realities (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994). 25.  James Thurber and Candice Nelson, Campaign Warriors (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000). 26.  David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson, “War Games: Issues and Campaign Finance in the Battle for Control of Congress,” in The Battle for Congress: Iraq, Scandal, and Campaign Finance in the 2006 Election, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008), 12–13. 27. Nelson W. Polsby, Aaron Wildavsky, and David A. Hopkins, Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 56. 28.  Diana Dwyre et al., “Committees and Candidates,” in The State of the Parties: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Politics, ed. John C. Green and Daniel J. Coffey (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). 29. Marian Currinder, Money in the House: Campaign Funds and Congressional Party Poli­ tics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2009), 93–94. 30. Steve Kornacki, “Emanuel, Dean Still Sparring,” Roll Call, July 3, 2006, available at http://www.rollcall.com/issues/52_1/news/14142-1.html (accessed June 3, 2009). 31.  Anthony Corrado, “Financing the 2004 Presidential General Election,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2006), 130. 32.  John C. Green, “Financing the Presidential Nomination Campaigns,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2006), 118. 33.  Jim Kuhnhenn, “Obama Announces $66M Campaign Haul for August,” Associated Press, available at http://www.nysun.com/national/Obama-announces-66m-campaign-haul-foraugust/85782/ (accessed March 6, 2009).

50  /  David B. Magleby 34.  Kenneth P. Vogel, “Obama Pledge Could Hamper Dems,” Politico, February 26, 2009, available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/19386.html (accessed June 3, 2009). 35.  David B. Magleby, “Change and Continuity in the Financing of Federal Elections,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2006), 15–16; Magleby and Patterson, “War Games.” 36. Matt Bai, “The Other Winner,” New York Times, November 16, 2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/magazine/16wwln-lede.html (accessed June 3, 2009). 37.  Catalist, a for-profit service, is a trademark of parent company Data Warehouse, founded by Harold Ickes. Ickes was White House deputy chief of staff under Bill Clinton and a longtime campaign advisor to Hillary Clinton. 38.  Anthony Corrado and Katie Varney, Party Money in the 2006 Elections: The Role of National Party Committees in Financing Congressional Campaigns (Washington, DC: Campaign Finance Institute, 2007). 39.  Darrel Rowland and Mark Niquette, “Ohio Donors Slow to Shower McCain,” Colum­ bus Dispatch, June 13, 2008, available at http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_ news/stories/2008/06/13/MAXOUT.ART_ART_06-13-08_A1_08AFR87.html?sid=101 (accessed January 26, 2010). 40.  Brian Wolff, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee executive director, telephone interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 41.  Frank J. Sorauf, “Political Action Committees,” in Campaign Finance Reform: A Source­ book, ed. Anthony Corrado et al. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997), 123. 42.  Ben Smith, “Dems Plan $40M Hit on McCain,” Politico, available at http://www. politico.com/news/stories/0408/9514.html (accessed January 26, 2010). 43.  Andrew Malcolm, “George Soros Pours $2.5 million into New Advocacy Group,” Los An­ geles Times, February 3, 2008, available at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/02/ geos.html (accessed June 6, 2009). 44. Smith, “Dems Plan $40M Hit”; Center for Responsive Politics, “The Fund for America: Overview,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail.php?cycle=2008&ein= 450579508 (accessed June 6, 2009). 45.  Federal Election Commission, “Alliance for a New America,” available at http://query. nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?C30000772 (accessed June 6, 2009). 46. Stephen K. Medvic, “Outside Voices: 527s Political Practices and Other Non-candidate Groups,” in Campaign Warriors, ed. James Thurber and Candice Nelson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 192. see also Ben Smith, “Obama: Don’t Fund Independent Groups,” Politico, May 13, 2008, available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10315. html (accessed January 27, 2010). 47. Marian Currinder, “Campaign Finance: Fundraising and Spending in the 2008 Election,” in The Elections of 2008, ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010), 176. 48.  Carla Eudy, McCain campaign finance director, telephone interview by David Magleby, May 26, 2009. 49.  Cecile Richards, “Democratic/Liberal Panel,” in Electing the President 2008: An Insid­ er’s View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 187. 50.  Federal Election Commission, “FEC Collects $630,000 in Civil Penalties from Three 527 Organizations,” press release, December 13, 2006, available at http://www.fec.gov/press/ press2006/20061213murs.html (accessed May 13, 2009). 51. Stephen K. Medvic, “Outside Voices: 527s, Political Parties, and Other Non-candidate Groups,” 191. 52. Martin Frost, America Votes, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 53.  America Votes, “About,” available at http://www.americavotes.org/site/content/about/ (accessed March 4, 2009). 54.  Center for Responsive Politics, “527 Organizations Affiliated with America Votes,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtes2.php?ein=&cycle=2008&tname=America+ Votes (accessed May 12, 2009). In 2003–2004, America Votes spent $2,769,752. 55.  David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson, “Rules of Engagement: BCRA and Unanswered Questions,” in Battle for Congress, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008), 53.

How the 2008 Elections Were Financed  /  51 56. Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, interview by David Magleby, November 14, 2008. 57. Ibid.; Jon Youngdahl, national political director, Service Employees International Union, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 58. Erin Hill, ActBlue political director, telephone interview by David Magleby, March 18, 2009. 59.  David All “Update on Totals 10-27-08,” Slatecard, available at http://slatecard.com/blog/ (accessed May 27, 2009); David All, Slatecard co-founder, e-mail communication to Hilary Hendricks, May 29, 2009.

3

Elections as Team Sports Spending by Candidates, Political Parties, and Interest Groups in the 2008 Election Cycle David B. Magleby

E

very four years, as the American public and media spend months preparing for and voting in a presidential election, it can be difficult to see American politics as a team sport. As the election nears, candidates are consistently at the center of nearly every story. Yet, such a view of American elections is akin to watching a basketball game and seeing only Michael Jordan. As with many sports, although electoral politics in the United States is often greatly influenced by a single personality, it is ultimately a team activity that involves several players and participants. This chapter examines the spending by candidates, parties, and interest groups in their combined and independent efforts to elect candidates to federal office in 2007–2008. As discussed in Chapter 1, we attempt to monitor how money is spent by all participants in the electoral process. We recognize that not all expenditures are reported and that we do not detect some campaign activity. In Chapter 2, we explored how a record-setting amount of nearly $6 billion was raised by candidates for federal office, political party committees, and allied interest groups. In 2008, total spending by all federal general election candidates reached $3.1 billion, and if we look at those running in the nomination and general phases in 2007–2008, spending hit $4.1 billion—37 percent more than the $3 billion spent by candidates on the 2004 federal campaigns.1

American Electoral Politics: The Players and the Team The composition of the two major teams in American politics is relatively stable. The Democratic team and the Republican team include their candidates, their respective party committees, allied interest groups, and other donors. The two national party committees are very important, especially in funding and organizing the presidential race. The four party congressional campaign committees (described in Chapter 2) help recruit and train candidates, conduct research that may be of use in election campaigns, and raise and spend money to help their party win House and Senate seats. As has been the case for at least the past decade, the party congressional campaign committees invest most of their money in a small number of competitive races. Some of those races are included in this study.

Elections as Team Sports  /  53

Teamwork Though sports teams are generally closely directed by a coach, the law presumes that much of the activity of party committees and outside groups is independent of the candidate campaigns and therefore those activities legally cannot be coordinated with the candidate. This is a source of substantial frustration among political consultants and election operatives. Parties may donate a limited amount of money to candidates, and some of the spending activities of the party committees can be coordinated with the candidate, including voter mobilization efforts. Still, when candidates rely in greater measure on their party committees and outside groups to support, through independent expenditures, their fundraising and expenditures, as John Kerry did in 2004 and other candidates have in the past, they lose some measure of effective coordinated messaging and common priorities. Campaign media analyst Evan Tracey noted that the George W. Bush and John Kerry campaigns of 2004 and the Obama and McCain campaigns in 2008 demonstrated that message coordination is often more important than the volume of communication coming from a campaign. In other words, Tracey said, “in a lot of ways, message control is more important sometimes than message tonnage.”2 And message control over independent expenditures is all but impossible to legally achieve. To some extent this inability to coordinate runs counter to the “team sport” metaphor. As with the candidates not coordinating with the independent activities of their own party committees or allied groups, the party committees also are not allowed to coordinate with outside groups. The independent activities of the candidate on one side and those of the groups and parties on the other sometimes result in duplication of effort, inconsistent messages, and inefficiencies. According to Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, this was one of the reasons the Obama campaign rejected public funding: “More important than the dollar discrepancy was the control that would be ceded in the campaign. . . . ​T he DNC [Democratic National Committee] and outside groups, with their far larger financial resources, would be forced to take the field and airwaves for us.”3 But coordination does exist to varying degrees among the interest groups on both sides. The Democrats have an advantage that the Republicans have not yet created in coordinating strategy and priorities among allied interest groups. This coordinating mechanism is America Votes, a Section 527 organization that brings together more than 50 groups to share polling and strategy and to coordinate which geographic areas and voters they intend to target.4 According to America Votes President Martin Frost, America Votes was created because “the major donors were tired of the fact that all the interest groups on the left didn’t talk to each other.”5 The kind of teamwork demonstrated by America Votes in politics, even though the candidate was excluded, contributed to the success of the Democrats in 2008.

Candidate Effect At the same time, however, having a star player on a team can positively affect the play of all involved. This effect was most pronounced among the Democratic team as Barack Obama, the nation’s first competitive African American

54  /  David B. Magleby

presidential nominee, led a national movement of change that affected election outcomes at every level of government. The Barack Obama campaign alone raised $744.9 million and spent $729.5 million.6 Obama’s success in raising money in the nomination phase gave his campaign confidence that it could raise much more than would come to the campaign had the candidate accepted public funding. David Plouffe explained this, saying, “A healthy percentage of our contributors were Republicans, independents, and nonpartisan types, who would not give money to the DNC, even if they were asked to by Obama.”7 Turning down public funding had the additional advantage of having no spending limitations. By contrast, the level of general election expenditure by the McCain campaign was limited when it accepted public funds. However, part of the expenditure gap the McCain campaign faced was made up by the Republican Party through Republican National Committee (RNC) expenditures, including voter mobilization efforts. For example, the RNC, as noted later in this chapter, spent $415.5 million in 2007–2008. Much of the RNC expenditure was in support of the presidential candidacy of John McCain. Because Barack Obama’s campaign continued to raise money for their own electioneering rather than urge donors to give to the national party committee, as McCain and other presidential standard bearers had done in the past, it is not surprising that the DNC expenditures were much less in 2008 than they were in 2004, when John Kerry accepted public funding and urged donors to give to the party, or compared with the expenditures of the RNC in 2008. The better measure of expenditure by presidential candidates is therefore to aggregate their expenditures and some fraction of the national party committee expenditures. When we do that, we see that Obama and the DNC spent $737 million and McCain and the RNC spent $375 million. We recognize that not all RNC and DNC spending was for the presidential race, but at this point, it is not possible to separate presidential from nonpresidential spending. The Obama campaign was built to exploit its fundraising potential. It was expansive in terms of the field in play, its advertising budget, and the scale of its field operation (voter contact through mail and telephone as well as person-to-person voter mobilization). With its large fundraising advantage, the Obama campaign could afford to invest in more states, forcing the McCain campaign to use its more limited resources to play defense. States that fit this profile included Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. As Christian Ferry of the McCain campaign summarized, the McCain campaign was forced to communicate a Republican message in a year when the party was not popular: In an election where the Republican Party brand was damaged, where the incumbent president was a Republican and was incredibly unpopular, where the right track/wrong track number was, prior to September 15, around 30 percent and then after September 15 around 8 percent, being a Republican is not necessarily the way you want to brand yourself if you want to win the campaign. We had no choice. We had to do things with our entire ticket . . . ​under the banner of the Republican Party. . . . ​

Elections as Team Sports  /  55

That, I think, was problematic for our chances of success in the fall, ultimately.8

Non-candidate Expenditures As noted, candidates take the lead in fundraising and in most cases in campaign expenditures as well. However, in highly competitive election contests, the amount of spending by non-candidate entities has rivaled or exceeded candidate spending in recent years.9 Notwithstanding the soft money ban enacted through BCRA, non-candidate entities such as parties and interest groups spent more in 2008 than in any other cycle.10 This money was spent in efforts to persuade voters to support particular candidates and oppose others, to encourage them to register to vote, to learn who supports which candidates and with what levels of intensity, and to turn out voters who support the favored candidates. Another change in 2008 was the resource advantage that the Democratic congressional campaign committees had, which allowed them to expand the field of competition and pick up seats. How they put those resources to use is a major theme of this chapter and the case studies later in the book. The ways in which interest groups spent money on federal elections changed in terms of the amount spent, the emphasis given to spending on congressional races, and the legal structure adopted by the groups doing the spending. Another change explored in detail in this chapter and Chapter 4 is a move by several states to allow early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. These changes in turn affected electioneering and voter mobilization efforts.

Spending: When and How? Candidate, party, and group campaign organizations have choices in how they spend money to influence the outcome of an election. For example, the relative amount spent on television advertising compared with all other forms of spending is one choice a campaign must make. The extent to which a campaign does its own voter registration and mobilization is another. The major party candidates and their supporters in our electoral system begin with somewhat different operating assumptions about the role played by the candidates, party committees, and outside groups. The timing with which money is spent is also an important factor. In different phases of the campaign, money achieves different purposes. Money spent late in the campaign may not be effective, for example, in establishing an extensive field operation or in registering voters, which may need to occur well before the election. Similarly, in competitive election contests, it may be difficult to find available television advertising slots at desirable times late in the campaign because those slots may have been purchased weeks before. During the 2008 campaign, the Barack Obama campaign encountered a similar, but unusual difficulty: They had “saturated” the airwaves in some states and found it difficult to even locate airtime available to purchase. One way in which Obama dealt with this “difficulty” was by purchasing his own satellite

56  /  David B. Magleby

television channel on which he ran programming from his campaign on a continuous loop.

Communication and Mobilization Spending: Presidential Race Change and continuity were also themes in campaign communication and mobilization spending in 2008. Radio, with its lower price tag and niche markets, grew in importance, as did the use of new media—some of it free to campaigns. At the same time, as the decades-long debate over negative ads continued, automated telephone calls with inflammatory messages hammered voters in competitive states. And perhaps the biggest story, direct voter contacting succeeded because of record campaign expenditures to get-out-the-vote efforts and record volunteer enthusiasm.

Television Expenditures According to data from the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), $1.2 billion was spent on televised campaign advertising during the 2004 calendar year, while more than 33 percent more ($1.6 billion) was spent during the 2008 calendar year. Of this spending in 2008, the largest amount came in candidate ads ($888.3 million), with much smaller investments coming in issue and policy ads ($381.7 million) and party ads ($154.4 million). Perhaps because of the heavy focus on the presidential race, total television spending on House and Senate races in the 2008 cycle was lower than in 2006 ($431 million vs. $536 million). Further evidence of Obama’s money advantage was his spending strategy on television, including more advertising on network television, where 60-second and 120-second Obama ads were not uncommon.11 In total, Obama shattered the record for advertising in a presidential campaign by spending $235 million on television ads alone—more than $100 million more than McCain spent and $47 million more than the previous candidate record.12 When RNC ads for the presidential race are combined with McCain spending, the Obama– McCain television spending difference narrows to $74.7 million. Statistics by CMAG show that total television advertising spending on behalf of presidential candidates was $700 million over the 2007–2008 cycle, with $450 million of this coming from April 3, 2008, to Election Day. In the final month of the election, Obama outspent McCain three to one on ads, and overall, the advantage was greater than 1.5 to 1.13 This spending mismatch was most evident a week before the election, when Obama purchased half-hour time slots on network and cable stations to lay out his platform. The program aired October 29 on NBC, CBS, Fox, Univision, MSNBC, and two cable networks that cater to African Americans—BET and TV One. The 8:00 p.m. time slot was selected to precede the start of a World Series game, and the game was delayed to accommodate the program. Ross Perot was the last presidential candidate to buy network time in prime time for an extended campaign commercial; Perot ran eight “infomercials,” with an average of thirteen million viewers. Obama’s commercial cost the campaign more than $3 million and was, in the words of columnist Jim Rutenberg, “the ultimate reflection of Mr. Obama’s spending flexibility” compared with McCain’s.14

Elections as Team Sports  /  57

Obama also ran ads in October around nationally broadcast Sunday football games. On one Sunday, according to CMAG, his advertising cost $6.5 million, while McCain’s cost less than $1 million.15 Again, presidential candidate spending on ads in 2008 must be evaluated alongside national party committee spending. McCain took advantage of a loophole in the public financing laws that allows candidates to evenly split the cost of their ads with the party, so long as the ads make at least a passing reference to the rest of the party’s ticket. In essence, these hybrid ads allowed McCain to stretch his public funds spent on television twice as far. He attempted to make maximum use of this approach by spending his public funds almost exclusively on ads—while leaving the RNC to finance field operations, microtargeting, voter contact, and so on. Candidates first discovered this loophole in the 2004 elections.16 According to Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) attempted to set new rules about hybrid advertising, but never finalized them.17 Until October, nearly all of McCain’s ads in the general campaign were hybrids. Rick Davis, his longtime advisor and senior aide, said that “a vast majority of the campaign’s $22.5 million ad spending in September was in these hybrid ads,”18 bringing the McCain/RNC total of $30 million a bit closer to Obama’s September ad spending of $43 million.

Cable Cable television provides a less expensive way to target some voters. For example, in 2004, the Bush campaign ran ads on the Golf Channel.19 In 2008, the Obama campaign spent roughly $20 million to reach Latino voters, with more than $10 million of that amount going to Spanish language television and radio. 20 Obama made extensive use of cable advertising, targeting some areas in particular. Timothy Kay of National Cable Communications noted that 18 percent of Obama’s spending in the Raleigh, North Carolina, market was on cable, while 22 percent was used for the medium in the Charlotte market, higher than the proportion Obama spent on cable nationally. 21 In Charlotte, Obama ran ads on six broadcast networks and twenty-four cable networks. Kay concluded that “this expansion to 30 networks from traditional days of a combination of three to six broadcast and cable networks really captured the ratings.” Before Election Day, Obama’s campaign would air ads on networks as disparate as Lifetime and HGTV, which “have heavy skew towards women,” and ESPN and FX, which “skew toward men.”22 Candidates also used cable news stations such as CNN and Fox as a way to generate evening news coverage of new ads. Evan Tracey of CMAG observed that in 2008 candidates timed the release of new ads for “about 3:30 PM or 4:00 PM Eastern Time, which is the Cable TV Prep Hour.”23 Such timing was intended to generate cable news reporting on the new ads during news programming. Political Scientist Darrell West labeled such ads “vapor” ads. He points to one vapor ad by McCain that generated substantial media attention. He stated that “although it aired infrequently, it accused Obama of supporting comprehensive sex education for kindergarten children because of a law he had cosponsored while in the Illinois Senate.” West continues by saying that “the ad was misleading because the intent of the legislation was to protect young kids from

58  /  David B. Magleby

sexual predators, not to indoctrinate them with sexual content.” West found that both Obama and McCain campaigns used vapor ads. 24

Radio While less is spent on radio, it also remains a medium that is used to reach particular audiences. Perhaps unexpectedly, campaign use of radio in 2008 was up compared with 2004. Characterizing the decision by both campaigns to include radio advertising at record amounts, Evan Tracey asserted that “what was old is new again. . . . ​Radio’s made a comeback.”25 Tracey also observed, though, that the Obama and McCain campaigns appeared to have chosen to use radio for very different reasons: Obama because he had “saturated” other forms of media in many locations, and McCain because data indicated that radio might contact his base more efficiently and effectively than television.

Tone of the Presidential Ads There were differences not only in the two general election candidates’ spending on communication but also in their tone. The McCain campaign’s advertising was seen by voters as more negative in tone. The candidates swapped accusations about the others’ negative advertising. Obama told McCain that “your ads, 100 percent of them have been negative.” McCain was also quoted as saying, “Senator Obama has spent more money on negative ads than any political campaign in history.”26 A more neutral measure of negativity comes from the Wisconsin Advertising Project’s assessment that a higher percentage of the McCain campaign’s ads were negative (77 percent) than the Obama campaign’s ads (63 percent). The joint McCain/RNC ads were 80 percent negative. 27 Exit polls indicated that more voters thought that McCain attacked Obama unfairly (64 percent) than thought the reverse (49 percent). 28 Media scholar Lynda Lee Kaid added, “When McCain attacked Obama, he was more likely than Obama to focus the attacks on Obama’s personal qualities (59% vs. 16%).”29 Of course, with most voters unlikely to distinguish between candidate-purchased ads and interest group or party ads, the candidates themselves were not able to control the perceived tone of all messages. This may have been a factor in McCain’s assertion that “there is no place for [negative] campaigning, the American people don’t want it, period. . . . ​I understand that it moves numbers, negative ads do all that, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.”30

New Media Several new forms of media were used more extensively in the 2008 election than ever before. These newer forms include online multimedia, video games, and online social networking. Political scientist and media expert Darrell West wrote that “the 2008 presidential contest became the first truly digital campaign in the United States, much as 1960 represented the country’s first television election.”31 Previous studies of the Internet and Web sites found their modes of communication most effective in helping with organization and mobilizing people already interested in the candidate. 32

Elections as Team Sports  /  59

Only the top-tier campaigns seemed to make effective use of Internet advertising in the 2008 presidential election. Less than $50 million of total advertising spending was for the Internet, and the ads were geared mostly toward fundraising and grassroots organizing. The most effective use of the Internet likely was in the extensive press coverage it generated for the campaigns and the manner in which it allowed campaign supporters to easily become more involved in campaign activities. One vital Internet medium that consistently played a large role in 2008 was free video posting on sites such as YouTube. A relatively new—and free—service, YouTube allowed instant access to both official campaign materials and multimedia created by supporters. The site became immensely popular during the election, and by October, an estimated 40 percent of registered voters had watched campaign videos online; this coincided with nearly 2.3 billion viewings of YouTube videos mentioning either Obama or McCain. 33 Communications performer Bruce E. Gronbeck summarized the viewership of particular videos as follows: The greatest phenomenon of the election was Obama Girl (Amber Lee Ettinger). . . . ​[S]he managed to stir up about 27 million views. The music video made by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas out of Obama’s New Hampshire concession speech (the “yes we can” speech) had the highest single YouTube political video hit number (over 17 million). 34 More broadly, as Michael Nelson noted, YouTube helped campaigns legitimize the “vapor” or “ghost” ads described earlier. 35 Joe Trippi, a Democratic media strategist who worked for Howard Dean in 2004 and John Edwards in 2008, argued that online videos are more effective than television ads because viewers choose to watch them or receive them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted. And the savings is unbelievable. “The campaign’s official stuff they created for YouTube was watched for 14.5 million hours,” Trippi says. “To buy 14.5 million hours on broadcast TV is $47 million.”36 At the same time, there are clear limits to the effectiveness of Internet advertising and contact, argued Evan Tracey of CMAG, which monitors television advertising: Campaign Internet content is “hung out there for the thirsty to drink from. If you’re interested in Barack Obama and somebody emails you the Will.I.Am video, you watch it.”37 Tracey further questioned the effect of Internet advertising because some who watch do so multiple times, others are not eligible to vote, and others watch for the celebrities and are not interested in the election. The Obama campaign also broke new ground in an effort to reach an elusive demographic—young male voters—by buying ad space in video games. The virtual Obama ads resembled billboards or other signage in nine video games, including Guitar Hero, Burnout Paradise, and EA Sports’ NHL 09. The ads promoted the campaign’s Web site and also early voting, which is allowed in more than 30 states. In addition to reaching more people, Obama’s diverse approach to advertising possibly “helped mask some of [his] rougher attacks on his rival” by diffusing the negative messages among many upbeat messages. 38

60  /  David B. Magleby

Telephone and Direct Mail Telephone calls have long been a tool for reinforcing messages and canvassing voter intentions. In 2008, the McCain campaign expanded the use of telephones as means of persuasion, including a joint McCain/RNC “blitz” of recorded automated calls (sometimes called “robocalls”) criticizing Obama. 39 In midOctober, the New York Times reported that “voters in at least 10 swing states are receiving hundreds of thousands of automated telephone calls—uniformly negative and sometimes misleading—that the Republican Party and the McCain campaign are financing this week as they struggle to keep more states from drifting into the Democratic column.”40 Campaign management expert Dennis Johnson documented a 30-second robocall beginning, “Hello. I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home, and killed Americans.”41 Consistent with previous studies we have conducted, voters in competitive contests received a significant amount of postal mail from those seeking to persuade them to vote against one candidate or for another. For example, voters in New Mexico’s First District received 127 unique pieces of mail from candidates, parties, and groups in 2008, while voters in Colorado received 112 unique pieces for their 2008 Senate race. More details, including descriptions of specific mailers, are provided in later chapters.

Direct Voter Contact Overall expenditures and volunteer efforts devoted to direct voter contact and voter mobilization were higher in 2008, and there was less partisan balance in this activity than in 2000 or 2004. Democrats and their allies benefited from the Obama campaign’s emphasis on the ground game, while McCain and the Republican suffered from an “enthusiasm gap.” The Obama campaign tried to harness this energy, as Plouffe explained: Our “go for it” response to eager volunteer organizers was unusual. For most campaigns, command and control is normally the order of the day. But it was clear we had uniquely motivated and talented volunteers who could give us a huge leg up, so we tried to send the message that they should consider the campaign a movement—their movement.42 Competitive campaigns use multiple modes of direct voter communication. A telephone call may be followed by a postcard or e-mail, which is followed by a paper or electronic letter asking for a campaign contribution or attacking the opposing candidate. The candidates, party committees, and interest groups keep records of their interactions with voters throughout the process. These databases are mined by the campaigns to model what additional messages should target particular types of voters and, as the election approaches, to track who has and has not voted. As the case studies in this book show, Obama and his allies had a substantial advantage in voter mobilization and surpassed the GOP in microtargeting.

Elections as Team Sports  /  61

One reason for that, according to Christian Ferry of the McCain campaign, was the changing issue agenda in the general election campaign: If I had it to do all over again, I might have thrown all the microtargeting out at the point of September 15 when Lehman Brothers collapsed. Most of those microtargeting surveys are done earlier in July and August. The world changed when Lehman Brothers collapsed and our economy fell apart, and obviously our microtargeting hadn’t picked up that change because our surveys were conducted earlier.43

Field Staff and Volunteers As the case studies in this volume show, the Obama campaign’s money advantage provided the opportunity to sustain a much larger candidate field operation than any Democrat in recent memory. As former congressman and 2007–2008 president of America Votes Martin Frost said, “The [2008] cycle was different fundamentally because of the wide ground game that the presidential campaign had, that Obama had. . . . ​In 2004, America Coming Together basically did the field program or large parts of the field program that the Kerry campaign otherwise would have done if they’d had the resources and the people.”44 Jon Carson, Obama’s field director, when asked how the field operation compared with Kerry’s or Gore’s, estimated, “It’s far bigger. . . . ​I think it’s at least twice as big.”45 Central to the Obama field operation were volunteers. The Obama campaign recruited more than two million supporters to participate in the campaign’s online social networking alone.46 Field Director Jon Carson spoke of coordination among paid staff and volunteers as a useful supplement to paid staff. As Carson put it, “I think the most important thing we did was to learn how to best use [volunteers] as really an extra layer of staff.” Carson described how Obama’s campaign in 2008 used supporters in states that were not as critical to the campaign to reach voters in the more critical states: There were two very distinct organizations. There were the targeted states and then there were the non-targeted states. The fact that we did have an organization in the non-targeted states, I think was unusual. It was primarily focused at finding out of state volunteers. To just give you a sense of scale in the [final] four days [of the election, October 31– Novem­ber 3, 2008], our non-targeted states focused on making calls into the targeted states and they made 13,000,000 of them. . . . ​We had an unbelievably large total of people willing to give 10 to 40 hours or more a week of their time.47 Involving volunteers from non-battleground states in campaigns in battleground states was also an important part of the Bush/RNC 72 Hour Task Force in 2004.48 Such volunteer programs were again important in 2008. McCain deputy campaign manager Christian Ferry noted that McCain volunteers in such programs exceeded preliminary goals for voter contact and were especially energized by McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as the party’s vice presidential nominee.49 At the same time, Ferry conceded the advantage provided by the greater resources of Obama’s campaign:

62  /  David B. Magleby

Particularly in field organizing. I mean, it was “let’s hire 300 people to work Florida,” we [would] hear that in the McCain campaign and bang our heads against something and say “we don’t have enough money to hire 300 people around the country, let alone in Florida.”50 To manage volunteers, the Obama campaign relied on a combination of paid staff, who received salaries and benefits, and per diem employees. In the words of New York Times reporters Michael Luo and Mike McIntire, “Both campaigns have relied heavily on volunteers. The Obama campaign has increased its ranks beyond salaried employees who receive regular paychecks and benefits by enlisting hundreds of local per diem workers for get-out-the-vote efforts. . . . ​T he McCain campaign has reported relatively little per diem expenditure.”51

Candidate Visits and Events One measure of the importance of a state is the frequency of candidate visits to that state in the general election phase (after the party conventions). Table 3.1 shows the visits Obama and McCain made to the five sample states in this period. 52 Among these states, the two nominees gave near-equal emphasis in terms of visits to Colorado and New Hampshire. McCain spent more time than Obama in Ohio and New Mexico, while Obama spent more time than McCain in North Carolina. During 2007–2008, every state (as well as Puerto Rico and Guam) had at least one event with either a presidential or vice presidential candidate, but the two states with the most planned events featuring any federal candidate were Iowa and New Hampshire, with more than 2,000 and 1,000 events, respectively.

Offices The early and substantial financial investment that the Obama campaign made in establishing field offices and providing paid staff to manage them allowed the campaign to accommodate a large number of volunteers. The Wall Street Journal compared overall budgets for field operations in 2008 and found that the Democrats had more than twice the Republicans’ number of offices (770 vs. 370). 53 However, due to in-kind donations of workspace, the Obama campaign spent slightly less on total rent than McCain. 54 Moreover, “the Obama campaign has frequently used a provision in campaign finance law that allows supporters to donate work space for the campaign. The campaign has cred-

Table 3.1 Presidential Candidate Visits and Events in Five Sample States after the Party Primaries

Colorado New Hampshire New Mexico North Carolina Ohio

Candidate

Visits Events

Visits Events

Visits Events

Visits Events

Obama McCain

5 days 5 days

3 days 2 days

2 days 5 days

5 days 2 days

7 7

4 2

2 6

5 2

Visits Events 7 days 10 days

13 19

Source: “Campaign Tracker: Campaign Events by Candidate,” Washington Post, available at http://projects. washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/candidates/ (accessed June 1, 2009).

Elections as Team Sports  /  63

Table 3.2 Number of Obama and McCain Offices in Five Sample States, 2008 Obama McCain Total

Colorado North Carolina New Hampshire New Mexico Ohio 50 12 62

47 20 67

19 14 33

38 18 56

89 45 134

Sources: Jeremy Pelzer, “McCain Advisers Give Up on Colorado,” Politicker.com, available at http://www. politicker.com/colorado/5696/cnn-mccain-advisers-give-colorado; Jim Tankersley and Christi Parsons, “Fundraising a Big Advantage for Obama,” Chicago Tribune, October 20, 2008; Obama for President, “Campaign for Change Regional Field Offices: Colorado,” BarackObama.com, available at http://my. barackobama.com/page/content/cooffices/ (accessed April 13, 2009); Obama for President, “Campaign for Change Regional Field Offices: New Hampshire,” BarackObama.com, available at http://my.barackobama.com/ page/content/nhoffices/ (accessed April 13, 2009); Obama for President, “Campaign for Change Regional Field Offices: New Mexico,” BarackObama.com, available at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/nmoffices/ (accessed April 13, 2009); Obama for President, “Campaign for Change Regional Field Offices: North Carolina,” BarackObama.com, available at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ncoffices/ (accessed April 13, 2009); Obama for President, “Campaign for Change Regional Field Offices: Ohio,” BarackObama.com, available at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ohoffices/ (accessed April 13, 2009); Pollster.com, available at http:// www.pollster.com/blogs/nm_obama_45_mccain_40_albuqjou.php (accessed April 13, 2009).

ited more than 250 people with making in-kind rent contributions totaling $210,000.”55 In some states, the relative concentration of Obama offices was extremely high. For example, in Pennsylvania, in late July, Obama’s margin of field offices was larger than McCain’s by a factor of 2.4 to 1. 56 In the five sample states, the Obama campaign typically had about twice as many field offices as the McCain campaign. Table 3.2 provides the number of field offices in the five sample states. In visits to Obama offices, we found a consistent look and feel, with handpainted signs using the standard Obama campaign motif. The space and furnishings were functional, but gave the impression that campaign priorities were not focused on these matters. Richard Wolffe offered the following description: “Obama’s headquarters were a cross between a college dorm, community center, and personality cult.”57 The offices had a set of landlines but could scale up to more telephone calling with the use of inexpensive cell phones or by asking volunteers to use evening or weekend minutes on their own cell phones. 58 Volunteers appeared to spend substantial amounts of time when they came, and these volunteers as well as others provided food. There appeared to be a sense of community among the volunteers. In contrast, McCain offices were nicer in amenities and felt more like corporate offices than community centers. Noticeably absent from Obama field offices were televisions. One Obama community field operative who worked in Ohio told us, “We did not have time to watch TV. We had an election to win.”59

Congressional Candidate Expenditures In 2008, $1.3 billion was spent by congressional candidates, or about $222 million more than in 2004 and about $38 million less than in 2006 (Table 3.3). Fitting the same general pattern as spending by presidential candidates and party committees, expenditures by congressional candidates have generally increased since 2000 (see Table 2.1). Expenditures by congressional candidates also illustrate an important observation about money as an indicator of

64  /  David B. Magleby

Table 3.3  Congressional Candidate Expenditures, 1998–2008

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

Senate

$287,875,165 $434,675,475 $322,423,040 $496,445,920 $562,907,538 $433,663,168

  Democrats

$134,570,366 $226,272,915 $162,938,952 $254,592,809 $288,641,996

  Incumbents

$68,503,655

$40,322,836

$91,930,925 $104,600,570 $134,289,641

   Challengers

$42,750,173

$75,758,968

$38,225,289

$23,316,538

$110,191,111

$32,782,738 $128,562,932

   Open seats   Republicans

$21,429,307

$152,902,149 $205,654,200 $158,882,378 $241,023,484

$231,127,278 $77,533,259

$110,365,698

$115,123,100

$43,986,657

$38,470,919

$249,307,890 $201,898,217

  Incumbents

$68,780,235

$89,913,062

$53,638,745

$67,139,383 $122,795,244 $156,629,242

   Challengers

$69,370,569

$21,450,176

$69,609,716

$54,455,877

$75,126,253

$18,540,679

   Open seats

$14,751,345

$94,290,962

$35,633,917

$119,428,224

$51,386,393

$26,728,296 $941,467,362

House

$452,541,523 $572,284,247

$613,941,175 $660,312,243 $854,839,583

  Democrats

$211,103,327 $266,847,862

$301,121,693 $288,476,098 $395,507,550 $496,736,284

  Incumbents

$109,081,604 $151,767,129

$162,961,989

$181,197,844

$192,936,814 $292,088,193

   Challengers

$43,692,704

$71,837,640

$61,309,757

$59,201,694 $133,606,497

$121,310,046

   Open seats

$58,329,019

$43,243,093

$76,849,947

$48,076,560

$83,338,045

$68,964,239

  Republicans

$237,194,787 $299,705,461

$309,967,997 $369,989,841 $455,217,284 $441,538,948

  Incumbents

$147,594,739 $173,172,343

$180,182,824 $228,090,188 $326,245,808 $251,066,521

   Challengers

$47,740,535

$51,772,370

$41,726,967

$56,382,222

$49,567,644 $105,635,637

   Open seats

$41,859,513

$74,760,748

$88,058,206

$85,517,431

$79,403,832

$84,836,790

 Republicans

$390,096,936 $505,359,661 $468,850,375

$611,013,325

$704,525,174

$643,437,165

 Democrats

$345,673,693 $493,120,777 $464,060,645 $543,068,907 $684,149,546

$727,863,562

 Incumbents

$394,489,732 $457,201,945

$777,317,215

  Challengers

$207,223,621 $224,958,272 $212,316,943 $193,240,886

  Open seats

$138,703,335 $324,799,505 $234,560,021

Total

$740,416,688 $1,006,959,722 $936,364,215 $1,156,758,163 $1,417,747,121 $1,375,130,530

Total congressional

$489,487,251 $581,838,035

$776,267,507

$372,737,955 $363,531,322

$381,679,242 $251,530,949 $234,281,993

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Congressional Candidates Raised $1.42 Billion in 2007–2008,” press release, December 29, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/press2009/2009Dec29Cong/2009Dec29Cong. shtml (accessed January 29, 2010). Note: Figures are what were reported by the campaigns, minus any money transferred between committees of the same campaign. Figures include all congressional candidates.

c­ andidate strength. While House candidates continued to increase their aggregate spending in 2008, Senate candidates in 2008 spent a considerable amount less than Senate candidates had overall in 2006. This decrease probably was not an indication of a paucity of strong candidates for Senate offices, but reflected the expensive nature of the active races in 2006 and the fact that so much of the attention in 2008 was focused on the presidential race. The most expensive U.S. Senate race in 2008 in candidate spending was in Minnesota: Both candidates there spent in excess of $21 million, with incumbent Republican Norm Coleman spending about $750,000 more than challenger Al Franken. Three of the four Senate races studied in this volume were in the top ten contests in total dollars spent by the candidates alone. The New Mexico race, which did not remain competitive, was thirteenth in total expenditures in 2008. The sample of U.S. House races had four contests in the top 40 (Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, ranked fourteenth in spending; North

Elections as Team Sports  /  65

Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District, ranked eighteenth; Ohio’s Fifteenth Congressional District, ranked twenty-fifth; and New Mexico’s First Congressional District, ranked fortieth). The most expensive U.S. House race in candidate expenditures was New York’s Twentieth Congressional District (an open seat), which had more than $11.5 million in total candidate expenditures. The average cost of winning a House race in 2008 was about $1.1 million, and winning a Senate seat averaged nearly $6.5 million. The better-funded candidate won in more than nine of ten elections. 60 In a votes-per-dollar-spent breakdown, John Sununu and Jeanne Shaheen in the New Hampshire U.S. Senate race each raised and spent more than $23 per vote received (with Sununu spending nearly $28 per vote received), by far the costliest campaigns in the five states in the sample.61 By contrast, although Elizabeth Dole spent more than $17 million (see Table 3.4) in North Carolina in 2008, she ultimately received one vote for every $9 she spent. For the congressional elections we monitored in 2008, total spending by contest was generally higher than in previous contests. This was especially the case in the New Mexico and New Hampshire Senate races. For House candidates in the sample races, with the exception of three (New Mexico First Congressional District, Ohio Fifteenth Congressional District, and Ohio First Congressional District), spending also increased in 2008. Notable increases occurred in the North Carolina Eighth Congressional District repeat race between Democratic challenger Larry Kissell and Republican incumbent Robin Hayes, and in another rematch, the New Hampshire First Congressional District contest between Democratic incumbent Carol Shea-Porter and Republican challenger but former incumbent Jeb Bradley. Table 3.4 reports candidate expenditures for the sample races in 2007–2008.

Table 3.4 Candidate Expenditures for 2008 Congressional Sample Races (in Millions of Dollars) Total Total Democratic Republican Democratic Candidate Republican Candidate 2008 Total 2006 Total Race Candidate Expenditure Candidate Expenditure Expenditure Expenditure CO Senate

Udall*

12.99 Schaffer

7.21

20.20

17.5 (2004)

Sununu

8.01

16.22

2.7 (2004)

7.84 Pearce

9.09

16.93

3.9 (2006) 26.3 (2004)

NH Senate Shaheen*

8.21

NM Senate

Udall*

NC Senate Hagan*

8.95

Dole

17.47

26.42

CO District 4 Markey*

2.90

Musgrave

2.88

5.78

1.58

Bradley

1.43

3.01

1.2

NM District 1 Heinrich*

2.48

White

1.78

4.26

8.3

NC District 8

NH District 1

Shea-Porter*

5.2

1.51

Hayes

3.81

5.32

3.3

OH District 1 Driehaus*

1.45

Chabot

2.41

3.86

5.0

Kissell*

OH District 15

Kilroy*

2.61 Stivers

2.24

4.85

7.4

OH District 16

Boccieri*

1.72 Schuring

1.21

2.93

1.0

OH District 18

Space*

2.04 Dailey

0.39

2.43

2.4

Source: Federal Election Commission, “2008 House and Senate Campaign Finance,” available at http://fec.gov/ DisclosureSearch/HSRefreshCandList.do?category=stateS_all&stateName=NC (accessed June 9, 2009). Key: Bold lettering denotes incumbents; the designation “*” denotes an election winner.

66  /  David B. Magleby

Although a record-setting $1.8 billion was spent on the 2008 presidential election by candidates, federal candidates other than Obama and McCain collectively spent less than in previous presidential cycles.62 Campaign spending by non-presidential federal candidates in the aggregate in 2008, as reported by the FEC, was $1.3 billion.63 This, when added to the spending by presidential candidates, meant that, in the aggregate, federal candidates spent an estimated $3.1 billion in 2007–2008, which is significantly more than was spent by federal candidates in 2004. The total spending by federal candidates in the 2004 cycle was $2.1 billion and in the 2000 cycle, adjusted by comparable definitions of spending, was $1.6 billion.64 As a component of spending in congressional races, the amount of money spent on television ads was $248.8 million, including spending by candidates, party committees, and groups. This is down from the $311.4 million spent in 2006, but up from the $206.8 million spent in 2004. The top states in general election Senate spending for 2008 include Minnesota ($26.6 million), North Carolina ($24.6 million), Colorado ($20.8 million), Oregon ($20.1 million), and Kentucky ($14.6 million). A similar pattern was noted for 2008 House races, in which $182.7 million was spent during the general election on television advertising: This figure was down from the $225 million spent in 2006, but up from the $166.7 million spent in 2004. The top congressional districts for general election television spending in 2008 were Minnesota’s Third District and Illinois’ Tenth District, spending $6.7 and $6.3 million, respectively. These were followed by Illinois’ Fourteenth District, at just under $6 million; Washington’s Eighth District, at $5.7 million; and Nevada’s Third District, at $5.5 million.

Overall Spending by Party Committees In the aggregate, party committees spent more money in 2008 than in any previous election cycle. As discussed in Chapter 1, the ability of the parties to spend as much as they did in 2008 runs counter to the predictions of some party scholars, who assumed that the banning of soft money would mean a much less active role for party committees. As in recent election cycles, the party committees spent strategically in 2008. With BCRA’s ban on most forms of soft money, party committees can be expected to spend the maximum hard money allowable under law as contributions to and coordinated expenditures with candidates and state parties, in contests where those dollars will matter most, bypassing such spending in noncompetitive contests, and then maximize spending in the most competitive races through independent expenditures. Table 3.5 presents the overall expenditures for all six party committees for the period 1996–2008. In 2008, for the first time since at least 1976, the three Democratic committees were essentially at parity with the three Republican national party committees in combined spending. The RNC outspent the DNC by more than $150 million in 2007–2008, but the Democratic congressional campaign committees outspent the Republican congressional campaign committees by $127 million. This is an important departure from the 1996–2004 election cycles, where the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) substantially outspent their Democratic counterparts. In 2006, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Elections as Team Sports  /  67

Table 3.5 National Party Committee Expenditures, 1996–2008 DNC

1996

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

$105,584,924 $65,341,939 $121,977,874 $73,313,094 $389,861,948 $133,162,338 $258,251,976

DSCC

$30,797,941 $35,788,156 $41,542,806 $49,791,913 $88,336,773 $121,670,095 $162,558,225

DCCC

$26,412,934 $24,655,488 $49,324,279 $47,011,986 $92,409,908 $140,806,970 $176,523,631

RNC

$192,362,899 $105,068,513 $187,365,943 $186,832,988 $382,609,848 $254,566,224 $415,508,198

NRSC

$66,064,117 $53,666,737 $50,686,021 $59,577,432 $78,720,852

NRCC

$73,613,354 $71,748,092 $95,379,672 $130,742,694 $184,784,300 $178,063,132 $118,226,373

$89,719,455 $93,786,078

Total D

$214,306,327 $155,332,051 $265,831,832 $208,665,194 $655,590,180 $472,392,540 $746,476,077

Total R

$408,537,536 $275,932,552 $426,991,260 $427,031,256 $752,630,993 $608,205,784 $766,055,598

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/ press2009/05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed July 22, 2009). Note: The totals for each party do not equal the sum of the party committee expenditures because the numbers provided by the Federal Election Commission have been adjusted to account for transfers between party committees so as not to double count money in the total expenditures. The totals also include state and local hard money expenditures, which are not shown.

(DSCC) outspent the NRSC by $31.9 million. In 2008, the Democratic aggregate advantage in spending by congressional committees was substantial—$58.3 million in the House and $68.7 million in the Senate. Additionally, when presidential candidate expenditures are combined with RNC and DNC spending, as discussed earlier, Obama’s high level of candidate expenditures more than cancels out the RNC expenditure advantage in the presidential race. In other words, because of Obama’s high spending, the Democratic team was able to outspend the Republican team in the 2008 presidential race. Total expenditures for all national party committees in 2008 set new records. For the Republicans, the 2008 total expenditure of $766 million is only about $13.5 million more than what the combined Republican committees spent in 2004. Had the NRCC done as well in 2008 as it did in 2004, the GOP increase over 2004 would have been much larger. Although generally outspent before 2008, Democratic committees have significantly narrowed the gap; in the last three election cycles, they spent 46.5 percent of all national party committee expenditures, whereas in the four election cycles before that, the Democratic committees only spent 35 percent of total committee expenditures.

Party Contributions to Candidates Party committees can spend their money in ways that directly and indirectly benefit their candidates. One way they do this is by making contributions to candidates. In 2008, the party committees could contribute $5,000 to a House candidate, $37,300 to a Senate candidate, and about $4.6 million to a presidential candidate.65 Because most congressional candidates are not in competitive contests and because party committees prefer to target their resources, contributions to candidates are targeted. Among the sample races, for instance, the cashstrapped NRCC contributed nothing in North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District or Ohio’s Sixteenth Congressional District. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) did not contribute in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District. The DSCC did not contribute in New Hampshire

68  /  David B. Magleby

Table 3.6 Hard Money Contributions to Candidates by Party Committee, 1994–2008

1994

1996

2000

2002

DNC

$86,227

$29,287

1998 $6,894

$10,215

$11,000

2004 $7,000

2006 $12,000

2008 $48,650

DSCC

$535,000

$540,000

$300,500

$290,530

$409,900

$694,500

$596,800

$558,600

$449,497 $2,429,908 $1,027,132

DCCC

$990,989 $1,035,753

$424,781

$574,765

$640,860

RNC

$544,153

$486,404

$442,494

$400,000

$376,336

$251,992

$456,880

$524,495

NRSC

$621,279

$696,500

$276,359

$382,334

$455,977

$812,897

$346,782

$135,000

NRCC

$787,941 $1,259,825

$782,742

$698,769

$792,947

$545,693

$368,547 $3,109,174

Total D

$2,181,843 $2,217,845 $1,217,422 $1,360,599 $2,334,552 $1,809,546 $4,057,628 $2,479,551

Total R

$2,951,501 $3,713,770 $2,618,828 $2,293,750 $4,724,176 $2,576,116 $1,881,669 $8,556,323

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/ press2009/05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed December 30, 2009). Note: The totals for each party include state and local contributions, which are not shown.

or New Mexico, while the NRSC contributed in all Senate races in the sample.66 See Table 3.6 for a more detailed look at party hard money contributions in 1994–2008.

Coordinated Expenditures Another way that party committees spend money is by dividing the costs with their candidates on certain kinds of campaign activities, up to a specified dollar amount. These expenditures are often called coordinated expenditures. Table 3.7 presents the party coordinated expenditures for the 1994–2008 period. In the heyday of soft money, 1998–2002, the total amounts that party committees spent on contributions and coordinated expenditures dropped, in large part so that the party committees could use those hard dollars to match soft money transfers into states for a small number of competitive contests. Since BCRA’s soft money ban, committee coordinated expenditures have again risen. Table 3.7  Coordinated Expenditures by Party Committee, 1994–2008 DNC DSCC DCCC RNC NRSC NRCC

1994

1996

1998

2000

–$348,251 $6,695,323 $6,029,492 $13,548,520 $12,295,902 $8,397,129

$8,424

$127,157

2002

2004

$346,216 $16,079,570

2006

2008

$361,557 $6,399,511

$181,789 $4,394,396 $5,795,969 $3,802,152

$7,730,815 $5,689,644 $2,969,951 $2,593,614 $1,805,937 $2,440,937 $2,365,467 $1,688,765 $4,709,429 $22,766,118 $3,891,039 $23,670,006 $14,126,279 $16,143,042 $2,914,371 $24,403,656 $10,905,500

$172

$553,206 $8,449,099 $8,784,685 $1,532,224

$3,930,314 $7,329,880 $5,069,215 $3,696,877

$308,319

$36,775

$453,564 $3,184,358 $1,611,478 $3,420,302

Total D

$21,213,171 $22,576,000 $18,643,156 $20,989,872 $7,057,291 $33,113,799 $20,694,359 $37,988,558

Total R

$20,616,729 $30,959,151 $15,696,145 $29,598,965 $15,951,023 $29,101,396 $14,156,926 $31,952,985

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/ press2009/05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed December 30, 2009). Note: The totals for each party include state and local coordinated expenditures, which are not shown. The 1994 total for the Democratic National Committee is negative because of adjustments made after the original expenditures were reported from the 1992 presidential race.

Elections as Team Sports  /  69

In 2008, the DNC and RNC could spend up to $19.1 million in coordinated expenditures with their presidential candidates. The RNC spent $19.1 million in coordinated expenditures with the McCain campaign,67 while the DNC spent $6.4 million in coordinated expenditures. 68 The RNC spent just under $5.5 million in coordinated expenditures with other candidates, including $587,461 with Elizabeth Dole in the North Carolina Senate race; between $83,500 and $84,000 with Robin Hayes in North Carolina’s Eighth District; $84,000 with Steve Stivers in Ohio’s Fifteenth District; and $83,741 with Kirk Schuring in Ohio’s Sixteenth District.

Independent Party Expenditures Of greater significance to competitive elections—because it is unlimited— is independent spending by party committees. Before the 1996 election cycle, party committees were not allowed to make independent expenditures. In that election cycle, the Colorado Republican Party challenged this prohibition in court and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that party committees have the same rights to make independent expenditures as interest groups or individuals. 69 Table 3.8 presents the independent expenditures by party committees for the period 1996–2008. Independent expenditures, aside from those of the NRSC in 1996, were relatively modest in the aggregate until the BCRA soft money ban took effect in 2004. Thereafter, they became a way for the party committees to infuse money into key competitive contests. The RNC was much more involved in the 2008 federal races than was the DNC. The RNC spent $53 million in independent expenditures—all in behalf of McCain—compared with just over $1 million by the DNC. Of their total expenditures, the RNC spent nearly half, $25 million, during the last two weeks of the campaign, trying to deter an impending Obama victory in places such as Florida (where it purchased a last-minute $500,000 buy of Spanish language television in Miami).70 Much of the RNC’s spending was targeted at traditionally red states, where it had spent lightly in previous elections. Midway through

Table 3.8 Independent Expenditures by Party Committees, 1996–2008 DNC DSCC

1996 $0

1998

2000 $0

2004 $0 $120,333,466

2006 –$23,104

2008 $1,104,113

$133,000

$0

$18,725,520

$42,627,470 $73,028,432

DCCC

$0

$0

$1,933,246

$1,187,649

$36,923,726

$64,141,248

RNC

$0

$0

$0

NRSC

$9,734,445

$216,874

$267,600

$0

$19,383,692

$19,159,901 $38,985,276

NRCC

$0

$0

$548,800

$1,321,880

$47,254,064

$82,059,161 $30,971,545

Total D Total R

$1,386,022 $1,329,000

2002 $0

$1,495,090 $1,489,707 $10,026,541

$263,646

$500,000 $18,268,870

$81,641,424

$14,022,675 $53,459,386

$2,310,175

$1,701,292 $176,491,696 $108,100,265 $156,191,039

$1,556,802

$1,944,116

$88,032,382 $115,646,387 $124,682,649

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at www.fec.gov/press/ press2009/05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed December 30, 2009). Note: The totals for each party include state and local independent expenditures, which are not shown. The 2006 total for the Democratic National Committee is negative because of adjustments made after the original expenditures were reported from the 2004 presidential race.

70  /  David B. Magleby

the election cycle, the Wisconsin Advertising Project interpreted the Republican strategy: The Republican Party has been airing ads that have helped to offset the spending imbalance between John McCain and Barack Obama. The RNC aired ads in thirteen states and on national cable, spending over $6.5 million in their efforts. The RNC’s targets included the traditional battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, in addition to states—like North Carolina, Missouri, Virginia, and Indiana—that have been Republican strongholds in past elections.71 As is clear from Table 3.8, the DNC spent a great deal independently in 2004, and much of it went to advertising in the presidential race.72 For example, in 2004, between October 14 and Election Day, the DNC poured $41 million into a wave of advertising for Kerry.73 In 2008, the DNC spent $1 million independently in the presidential race and the RNC $53 million. In 2008, all party committees except the DNC and NRCC had substantially higher independent expenditures than they had in 2004 or 2006. For the DNC, the drop was precipitous, from $120 million in 2004 to just over $1 million in 2008. The decline in independent expenditures by the NRCC in 2008 was the result of an overall decline in receipts by the committee. On the Senate side, in 2008, the NRSC outspent the DSCC, $110 million to $73 million, in independent expenditures. In the 2000–2004 election cycles, these two committees were at near parity in independent expenditures, but in 2006, the DSCC spent more than double the amount that the NRSC spent independently—an element of the Democrats’ success in picking up seats in 2006.74 The DSCC increased its independent spending by $30 million in 2008 over 2006, but the NRSC spent more than $110 million independently, $38 million more than the DSCC. NRSC chairman John Ensign (R-Nevada) at one point in the campaign said, “I will not allow the Republican candidates to be outspent by the DSCC this cycle. Therefore, it is my intention to give the NRSC’s IE [independent expenditure] unit the total budget to match the DSCC dollar for dollar in every state they run ads.”75 Much of this spending was framed in an effort to keep Democrats from gaining a filibuster-proof supermajority of 60 seats in the Senate. Both parties made an early commitment to heavy independent expenditure spending. The DSCC purchased television advertising early in an expanding set of states. For example, in July 2006, the DSCC made a $6 million ad buy in contests previously considered safely Republican, such as the seat held by North Carolina Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole.76 By the middle of September, the DSCC had already paid more than $2 million to advertise against Dole and, in New Hampshire, against Senator John Sununu, both contests monitored for this volume.77 These were by far the races with the highest expenditures by the DSCC; in the end, the committee spent $9.5 million to unseat Sununu and $11.6 million to defeat Dole.78 The NRSC ultimately spent less than the DSCC, with Republican totals at $6.5 million in New Hampshire and $5.8 million in North Carolina. Meanwhile, the NRSC chose to stay out of states such as New Mexico—a decision the committee would later regret.79

Elections as Team Sports  /  71

Table 3.9 Independent Expenditures by Party Committee for Sample Races, 2007–2008 President

DNC

DSCC

$34,296,736

DCCC

RNC NRSC NRCC

$32,500

$0

$53,459,302

NC Senate

$0 $11,652,416

$0

NH Senate

$0 $9,586,701

$0

CO Senate

$0 $4,593,081

NM Senate

$0

$0

NH District 1

$0

OH District 1

$0

Total

$0

$0

$87,788,538

$0

$5,813,749

$0

$17,466,165

$0

$6,519,934

$0

$16,106,635

$0

$0

$3,530,825

$0

$8,123,906

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$2,446,322

$0

$0

$680,473

$3,126,795

$0

$2,034,447

$0

$0

$1,050,331

$3,084,778

OH District 15

$0

$0

$2,110,351

$0

$0

$960,672

$3,071,023

NC District 8

$0

$0

$2,435,752

$0

$0

$0

$2,435,752

CO District 4

$0

$0

$1,111,300

$0

$0

$899,166

$2,010,466

NM District 1

$0

$0

$2,004,300

$0

$0

$0

$2,004,300

OH District 16

$0

$0

$1,986,734

$0

$0

$0

$1,986,734

OH District 18

$0

$0

$0

$0

$0

$54,545

$54,545

Source: Federal Election Commission; see ftp://ftp.fec.gov/FEC (accessed March 12, 2009).

Independent expenditures in the House generally had wider disparities in the sample races, with the Democrats consistently outspending the Republicans. In each of the sample races, the DCCC spent $1 million or more independently, while the NRCC only made independent expenditures in four of the seven contests. Among these four, the difference between the two sides was roughly $1 million or more, except in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, where the DCCC advantage was slightly more than $200,000. Table 3.9 details party independent expenditures for all of the sample races.

Party Ground Support As noted earlier, the RNC has long had a substantial money advantage over the DNC. In previous cycles, the RNC ground operation not only was targeted at presidential battleground states but also had sufficient funds to assist Senate and House candidates in states that were not presidential battlegrounds.80 This meant that the NRSC and NRCC relied on the RNC for ground support. However, this was less the case in 2008, when the RNC focused almost exclusively on the presidential race.81

Spending by Interest Groups There are many ways in which interest groups can spend money to influence federal elections. While some groups actively support candidates from both parties, most generally prefer one party’s candidates over the other. Groups direct contributions to candidates and party committees, send communications to the members of the group, and communicate with the public directly, through a range of legal mechanisms that include independent expenditures.

72  /  David B. Magleby

Interest Group Contributions to Candidates The 2002 campaign finance reforms left unchanged the limits on the contributions that groups could make to federal candidates through their political action committees (PACs). A PAC can contribute $5,000 to a federal candidate in the primary and another $5,000 in the general election. As has long been the pattern, in 2007–2008, PACs again favored incumbents. PACs gave $311 million to Democratic incumbents newly in the majority compared with $168 million to Republicans. Democrats also had more interest group independent expenditures spent for them or against their opponents, and in one sample race, that gap was even wider than it was elsewhere in 2008.

Internal Communications Another way in which groups can help elect or defeat candidates for federal office is by communicating with the group’s members. Some groups have substantial membership (e.g., National Education Association [NEA], National Rifle Association [NRA], American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations [AFL-CIO], and National Association of Realtors), and communications from the group to the membership may influence votes. In 2000, the AFL-CIO found that internal communications with members were more effective than issue advocacy advertising, which the group had spent heavily on in 1996, 1998, and 2000.82 When the primary topic of the communication is to influence the election, the group reports that expenditure to the FEC; however, when the primary purpose of the communication is something other than the election, groups are not required to report the expenditure. For this reason, much of what groups communicate with members goes unreported. Table 3.10 lists the reported internal communications for the 2007–2008 election cycle. Businesses may also communicate with their employees about an election, and they often do so by providing a candidate comparison or other information about the candidates. If the primary purpose of the communication is not to influence the election, the expenditure for these communications is not reported.

Table 3.10 Groups Spending More than $100,000 on Aggregate Internal Communications, 2007–2008 Internal Communications Committee

AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AFT, and affiliates National Association of Realtors Service Employees International Union   and affiliates NARAL Pro-Choice America Change to Win National Education Association National Right to Life Committee International Brotherhood of Teamsters

For

Against

Total

$12,751,533 $2,584,064

$124,671 $0

$12,876,204 $2,584,064

$1,764,109 $103,394 $855,424 $42,416 $0 $163,812

$0 $873,976 $0 $594,519 $473,104 $400

$1,764,109 $977,370 $855,424 $636,935 $473,104 $164,212

Source: Federal Election Commission; see ftp://ftp.fec.gov/FEC (accessed March 12, 2009).

Elections as Team Sports  /  73

Internal or member communications are increasingly electronic, with groups linking members or employees to Web sites that provide more information on the candidates or facilitate registering to vote or requesting an absentee ballot.83 Darrell Shull, a senior vice president at the Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), reported that during the 2008 election cycle, his organization sent more than 107,000,000 pages of electronic information to more than 6,000,000 employees of private sector businesses. This information covered a wide range of topics, including voter registration, candidate ratings, and information on specific issues. This was nearly double BIPAC’s electronic effort during the 2004 election cycle, when they distributed 57,000,000 pages of electronic information.84

Section 527 Groups One way in which individuals and groups seek to influence federal elections is by forming Section 527 groups that, in turn, run advertisements, register voters, or help turn out voters. Until the 2002 election cycle, a group organizing under Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Code Section 527 that did not have interest income was not required to disclose group activity to either the FEC or the IRS. Republicans for Clean Air was that type of organization in 2000. Reporting requirements were changed for Section 527 groups after the 2000 election. In 2004, after BCRA narrowed the definition of issue advocacy, groups were more likely to organize under Section 527. Groups that were especially important to the 2004 presidential election were America Coming Together (ACT), which spent in excess of $78 million as a Section 527 group registering and mobilizing voters; the Media Fund, which also largely sought to help Democrats and spent $57.69 million on mostly television and radio advertising; and America Votes, which coordinated interest groups allied with the Democrats and spent $2.77 million.85 While spending less in the aggregate than pro-Democratic groups, proRepublican groups in 2004 were arguably more consequential. A Section 527 organization named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth86 attacked John Kerry’s war record and credibility and sought to label him as unpatriotic. What was a small initial advertising buy for this group turned into a total expenditure of $22.6 million. Whereas Swift Boat Veterans for Truth went on the attack against John Kerry, another Republican-leaning Section 527 organization, Progress for America, depicted President George W. Bush in glowing terms in an ad called “Ashley’s Story,” which told of a young Ohio girl who lost her mother in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; the ad showed President Bush giving Ashley a spontaneous hug when he learned of her loss.87 As important as Section 527 organizations were in 2004, it was an open question what role they would play in the 2008 presidential election. As discussed in Chapter 2, the amount of money raised by Section 527 organizations dropped from $424 million in 2004 to $258 million in 2008. While that drop is sharp, the amount that Section 527 organizations raised and spent in 2008 was substantial. Moreover, Section 501(c) organizations raised $196 million in 2008. Section 527 groups and Section 501(c) groups raised a combined $454 million, meaning that outside groups spent well over $400 million in both 2004 and 2008.

74  /  David B. Magleby

Table 3.11 provides the forty most active Section 527 organizations in the 2007–2008 election cycle in terms of expenditures, as reported to the IRS. Additionally, Table 3.11 indicates whether the groups also had a PAC registered with the FEC. The Democratic team captain for 2007–2008, America Votes, spent $20.7 million, slightly less than the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), at $25.8 million. Prominent America Votes member EMILY’s List spent $10.8 million. Unions are a core player on the Democratic team and show up frequently on the 2007–2008 list of the forty highest-spending Section 527 groups. In addition to SEIU, unions active as Section 527 organizations in 2007–2008 include the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($5.7 million spent), United Food and Commercial Workers Union ($3.7 million), Laborers Union ($2.2 million), United Brotherhood of Carpenters ($2.1 million), and allied worker groups such as the NEA ($2.2 million). All these organizations also had a PAC that was active in making direct contributions to candidates and party committees in 2007–2008. On the Republican side, the College Republican National Committee spent nearly $6.5 million helping to organize young Republicans around the country.88 One of the largest Section 527 organizations in terms of expenditures was American Solutions Winning the Future. This group is closely identified with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and claimed not to have been active in electioneering for Republicans or Democrats in 2007–2008. Another group long identified with Gingrich, GOPAC, spent $8.1 million as a Section 527 organization. Some Republicans would claim that the anti-tax group Club for Growth actually hurts Republicans by spending against some GOP incumbents in primaries. This group reported spending $5.9 million as a Section 527 group in 2007– 2008. Both GOPAC and Club for Growth also had PACs active in 2007–2008. Not only was there generally less group activity in congressional races on behalf of the Republican team but there was also less coordination among the groups. The absence of a group similar to America Votes to coordinate GOP allies put the Republicans at a disadvantage (see Chapter 2).

Section 501(c) Groups Those who wanted to influence federal elections but feared the fines or litigation experienced by some Section 527 organizations (see Chapter 2) could contribute to a group that was not primarily focused on electioneering. Such groups are allowed under Section 501(c) of the IRS code. While Section 527 groups disbursed only half as much in 2008 as they had in 2004, the spending of Section 501(c)(4), (c)(5), and (c)(6) groups tripled in 2008 from what it had been in 2004 or 2006.89 Of note, Americans United for Change ran an $8 million to $9 million “Bush Legacy Project” to tie John McCain to President Bush’s decisions and policies. The Campaign to Defend America was another group seeking to connect McCain and Bush through its “McSame” television ads. On the other side, Citizens United sued the FEC to use undisclosed funds to pay for ads criticizing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Senate record and Barack Obama.90 The top three Section 501(c) spenders were pro-Republican groups: U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($36 million), Freedom’s Watch ($30 million), and Employee Freedom Action Committee ($20 million). America’s Agenda: Health Care for

Table 3.11  Top Section 527 Committees in Receipts, 2007–2008 Rank Committee 1 Service Employees International Union 2 America Votes 3 American Solutions Winning the Future 4 EMILY’s List The Fund for America 5 GOPAC 6 7 Patriot Majority Fund College Republican National Committee 8 9 RightChange.com 10 Citizens United 11 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Club for Growth 12 13 Alliance for New America United Brotherhood of Carpenters 14 Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund 15 United Food and Commercial Workers Union 16 17 Majority Action Friends of Fred Thompson 18 19 American Leadership Project 20 National Public Education Action Fund 21 ActBlue Citizens for Strength and Security 22 23 Public Campaign Action Fund 24 Young Democrats of America 25 Laborers Union 26 Alliance for North Carolina 27 National Education Association 28 Citizens for Progress 29 Progressive Media Action 30 Sheet Metal Workers Union 31 Plumbers/Pipefitters Union 32 Unity 08 33 League of Education Voters of America 34 Pioneer Majority 35 League of Conservation Voters 36 National Federation of Republican Women California 2008 GOP Delegation Corporate 37 38 American Dental Association Grassroots Democrats 39 40 Ironworkers Union

Total Federal Partisan Receipts Expenditures PAC Classification $27,432,667 $25,959,173 $22,722,547 $13,659,555 $12,142,046 $9,322,764 $8,266,627 $6,826,285 $6,736,563 $6,477,080

$27,839,177 X D $24,491,324 D $22,966,088 R $12,910,515 X D $12,142,044 R $9,407,146 R $8,108,121 D $7,537,976 R $5,578,187 R $6,016,215 X D

$5,686,540 $5,001,412 $4,890,621 $4,461,701 $4,262,817 $4,054,000 $3,896,000 $3,462,355 $3,459,035 $3,300,000 $3,169,517 $3,153,000 $2,948,345 $2,728,207 $2,584,940 $2,455,000 $2,224,145 $2,172,432 $2,124,430 $2,042,664 $1,747,079 $1,584,539 $1,546,300 $1,541,921 $1,508,635 $1,287,763 $1,281,425 $1,219,616 $1,201,181 $1,174,896

$5,892,463 X D $5,930,565 X R $4,890,620 X D $2,207,336 D $6,143,620 X D $4,416,251 X D $4,002,351 D $625,743 R $3,451,887 D $401,463 D $3,375,159 X D $2,996,457 D $3,018,270 N $2,848,073 D $2,547,876 X D $2,462,621 D $2,561,624 X D $1,978,486 D $2,124,430 D $2,007,978 X D $1,556,645 X D $1,731,571 D $1,376,772 N $1,507,085 D $1,386,825 X D $2,987,436 X R $1,06 9,008 R $1,372,598 X N $1,259,806 D $1,295,399 X D

Source: Center for Responsive Politics, “Top 50 Federally Focused Organizations,” available at www.opensecrets. org/527s/527cmtes.php?level=C&cycle=2008 (accessed August 24, 2009). Note: These data are based on records released by the Internal Revenue Service on July 6, 2009. The partisan classifications were determined by the author based on each group’s stated intent, the partisan orientation of their contributors (if data were available), or newspaper accounts of the group’s activity.

76  /  David B. Magleby

Kids, a pro-Democrat Section 501(c) group, was the fourth highest spender at $13 million. On the Democratic side, America Votes, as a Section 527 organization, coordinated the activities of Section 501(c) groups.91

Independent Expenditures by Groups In its landmark ruling on the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) in Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the U.S. Supreme Court held that individuals and groups have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money independently of candidates and parties. The court upheld the requirement that such independent expenditures be disclosed to the FEC. Independent expenditures have grown in importance since BCRA, owing in part to the greater limitations that BCRA imposed (until 2007) on issue advocacy. Table 3.12 provides the reported independent expenditures by groups for 2007–2008. Overall, groups reporting independent expenditures spent $107 million to help Democrats and $45 million to help Republicans. As with the Section 527 data summarized earlier, SEIU led the list of groups making independent expenditures in 2007–2008 by a substantial margin, reporting $39.6 million in expenditures, mostly in support of Democrats. Several other unions were also among the largest independent spenders, including the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), at $7 million; United Auto Workers, at $4.9 million; and American Federation of Teachers (AFT), at $3.9 million. Other independent spenders who are generally on the Democratic team are MoveOn ($6.6 million), Defenders of Wildlife ($2.8 million), EMILY’s List ($3.2 million), and League of Conservation Voters ($3.3 million). The groups on this list that are most identified with Republican candidates are the NRA ($188 million) and National Right to Life ($3.6 million). The National Republican Trust and the Republican Majority Campaign, groups that support strong military and small government, spent $8.9 and $3 million, respectively. Some groups spend independently for both parties. The National Association of Realtors, for example, spent $3.6 million in support of Democrats and $3.1 million in support of Republicans. Similarly, the American Medical Association spent $836,932 for Democrats and $717,958 for Republicans. The same pattern held for some other professional associations. Some groups were active as Section 527 organizations and also reported independent expenditures.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Employee Free Choice Act In addition to promoting or opposing particular candidates, interest group ads may emphasize one or more policy issues of importance to the group. This was especially the case in 2008 with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber sought to elect (mostly Republican) pro-business candidates, and it also took the lead in forming the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW, or “the Coalition”), a conglomeration of more than 500 pro-business organizations around the country.92 Ads by the Coalition opposed the Employee Free Choice Act, a mostly Democrat-backed bill that would allow workers to use a petition card process (“card check”) to achieve union representation—without an additional secret ballot election.93 Overall, the Chamber and the Coalition, which included groups such

Elections as Team Sports  /  77

Table 3.12 Groups Spending More than $1,000,000 on Aggregate Independent Expenditures, 2007–2008 Committee

Spent in Spent in Support of Opposition to Democrats Democrats

Service Employees International   Union $33,463,558 National Rifle Association $190,045 National Republican Trust PAC $0 AFSCME $2,361,037 National Association of Realtors $3,589,439 MoveOn.org $5,202,335 United Auto Workers $4,451,716 American Federation of Teachers $3,867,811 Club for Growth $0 National Right to Life $1,633 League of Conservation Voters $1,694,740 EMILY’s List $2,424,497 Republican Majority Campaign $0 American Issues Project $0 Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund $441,120 International Association of Fire   Fighters $1,816,380 American Medical Association $836,937 National Campaign Fund $0 Life and Liberty PAC $0 National Federation of Independent   Business $855,771 Our Country Deserves Better PAC $0 United Food and Commercial   Workers Union $1,155,735 NARAL Pro-Choice America $518,047 Legacy Committee $0

Spent in Spent in Support of Opposition to Republicans Republicans

Total

$250,060 $13,678,863 $8,949,894 $234,481 $0 $0 $0 $0 $1,086,260 $54,826 $0 $186,654 $3,034,203 $2,878,872 $0

$0 $4,178,295 $434,820 $0 $3,147,616 $0 $0 $0 $768,074 $3,517,965 $166,715 $0 $55,130 $0 $22,622

$5,842,537 $0 $0 $4,396,890 $0 $1,447,000 $423,087 $0 $1,759,719 $10,273 $1,470,685 $591,627 $0 $0 $2,345,425

$39,556,155 $18,047,203 $9,384,714 $6,992,408 $6,737,055 $6,649,335 $4,874,803 $3,867,811 $3,614,053 $3,584,697 $3,332,140 $3,202,778 $3,089,333 $2,878,872 $2,809,167

$1,208 $0 $452,420 $1,475,955

$0 $717,958 $1,091,786 $0

$323,272 $0 $0 $0

$2,140,860 $1,554,895 $1,544,206 $1,475,955

$494,422 $976,885

$0 $204,013

$0 $0

$1,350,193 $1,180,898

$0 $31,970 $446,569

$0 $166 $672,411

$0 $574,122 $0

$1,155,735 $1,124,305 $1,118,980

Source: Federal Election Commission; see ftp://ftp.fec.gov/FEC (accessed March 12, 2009). Note: We combined expenditures for all national affiliates of an organization but excluded expenditures for the state affiliates.

as the American Conservative Union, American Hospital Association, National Taxpayers Union, and National Association of Manufacturers, spent more than $30 million against card check legislation and its supporters.94 When asked whether Chamber donors of these funds cared about card check or expressed a desire to have their money applied to the issue, Chamber Vice President Rob Engstrom had a succinct reply: “Absolutely.”95 In the sample races, the card check issue first surfaced nearly one year before Election Day, in November 2007, when the Coalition launched a direct mail campaign thanking Senator Sununu for his vote in support of secret union ballots (meaning his vote against the Employee Free Choice Act). In April 2008, the Coalition released polling results claiming that they showed that more than twothirds of Colorado voters opposed card check. Later, at the time of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Coalition released an ad indicating

78  /  David B. Magleby .

the positions of Senate candidates Mark Udall and Bob Schaffer on the issue. In mid-October, the Coalition began a direct mail campaign comparing the positions of Senate candidates on this issue in Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and three other states. Shortly thereafter, the Coalition began running Spanish language ads in Colorado on the issue. The effect of this spending on candidate voting is disputed. Democrats whose views ran counter to the Coalition’s initiatives in Colorado, New Hampshire, and North Carolina were all elected. Steve Rosenthal, currently the president of They Work for Us and previously the founder and CEO of ACT, described the Chamber’s ads as backfiring: “The Chamber stuff, by the way, was a monumental flop. . . . ​[ The Employee Free Choice Act] has overwhelming support in these states across the board.”96 Commenting on the effect of the ads overall, Rosenthal said, “In almost every state you found almost a direct correlation between our [Democratic] candidates doing better and [the Coalition] increasing their ads.”97 The inverse seemed to be true for union-backed ads. Jon Youngdahl of SEIU provided one perspective on the apparent correlation between Democratic votes and spending by the AFL-CIO and Change to Win: “We decided that we would basically help to fund a response . . . ​that focused on economic issues rather than directly on the Employee Free Choice Act. So we worked through a number of 527s to run issue ads in a number of the states where the Employee Free Choice Act campaign ads were running.”98 Beyond advertising, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce deployed almost 600 staffers into the field in the closing days of the 2008 campaign, largely to encourage Republicans to come to the polls.99 Another group that spent money on mobilization was SEIU, which deployed 4,000 members and staffers to get out the vote for Barack Obama.100 Outside groups were active in the sample U.S. Senate and U.S. House races. Both teams were active in most races. For example, two different groups spent at least $1 million each in the Colorado Senate race supporting Republican Bob Schaffer. In that same race, the AFL-CIO ran a television ad tying Schaffer to Bush on the economy, unemployment, and health care. Outside groups were also active in the New Mexico Senate race. After mid-September, when the election centered on the economy, Bush was even more of a negative factor for Republicans. As Martha McKenna, political director for the DSCC, put it: When the election is about the economy and you have somebody who had voted down the line for Bush budgets, for tax cuts to support Bush’s economic policies, that’s why you can’t get out from under [a connection with Bush]. These are people who had . . . ​gone out of their way to compile an answer to the question “How are you different than Bush?” But when the election became about the economy, there was nothing they could do about it.101

New Groups in 2008 Given group formation in recent elections (2000–2006), many assumed that there would be new and expanded Section 527 groups and Section 501(c) groups in the 2007–2008 election. While there were some new groups, such as Pro-

Elections as Team Sports  /  79

gressive Media, the American Leadership Project, Fund for America, Citizens United, and Coalition for a Conservative Majority, there were fewer than predicted. Some groups formed early in the cycle, only to close later, largely, it appeared, because of lack of interest among donors. Evan Tracey of CMAG offered one explanation: “If you’re a Republican and you want to run 527s for John McCain, it’s not going to get you the best tickets at the Inaugural Ball. I mean, he scolded every 527 since his legislation [BCRA] passed.”102 Charles R. Black Jr., a McCain senior adviser, said, “McCain would prefer that people give money to him and the RNC and let us run our own campaign.”103 As noted, Barack Obama also discouraged the formation of outside groups. Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, “From the beginning of this race Obama has told supporters that if they want to help his effort, they should do so through his campaign. And he means exactly what he says.”104 This message was clearly heard by Linda Lipsen of the trial lawyers’ association, the American Association for Justice, who remarked, “The Obama campaign really dictated a different approach, where they wanted to be in charge, and they showed they were confident to be in charge and they wanted those 527s to be shut down.”105 As the campaign heated up, however, neither McCain nor Obama repeated the earlier request for outside groups to stay away.106 Other factors that meant that new outside groups were less likely to form in 2008 included the economic downturn and the fines that some groups received after the 2004 election. One newcomer in 2008 was in some respects similar to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth: The American Issues Project, a Section 501(c)(4) group. Chris LaCivita and Tony Feather, two of the principal consultants to the group, had been involved with Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and Progress for America in 2004. The American Issues Project resembled Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in that its ad attacking the Democratic standard bearer came in late August of the election year. In 2008, the ad attempted to connect Obama to William Ayers, co-founder of the anti–Vietnam War group Weather Underground. The 60-second ad ran in fourteen markets and on sixty-nine stations in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The total ad buy was $2.8 million—almost the amount donated to the group by its one major donor, Harold Simmons, who gave $2.9 million. Later in the election cycle, the American Issues Project ran another ad criticizing Democratic leadership for the worsening economic crisis, raising the total that the group spent on ads to $3.8 million. Some have claimed that the group ran the second ad to avoid legal action over the Ayers ad, which may have gone beyond what a Section 501(c)(4) group can legally do.107

New Rules for Groups Months after the 2008 election, the FEC issued two rulings on Section 527 organizations that appear to reverse the rulings after the 2004 election. One ruling was about the Lantern Project, which ran ads critical of Republican Senate incumbent Rick Santorum before the 2006 election. The second ruling concerned the 2008 presidential primaries, in which the American Leadership Project ran ads praising Hillary Clinton and criticizing Barack Obama. In each case, the commission dismissed complaints about the Section 527 group and decided not to launch an investigation—arguably with the 2007 Supreme Court ruling on express advocacy in mind (discussed later). Former FEC chairman Michael E.

80  /  David B. Magleby

Toner predicted that the consequence of the more lenient FEC approach will be an “increase in such groups.”108 Chapter 1 discussed another reason for expanded interest group communications in 2008: new guidelines for electioneering ads—again. Writing for a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court in the case Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. v. FEC, Chief Justice Roberts ruled that corporations and unions could legally run candidate-related advertisements right up to Election Day. WRTL v. FEC meant that groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce could spend millions on ads that mentioned a candidate’s name, which they did in 2008 U.S. Senate races in Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon.109 By the same token, labor unions also spent millions on election-related ads, some of which BCRA would have banned.110 A significant change in how corporations and presumably labor unions can finance their independent expenditures is the result of a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision about a documentary film critical of then-Senator Hillary Clinton. The film was shown in theaters during the 2008 presidential primary election season in six cities. The film’s sponsors wanted wider distribution via on-demand cable television and related promotional advertising.111 The film was shown within the period before presidential primaries when disclosure and other restrictions apply to such group activity. More broadly, federal law predating BCRA did not allow corporations to use general funds for election communications. The decision in the case Citizens United v. FEC was handed down more than a year after the 2008 election.112

Conclusion The Democrats’ success in raising money in 2007–2008, including the presidential and congressional candidates, party committees, and allied interest groups, became an important strategic advantage because it allowed them to mount a more aggressive campaign than the Republicans. Barack Obama could expand the playing field to states such as North Carolina and Indiana because he had ample funds to campaign there and in the more predictable battleground states. Obama could spend heavily on field or ground operations and maintain many more field offices than McCain could, again because he had sufficient money to do both. Spending on the ground requires an early commitment because of the time it takes to organize and staff such operations, build the necessary databases, secure the telephones and other resources needed, and so on. Obama had built a large-scale and fully deployed field operation in the primaries and continued to maintain it through the general election. The Obama campaign also enjoyed a substantial advantage in what Evan Tracey called “tonnage”113 of television and radio advertising over the McCain campaign. As we have shown, it is important to include party committees as extensions of the presidential candidate’s campaigns. That was especially the case for McCain because he had accepted public funding for the general election and needed to rely on his party to mount his team’s field operation and spend what it could raise to counteract the Obama television and radio expenditures. McCain and the RNC together mounted a campaign that, compared with the 2000 and 2004 Republican and Democratic general election efforts, was a suc-

Elections as Team Sports  /  81

cess, but compared with what Obama and the DNC did, fell well short, both on the ground and on television and radio. For two election cycles in a row (2006 and 2008) Democratic congressional candidates in competitive races have been able to spend enough, when combined with the DSCC and DCCC, to successfully challenge incumbent Republicans. That happened in 2008 in Senate races we studied such as New Hampshire and North Carolina but also in Alaska and Oregon. The same pattern held for some key House races such as Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District, and Ohio’s First Congressional District races, where DCCC support was critical. In 2008, Democrats were again successful in picking up Senate seats that had been held by Republicans who were not seeking reelection. In this volume, we examine that phenomenon in Colorado and New Mexico. Key to these victories was the ability of the DSCC to spend money independently of the candidates, providing their side with adequate resources to mount competitive campaigns. Again, a similar pattern held for open-seat House contests, where Democrats picked up two seats in New Mexico (First and Second Congressional Districts) and Ohio’s perennial battleground, the Fifteenth Congressional District. In addition, in 2008, the Obama campaign provided voter mobilization and other support that generally helped Democrats. Interest group spending in federal races in 2008, as with candidate and party spending, benefited the Democrats. The interest group allies of the Democrats were both more active and better coordinated than those of the Republicans, thanks to America Votes. The ways in which interest groups sought to influence the election in 2008 were different from those used in 2004 in that there was less Section 527 group activity and more PAC and Section 501(c) spending. For party and interest groups, independent expenditures have become an increasingly important way to spend money. These expenditures are targeted toward particular contests and states and can rival or exceed the spending by congressional candidates. Understanding competitive congressional elections requires a careful assessment of the activities of party committees and interest groups. The focal point of this activity remains electing or defeating particular candidates, and from the perspective of the voter, the television ads, telephone messages, mail, and personal communications are largely indistinguishable. The key element is that the law assumes that independent activity is independent of the candidates so that the candidates do not know what their teammates are doing before the voters and the opposition do. In recent elections, renewed attention has been given to voter registration and mobilization in competitive settings.114 Candidates and party committees have invested heavily in developing databases on voters, their preferences, and past behavior. Individuals are found, identified, and contacted in an effort to secure their vote. With more early and absentee voting, this process has become more complicated and more expensive. Michael McDonald and Thomas Schaller examine voter registration and mobilization in Chapter 4.

Notes 1.  Jonathan D. Salant, “Spending on U.S. Elections Rose to Record $4.1 Billion in 2008,” Bloom­ berg.com, January 8, 2009, available at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid= afKpYPREWdJU (accessed June 9, 2009).

82  /  David B. Magleby 2. Evan Tracey, president, Campaign Media Analysis Group, telephone interview by David Magleby, May 20, 2009. 3.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking, 2009), 259. 4.  America Votes. “America Votes: About,” available at http://www.americavotes.org/site/ content/about/ (accessed April 20, 2008). 5. Martin Frost, president, America Votes, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 6.  Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: Barack Obama,” available at http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+P80003338 (accessed May 22, 2009). 7. Plouffe, The Audacity to Win, 259. 8.  Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager, John McCain for President, the Change Election Press Event, Washington, DC, June 23, 2009. 9.  David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson, “Rules of Engagement: BCRA and Unanswered Questions,” in The Battle for Congress: Iraq, Scandal, and Campaign Finance in the 2006 Elec­ tion, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (New York: Paradigm, 2008), 22–61; Kelly D. Patterson, “Spending in the 2004 Election,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), 68–92. 10.  Campaign Finance Institute, “Soft Money Political Spending by 501(c) Nonprofits Tripled in 2008 Election,” available at http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=221 (accessed May 22, 2009). 11. Ira Teinowitz, “Obama TV Advertising: More Spots, Longer Spots,” TV Week, October 17, 2008, available at http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/10/obama_tv_advertising_more_spot. php (accessed April 12, 2009). 12.  Andrei Scheinkman et al., “The Ad Wars,” New York Times, December 1, 2008, available at http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/advertising/index.html?scp=1&sq=THe%20Ad% 20Wars&st=cse (accessed January 26, 2010). 13.  TNS Media, “Role of Advertising in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaigns,” November 6, 2008, available at http://s3.amazonaws.com/thearf-org-aux-assets/downloads/cnc/ad-effectiveness/ 2008-11-06_ARF_AE_TNS.pdf (accessed April 20, 2009). 14.  Jim Rutenberg, “Obama Infomercial, a Closing Argument to the Everyman,” New York Times, October 28, 2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/us/politics/29obama. html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Obama%20Infomercial,%20a%20Closing%20Argument%20to% 20the%20Everyman&st=cse (accessed January 26, 2010). 15.  Jim Rutenberg, “Nearing Record, Obama Ad Effort Swamps McCain,” New York Times, October 18, 2008, A1. 16.  Anthony Corrado, “Financing the 2004 Presidential General Election,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), 137. 17. Matthew Mosk, “McCain Ads Are Hybrid Vehicles, Washington Post, September 3, 2008, available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/09/mccain_ads_are_hybrid_ vehicles.html (accessed May 27, 2009). 18.  Jim Kuhnhenn, “McCain has $47 Million to Spend in October,” Fox News, October 20, 2008 available at http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Oct20/0,4670,CampaignMoney,00.html (accessed January 26, 2010). 19.  Jim Rutenberg, “The 2004 Campaign—Advertising: Campaigns Use RV Preferences to Find Voters,” New York Times, July 18, 2004, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/ us/the-2004-campaign-advertising-campaigns-use-tv-preferences-to-find-voters.html?scp=1&sq= The%202004%20Campaign%E2%80%94Advertising:%20Campaigns%20Use%20RV% 20Preferences%20to%20Find%20Voters&st=cse (accessed January 26, 2010). 20. Miriam Jordan and Leslie Eaton, “Big Turnout of Latino Voters Boosted Obama,” Wall Street Journal, November 6, 2008, A10. 21. Memo from Timothy Kay, National Cable Communications director of political strategy, March 28, 2009, 2. 22. Notes from interview with Timothy Kay, March 28, 2009. 23.  Tracey, interview. 24.  Darrell West, Air Wars: Television Advertising in Election Campaign 1952–2004 (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2005).

Elections as Team Sports  /  83 25.  Tracey, interview. 26.  Jim Rutenberg, “Nearing Record, Obama Ad Effort Swamps McCain.” 27.  TNS Media, “Role of Advertising in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaigns,” November 6, 2008, available at http://s3.amazonaws.com/thearf-org-aux-assets/downloads/cnc/adeffectiveness/2008-11-06_ARF_AE_TNS.pdf (accessed April 20, 2009). 28.  CNN, “Exit Polls,” CNN.com, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/ results/polls/#val=USP00p5 (accessed June 9, 2009). 29. Lynda Lee Kaid, “Videostyle in the 2008 Presidential Advertising,” in The 2008 Presi­ dential Campaign: A Communication Perspective, ed. Robert E. Denton Jr. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 218. 30. Steven K. Medvic, “Outside Voices: 527s, Political Parties, and Other Non-candidate Groups,” in Campaigning for President 2008, ed. Dennis W. Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2009), 200. 31.  West, Air Wars: Television Advertising, 63. 32. Richard Davis, The Web of Politics: The Internet’s Impact on the American Political Sys­ tem (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 85. 33.  David Carr and Brian Stelter, “Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World,” New York Times, November 3, 2008, B1. 34.  Bruce E. Gronback, “The Web, Campaign 07–08, and Engaged Citizens,” in The 2008 Presidential Campaign: A Communication Perspective, ed. Robert E. Denton Jr. (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 233. 35. Marjorie Randon Hershey, “The Media: Coloring the News,” in The Elections of 2008, ed. Michael Nelson (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2009), 138. 36.  Claire Cain Miller, “How Obama’s Internet Campaign Changed Politics,” New York Times, November 7, 2008, available at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/ how- obamas-internet- campaig n- changed-politics /?scp=1&sq=How%20 Obama%E 2% 80%99s%20Internet%20Campaign%20Changed%20Politics&st=cse (accessed January 26, 2010). 37.  Tracey, interview. 38.  Jim Rutenberg, “Nearing Record, Obama Ad Effort Swamps McCain.” 39. Ibid. 40. Patrick Healy et al., “Republicans Rain Negative Automated Calls on Voters in Swing States,” New York Times, October 18, 2008, A12. The company that wrote the questions for McCain’s automated calls, headed by Jeff Larson, also wrote the calls for George W. Bush (negative toward McCain) that McCain denounced in 2000. 41.  Dennis W. Johnson, “An Election Like No Other?” in Campaigning for President 2008, ed. Dennis W. Johnson (New York: Routledge, 2009), 14–15. 42. Plouffe, The Audacity to Win, 93. 43.  Ferry, press event. 44.  Frost, interview. 45.  Jon Carson, Obama for America, national field director, telephone interview by David Magleby, December 11, 2008. 46.  Blue State Digital, “Case Study: my.BarackObama.com,” available at http://www. bluestatedigital.com/casestudies/client /obama_for_america_2008/ (accessed May 29, 2009). 47.  Carson, interview. 48. Patterson, “Spending in the 2004 Election,” 87–88. 49.  Christian Ferry, McCain campaign deputy campaign manager, telephone interview by David Magleby, May 27, 2009. 50.  Ferry, press event. 51. Michael Luo and Mike McIntire, “With Ambitious Campaign, Obama is Both Big Spender and Penny Pincher,” New York Times, October 31, 2008, A18. 52.  The numbers presented in Table 3.1 represent all preplanned campaign visits and events in the sample states. Some events, however, are unplanned and occur somewhat spontaneously. Researchers have made efforts to include these events in the totals listed, but a small number of events still may not be represented here. 53.  T. W. Farnam and Brad Haynes, “Democrats Far Outspend Republicans on Field Operations, Staff Expenditures,” Wall Street Journal, November 3, 2008, A4. 54. Ibid.

84  /  David B. Magleby 55. Luo and McIntire, “Obama: Big Spender and Penny Pincher,” New York Times, May 12, 2009, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/us/politics/31spend.html?_r=6 (accessed January 26, 2010). 56.  Josh Drobnyk and Scott Kraus, “Invasion of the Obama Campaign,” The Morning Call, July 29, 2008, available at http://articles.mcall.com/2008-07-29/news/4153601_1_barack-obama-spresidential-campaign-field-offices-john-mccain (accessed January 28, 2010). 57. Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of a President (New York: Crown, 2009), 79–80. 58.  Karen Tumulty, “How Obama Did It,” Time, June 5, 2008, available at http://www.time. com/time/nation/article /0,8599,1811857,00.html?iid=fb_share (accessed May 26, 2009); Carson, interview. 59.  David Trichler, Obama field office worker, Ohio, interview by David Magleby, November 21, 2008. 60.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Money Wins Presidency and 9 out of 10 Congressional Races in Priciest U.S. Election Ever,” OpenSecrets.org, November 5, 2008, available at http:// www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/money-wins-white-house-and.html (accessed April 13, 2009). 61.  Observationalism, “Money Raised versus Results Achieved: The Senate ’08 Sweepstakes,” February 3, 2009, available at http://observationalism.com/2009/02/03/money-raisedversus-result-achieved-the-senate-08-sweepstakes/ (accessed April 14, 2009). 62.  Federal Election Commission, “Presidential Campaign Finance,” Federal Election Com­ mission (accessed April 15, 2009). 63.  Federal Election Commission, “2008 House and Senate Campaign Finance,” Federal Election Commission, available at http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapHSApp.do (accessed April 13, 2009). 64. Patterson, “Spending in the 2004 Election,” 68–92. 65.  Federal Election Commission, “Federal Election Campaign Laws,” April 2008, 66–67, available at http://fec.gov/law/feca/feca.pdf (accessed April 13, 2009). 66.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Political Parties Overview,” available at http://www. opensecrets.org/parties/index.php?cmte=&cycle=2008 (accessed June 9, 2009). 67.  Federal Election Commission, “Committee Summary Reports, 2007–2008 Cycle: Republican National Committee,” available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+ C00003418. 68.  Federal Election Commission, “Committee Summary, 2007–2008 Cycle: DNC Services Corporation/ Democratic National Committee,” available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/ cancomsrs/?_08+C00010603. 69.  Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee v. Federal Election Commission, 518 U.S. 604 (1996). 70. Ira Teinowitz, “Ad Spending Surges as Campaign Enters Final Days,” TV Week, November 2, 2008. 71.  Wisconsin Advertising Project, “Obama Outspending McCain 3 to 1 on TV; Nearly 75 Percent of Presidential Ad Spending in Red States,” Wisconsin Advertising Project, October 31, 2008, available at http://wiscadproject.wisc.edu/wiscAds_release_103108.pdf (accessed April 13, 2009). 72.  Anthony Corrado, “Financing the 2004 Presidential General Election,” 133. See also David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson, “Introduction,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties and Interest Groups Interact in the Presidential Campaign, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 21–25. 73.  Anthony Corrado, “Financing the 2004 Presidential General Election,” 126–148. 74. Magleby and Patterson, “Rules of Engagement: BCRA and Unanswered Questions,” 25–26. 75.  Trey Pollard, “NRSC Pledges ‘Dollar for Dollar’ Match of DSCC Ad Spending,” Politicker. com, July 31, 2008, available at http://www.politicker.com/kentucky/6629/nrsc-pledges-percentE2 percent80percent98dollar-dollar percentE2 percent80 percent99-match-dscc-ad-spending. 76.  Josh Kraushaar and Reid Wilson, “The Senate Scorecard,” Politico, July 30, 2008, available at http://www.politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0708/The_Senate_Scorecard.html (accessed February 26, 2008).

Elections as Team Sports  /  85 77.  Aaron Blake, “Dems Spending to Win,” The Hill, September 16, 2008, available at http:// thehill.com/leading-the-news/dems-spending-to-win–2008-09-16.html (accessed March 1, 2009). 78.  Carl Hulse, “Scramble on Hill: Party Works to Limit its Losses in House and Senate,” New York Times, November 3, 2008, A1. 79. Scott Bensing, NRSC executive director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 80. Paul S. Herrnson, “Financing the 2004 Congressional Elections,” in Financing the 2004 Election, ed. David B. Magleby, Anthony Corrado, and Kelly D. Patterson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), 155. 81.  Brian Walsh, NRCC national field director, telephone interview by David Magleby, September 23, 2008; Bensing, interview. 82.  Allan J. Cigler, “Interest Groups and Financing the 2000 Elections,” in Financing the 2000 Elections, ed. David B. Magleby (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), 177–178. 83.  David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson, eds., Dancing without Part­ ners: How Candidates, Parties and Interest Groups Interact in the New Campaign Finance Envi­ ronment (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2005), 25. 84.  Darrell Shull, senior vice president, BIPAC, telephone interview by David Lassen, June 1, 2009. 85.  Center for Responsive Politics, “America Votes: Overview,” OpenSecrets.org, available at http://www.opensecrets.org/527s/527cmtedetail.php?cycle=2004&ein=830364856 (accessed April 13, 2009). 86.  On September 29, 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth changed its name to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. Throughout this book we continue to use Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to avoid confusion. For a press release from the group announcing the change, see http://horse. he.net/~swiftpow/article.php?story=2004092911015589. 87. Magleby, Monson, and Patterson, “Introduction,” 25. 88.  Charlie Smith, College Republican national committee chair, interview by David Ma­ gleby, November 13, 2008. 89.  Campaign Finance Institute, “Soft Money Political Spending by 501(c) Nonprofits Tripled in 2008 Elections,” February 25, 2009, available at http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease. aspx?ReleaseID=221 (accessed April 13, 2009). 90.  Campaign Finance Institute, “Newer 502(c)4 Federal Election Programs (2007–08 cycle),” available at http://www.cfinst.org/interest_groups/pdf/np527/527_08_12M_Table5.pdf (accessed April 13, 2009). 91.  Frost, interview. 92.  Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, home page, available at http://myprivateballot. com/about/?_adctlid=v|x1nebahdn7kdhz|xato18fruvdwbh (accessed June 8, 2009). 93.  “The Employee Free Choice Act,” available at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/ z?c110:H.R.800 (accessed June 9, 2009). 94. Lindsay Renick Meyer, “Millions of Dollars Later, Congress Introduces Unionization Bill,” Center for Responsive Politics, available at http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/03/ millions-of-dollars-later-cong.html (accessed June 9, 2009). 95. Rob Engstrom, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president political affairs and federation relations, interview by David Magleby, Washington, DC, November 12, 2008. 96. Steve Rosenthal, the Organizing Group co-founder, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 97. Ibid. 98.  Jon Youngdahl, national political director, Service Employees International Union, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 99.  Julie Kosterliz, “Advocates Claim Victories on the Ground,” National Journal Magazine, November 8, 2008. 100. Service Employees International Union, “In Final 72 Hour Push, SEIU Members Get Out the Vote for Barack Obama and Other Working Family Candidates Across the Country,” October 31, 2008, available at http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/interestg08/seiu08releases.html (accessed April 13, 2009). 101. Martha McKenna, political director, DSCC, the Change Election Press Event, Washington, DC, June 23, 2009.

86  /  David B. Magleby 102.  Tracey, interview. 103.  Jonathan Weisman and Michael D. Shear, “Obama, McCain to Curb ‘527s,’” Wash­ ington Post, May 14, 2008, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2008/05/13/AR2008051302868.html. 104.  Ben Smith, “Obama: Don’t Fund Independent Groups,” Politico, May 13, 2008, available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories /0508 /10315.html. 105. Linda Lipsen, American Association for Justice (trial lawyers), interview by David Ma­ gleby, Washington, DC, November 12, 2008. 106. Mark Ambinder, “Quietly, Obama Campaign Calls in the Cavalry,” The Atlantic blog, September 9, 2008, available at http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/quietly_ obama_campaign_flashes.php (accessed June 8, 2009). 107.  T. W. Farnam, “Legal Controversy Erupts Over TV Ads Linking Obama to ’60s Radical,” Wall Street Journal, August 29, 2008, A5. 108.  Bernie Becker, “Election Commission Loosens up on Some Groups,” New York Times, April 24, 2009, available at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/election-commissionloosens-up-on-some-groups/?scp=1&sq=Election%20Commission%20Loosens%20up%20on%20 Some%20Groups&st=cse (accessed January 26, 2010). 109. Rob Engstrom, vice president of political affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008; Will Evans, “Chamber of Commerce Senate Campaign Heats Up,” NPR, August 28, 2008, available at http://www.npr.org/blogs/secretmoney/2008/08/ chamber_of_commerce_senate_cam.html (accessed May 21, 2009). 110. Steve Rosenthal, co-founder of the Organizing Group, interview by David Magleby, May 19, 2008. 111.  Adam Liptak, “Justices, 5–4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit,” New York Times, January 21, 2010 available at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus. html?scp=1&sq=Citizens%20United&st=cse. 112.  Citizens United v. FEC 588 U.S (2010). 113.  Tracey, interview. 114.  Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green, “Do Phone Calls Increase Voter Turnout? A Field Experiment,” Public Opinion Quarterly 65 no. 1 (2001), 75–85.

4

Voter Mobilization in the 2008 Presidential Election Michael P. McDonald and Thomas F. Schaller

P

undits and academics such as Thomas Patterson, Robert Putnam, and Ruy Teixeira have decried apathy among American citizens in recent decades.1 Yet, civic participation is now rising. The turnout rate among those eligible to vote in the 2008 presidential election was 61.7 percent, an increase of 1.6 percentage points from 2004, and was the third consecutive increase in presidential turnout rates since the 1996 modern low of 51.7 percent. The 2008 turnout rate is comparable to the “high” turnout rates experienced in the 1950s and 1960s, which serve as comparison for those who lament a disintegration of civic engagement. Political campaigns in the new millennium now place greater emphasis on voter mobilization. According to the American National Election Studies, voters’ self-reported contact with campaigns in presidential elections increased from 20 percent in the 1990s to 38 percent in 2000 to 45 percent in 2004, and it decreased slightly to 43 percent in 2008. 2 Academic studies find that these mobilization efforts are effective at stimulating civic participation. 3 These voter mobilization efforts may thus be part of the reason voter turnout has been rising in recent elections. Mobilization efforts require coordinating a massive number of boots on the ground, which is facilitated by technological innovations. Much like the political machines of the nineteenth century, modern presidential campaigns have again built grassroots campaign organizations. The storefront campaign office of old now exists in a virtual world, although as discussed in Chapter 1, Obama made greater use of them than candidates have in previous years. Campaigns use the Internet to recruit and communicate with their volunteers. They manage their activities through sophisticated database systems that relay targeted voter contact lists to volunteers and permit volunteers to upload the results of their activities, so that the campaigns can track their voter contacts in near real-time. These innovations permit a modern presidential campaign to reach out beyond their traditional field offices to greatly increase the number of volunteers and the number of locations where the campaign can actively mobilize voters. These innovations have occurred along with other changes in the way people vote. Perhaps the most dramatic is the rise in early voting, which has forced campaigns to adapt their mobilization efforts to an extended voting period. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, 7 percent of voters cast their ballot before Election Day in 1992; 14 percent did so in 2000; 20 percent in 2004; and 30 percent in 2008.4 Early voting might simply demand more database management by the campaigns, as early voters are ticked off from their target universes. However, early voting provides strategic opportunities to tie

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campaign events with early voter mobilization. Further, campaigns must make strategic decisions as to whom to target with early voting mobilization outreach, particularly since state laws vary tremendously as to who can vote early and how voters cast their ballots. The 2008 presidential campaigns of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama had unequal resources to devote to their mobilization efforts. McCain, weighed down by an extremely unpopular president, was limited by the amount of money he could spend because he accepted public financing for his campaign. Obama, as the first major party presidential candidate to opt out of general election public financing, was much less constrained because of the impressive amount that he raised. Scarcity is the mother of invention, and these disparities forced the McCain campaign to do more with less. Meanwhile, the less constrained Obama campaign expanded voter mobilization efforts in innovative ways. Voter mobilization in the 2008 presidential election is thus a tale of rapid innovation. We attempt here to take stock of what happened in 2008, how we got there, and where we may be going in the future.

The Evolution of Modern Voter Mobilization Organizations Perhaps the oldest cliché in American electoral politics is that the candidate who receives the most votes wins. Voters must be persuaded to support a candidate and be mobilized to translate that support into the tangible voting act. While the techniques and technology have changed over time, the basic principle of voter persuasion and mobilization is timeless: Communicate a message to voters that encourages them to vote for the candidate. Early American politicians understood that voter mobilization was key to election victory. Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson’s running mate, ran one of the nation’s first large-scale voter mobilization campaigns during the 1800 New York state legislative elections. 5 At the time, the state legislature selected electors to the Electoral College, so these legislative elections were tantamount to the presidential election. Over the three-day voting period, Burr arranged transportation to the polling locations for those unable to make it on their own and targeted New York City’s German community by dispatching German-speaking poll workers to that neighborhood. Burr’s candidates won control of the state legislature, demonstrating the power of a voter mobilization campaign. These efforts would evolve into the organizational structures of the nineteenth century’s political machines. In the stylized version, a political party assigned a ward boss to each neighborhood. The ward boss was responsible for monitoring the political tendencies of each eligible voter. When an election occurred, the ward boss mobilized the party’s supporters to the polls. Rewards were then dispensed to the party faithful, and punishments were meted out to apostates. Eventually, Progressive Era reforms dismantled the corrupt political machines through reforms such as the adoption of the secret ballot and the replacement of patronage with a professional civil service. Updated modern voter mobilization techniques recreate some aspects of the political machines. In place of the vast network of ward bosses, who were motivated by the material rewards of patronage, are the campaign volunteers, who are motivated by the candidate or the issues. There is still some room for a smaller cadre of campaign consultants to earn a living, absent the abusive

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graft of the political machines. These consultants manage the organization that recruits volunteers and directs their activities. The average volunteer is unlikely to have the knowledge of a ward boss of old, of who is for and against the candidate. To fill this knowledge gap, these consultants employ sophisticated microtargeting techniques to identify potential supporters.

Volunteer Recruiting Today’s volunteer coordinators serve the role once played by the ward boss. Disseminating a presidential campaign message in a personal way to a large number of prospective voters requires legions of volunteers to make contacts by telephone or in person and to stuff envelopes for specialized mailings. (Political consultants also provide these services, for a fee.) Existing local party organizations serve as a source of volunteers for local campaigns, but they are insufficient to reach the many peripheral voters who tend to vote only in high-profile presidential elections. Presidential campaigns may also need to extend their organizations into areas of a battleground state with weak or no local party organizations. Fortunately, the campaigns can recruit novice volunteers, who tend to emerge during presidential elections. Ward bosses were motivated by the jobs that political machines could provide. Labor unions continue in this tradition by having union officials serve as organizers of voter mobilization efforts, aptly named labor to neighbor. However, the decrease in labor union membership is well documented and has even been posited as an explanation for declines in voter turnout, as labor unions have become less capable of mobilizing their members and others. 6 Despite membership declines, labor unions’ resources are often credited with providing the Democrats a ground game advantage in recent elections. The Democratic advantage is perceived to be significant: Republican strategist Karl Rove was convinced that George Bush would have won comfortably in 2000 if it had not been for the Democrats’ more effective voter mobilization efforts.7 The perceived voter mobilization advantage of the Democrats motivated Republicans to develop a grassroots strategy of their own. This strategy, dubbed the 72 Hour Campaign, was tested in key Senate races during the 2002 midterm elections and implemented in battleground states during the 2004 presidential election.8 To be successful, Republicans had to create a massive top-down national volunteer organization of hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom had never helped with a campaign. Volunteer recruiting started in earnest in February, well in advance of the November election. Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman emphasized rigorous devotion to day-to-day assessment of performance metrics.9 Volunteer field captains were given list-building targets specified to the single digit. As documented by journalist Matt Bai, one volunteer noted that she was instructed “to recruit 643 volunteers . . . ​not 640 volunteers or 650, but 643.”10 Bai further noted: For 2004, Rove’s team has devised the most ambitious grass-roots model in the party’s history. Up close, [it] looks less like a political campaign than what is known in business as a multilevel marketing scheme. In an MLM, like Mary Kay Cosmetics or Tupperware, each independent entrepreneur who joins the sales force—a Betty Kitchen, say—also

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becomes a recruiter who is responsible for bringing in several new entrepreneurs underneath her. The result is a pyramid-like sales structure that broadens to include more and more recruits with each descending level. When the election came down to the final three days, the Bush campaign reversed the flow of information, sending out information on what to do, whom to contact, and how to herd people to the polls. After the Bush campaign’s success in the 2004 election, it was the Democrats’ turn to be jealous. Noted Democratic strategist Steven Rosenthal admitted that “the Republican Party leapfrog[ged] ahead of us in the last couple of elections [2002 and 2004].”11 While the Bush campaign internally coordinated their voter mobilization efforts, Democrats continued their tradition of organizing their grassroots outreach through outside organizations. In 2004, Rosenthal headed the outside group America Coming Together (ACT), a coalition of progressive organizations dedicated to voter mobilization efforts. (It is not a coincidence that he transitioned to this position from his previous role as political director of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations [AFL-CIO].) Undoubtedly, the well-funded voter mobilization efforts of ACT and its sister organization, America Votes, were effective—the groups exceeded their voter turnout targets—but they did not anticipate the effectiveness of the Bush campaign’s coordinated effort.12 Although 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry had little choice but to rely on mobilization programs developed and managed outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and his own campaign organization, this lack of centralized control ultimately proved to be a liability since the campaign could not coordinate their targeting and message with these outside organizations. The Kerry campaign’s significant reliance on outsiders created a dangerous, almost helpless dependency on efforts by outside organizations. Top Obama advisers took this lesson to heart. In 2008, the Obama campaign, led by manager David Plouffe, in coordination with his former associates at Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, constructed an internal and organic apparatus that allowed the Obama field team to activate most of the mobilization levers separately and independently from the DNC. The Obama 2008 campaign replicated the Bush campaign’s volunteer-based model, but added a few twists that reflected both the spirit of Democrats’ decentralized organizing traditions and emergent technologies. Although still centralized and coordinated by the campaign, rather than by surrogate or independent organizations, the volunteer model was more passive rather than active. That is, the Obama campaign went to great lengths to make access to the campaign easy so that those wishing to become involved could contact the campaign through multiple portals, including e-mail, online donation or volunteer sign-up via the Web site, old-fashioned telephone contact, and text messaging. Still, the Obama campaign retained aspects of the top-down Bush organizational model. Competent volunteers were identified and given expanded roles, eventually becoming volunteer campaign staff with responsibilities for recruiting more volunteers and managing their activities. Yet, unlike Mehlman’s strict top-down approach, the Obama campaign’s volunteer field organizers were permitted wide latitude in how they recruited and organized their volunteers.13 This strategy of local autonomy reflected the Obama campaign’s recognition that

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their volunteers had a deep emotional investment in the campaign. As David Plouffe commented, “Supporters knew in their hearts and in their guts that he treasured and respected their involvement and leadership in their local communities, and in the campaign. It was not his campaign—it was their campaign.”14 Development of emergent technologies enabled the Obama campaign to tap into the growing online activist community, collectively referred to as net­ roots. In advocating “crashing of the gates” of the Democratic establishment, whom they viewed as being doomed due to their capture by professional consultants and single-issue interest groups, netroots activists Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas declared, “Technology has opened the previously closed realm of activist politics to riffraff like us.”15 Progressives of all stripes were motivated by their frustrations with the policies of the Bush administration, a president who made an easy target because his job approval ratings were by CNN political analyst Bill Schneider’s estimation “below freezing.”16 As Kerry learned in 2004, however, anger alone is not sufficient to win. As a candidate, Obama offered a literal and metaphorical change from current politics, and this change excited people to volunteer for his campaign. Jon Carson, who managed the Obama field operations, noted how political neophytes were motivated to become involved: “An interesting thing about our field organization is [that] probably 85 percent of the staff we had and 75 percent of the volunteers had never been involved in a campaign before.”17 In the coming years, the relationship between Obama and his volunteers will likely evolve as he makes governing decisions that inevitably alienate idealists, including many in the netroots community. Indeed, conflict over health care reform and the loss of Senator Edward Kennedy’s seat to Republican Scott Brown in a special election have discouraged these formerly jubilant Democratic volunteers, while Republicans have reenergized. The voter mobilization efforts of the Obama campaign allowed affiliated organizations to refocus and more selectively target their mobilization efforts. Labor unions provide an example. The AFL-CIO focused on Colorado, emphasizing the Employee Free Choice Act and mobilizing their members in opposition to a paycheck protection measure on the state’s ballot that would permit labor union members to opt out of union dues meant for political purposes. The Colorado effort appeared successful. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, turnout among the 6 percent of Colorado residents who were union members increased 13 percentage points, compared with an increase of 10 percentage points among those who were not union members.18 Colorado voters rejected the paycheck protection measure, with 61 percent voting “no.” Furthermore, according to an internal AFL-CIO survey, 69 percent of AFL-CIO members nationally voted for Obama. According to the federation’s deputy political director, Mike Podhorzer, their mobilization efforts were conducted in support of Democratic Senate candidates as well.19 (See the descriptions of AFL-CIO involve­ment in Chapters 7 and 8.) Where Obama leveraged the Democratic tendencies of the Internet, McCain was unable to recreate the magic of the 2004 Bush campaign or his own surprising New Hampshire Republican primary win in 2000. The Pew Survey Research Center noted that higher levels of interest and engagement among Democrats compared with Republicans created an “enthusiasm gap” favoring the Democrats. 20 Under these circumstances, the party’s association with Bush

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would have dragged down any Republican candidate. However, McCain had particularly damaged his maverick credentials by campaigning for Bush during the 2004 election. McCain’s quick victory in the Republican nomination contest allowed him to consolidate Republicans behind his candidacy, yet the Pew Research Center found that McCain received less support from evangelicals and white conservatives than Bush did in 2000 and 2004. His selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate excited the Republican base, but her ability to draw larger crowds than McCain underscored Republicans’ dissatisfaction with their presidential nominee. McCain’s biggest asset, his independence, became a liability among both moderates and conservatives, who did not trust him for his wavering stances. The enthusiasm gap hobbled the McCain campaign in the all-important donations that would fund their organization. Becki Donatelli of the McCain campaign noted: Our demographic when this campaign started wasn’t there. The McCainiacs of 2000—the wild men—were all pretty much political centrists. And they had seen McCain by 2007 pretty much, they perceived, moving to the political right. . . . From the very first fundraising mail we had sent out in December of 2006 I was concerned that our group had changed significantly. . . . We were not raising the money. 21 Without money, the campaign could not fund other activities, such as a state-ofthe-art Web site, as Trevor Potter, McCain’s lead counsel, lamented: As people have said more than once, Obama has our Web site. I mean, he really does. He has what we thought we were going to have . . . which was a fancy, interactive, buzz-generating, money-generating, volunteer-generating Web site, and ours was going to be cutting-edge, etc. We immediately ran out of money so we never funded it the way it was designed, and then ended up shutting it down, actually. We have a Web site but it’s not what we were supposed to have, because we couldn’t afford it. 22 Even if McCain had been flush with money, his supporters were not the same tech-savvy people drawn to the Obama campaign. As Potter continued, “Obama has our base, too. I mean, in a funny way, the people who are younger and, therefore, more Internet-focused and reliant are more likely to be Obama voters.”23 A shaky transition within the Republican Party from the Bush campaign to the McCain campaign may have further hobbled McCain’s organizational efforts. McCain’s campaigning for Bush in 2004 was supposedly part of a deal that would create a détente between the once-warring McCain and Bush camps. 24 Yet, Democrats had successfully tied the architects of Bush’s campaign victory to Bush, making it difficult for McCain to employ Bush’s top campaign consultants in his White House bid. McCain’s trailing status further led to several campaign staff shake-ups, as is typical when a candidate is behind. According to Donatelli, McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis was in at an early stage and then he was out. Adam Nagourney reported that Davis was back in

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during the primaries and then was supplanted by Steve Schmidt, who took over many of his duties in July. 25 This uncertainty likely hobbled long-range planning efforts for activities such as the McCain campaign’s voter mobilization efforts. The protracted nomination battle on the Democratic side had a silver lining for Obama. Although Obama effectively wrapped up the nomination on May 6, the night of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the Democratic primary contest extended through all 50 states, while the Republican campaign ended relatively soon after McCain’s victory in the South Carolina primary. There are, of course, institutional reasons why the Democratic contest extended to the end, most notably, the absence of winner-take-all rules for awarding delegates to candidates. This institutional feature was compounded by the relative parity in power and political allure between Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. By contrast, amid a rather weak field and despite deep-seated reluctance among base conservatives to accept McCain’s candidacy, once the Arizona senator emerged as the winner of a few, large, winner-take-all primaries, the contest was over. While McCain sat on the sidelines, Clinton and Obama contested primary elections in what would later be critical battleground states, among them North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. The extended primary campaign served as a dress rehearsal for the general election, permitting Obama staffers to gain valuable experience as they moved from state to state. The Obama campaign’s investments in organization and volunteer recruitment made through early summer 2008 would not go to waste in November.

Microtargeting Television and other mass media have dominated presidential campaign message strategies in recent elections. These media remain important methods to reach voters; however, as Mike Podhorzer of the AFL-CIO noted, “People are [now] getting their information from so many different places.”26 Evan Tracey of TNS Media commented: Younger people “don’t have landlines. They don’t watch TV unless it’s TiVoed. They don’t watch the evening news; they watch cable news. They watch the opinion shows more than they watch the news shows. They don’t read newspapers. They read blogs and they read postings about newspaper articles. So they consume media very differently.”27 The diffusion of media devalues the mass media campaign strategies of even a decade ago. Media niches now exist that permit campaigns to tailor their messages to a specific audience. The concept of narrowcasting to targeted audiences naturally lends itself to voter mobilization efforts, where individual voters may be microtargeted. In the days of machine politics, ward bosses’ success depended on their intimate knowledge of their neighbors: whether they intended to vote, what was needed to buy—sometimes literally—their vote, and how to make sure they did indeed get to the polls and cast their vote for the right candidate. Modern volunteers are unlikely to have such depth of knowledge because they cannot devote their lives to community organizing in the same manner as these ward bosses of old. Further complicating matters is geographic mobility: The Census Bureau reported that 42 percent of citizens of voting age moved at least once between November 2004 and November 2008. 28 In a much more populous and highly mobile society, identifying persuadable voters is now a large-scale data management task best performed by sophisticated computer algorithms.

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The primary source of information for microtargeting is voter registration files, which—depending on the state—may contain a wealth of information, such as a voter’s age, race, sex, partisan registration, and voting history in previous elections, along with address and telephone number. An address allows individuals to be located within households, which provides clues to marital status and might identify target-rich houses with all registered voters of the same party. Further, individual records in voter registration files can be matched to commercial databases, which can help scrub the nearly half of registered voters who move from their address within four years. These databases can also fill in missing telephone numbers and e-mail addresses and can provide voters’ spending habits, which might indicate home ownership or the presence of children in the household. In addition to these clues as to what issues motivate voters, campaigns and other organizations conduct large-scale surveys designed to identify issues that are most important to voters. Campaigns now solicit supporters’ information through other means, such as the campaign Web site and text messaging. Any campaign contact—a donation, a volunteer offer, or a contact initiated by the campaign—is tracked in a master database. These data enable campaigns to employ high-tech statistical modeling techniques and low-tech seat-of-the-pants intuition to identify persuadable voters, volunteers, and potential contributors. When registration data are supplemented with commercial vendors’ data, persons listed in a commercial database without a match in the voter file can be targeted for voter registration activities. For voter mobilization targets, likely voters can be distinguished from moderate- to low-propensity voters, who might need a reminder to vote. The actual persuasion message may be narrowly targeted to specific audiences. For example, using software developed by Michael P. McDonald (one of the authors of this chapter), a 1998 California state legislative campaign sent a letter to single Republican men older than 60 years of age (what the campaign called the barfly target), touting the candidate’s opposition to a smoking ban in bars. The management of voter registration data has undergone significant changes in recent years. In the past, voter registration was managed at the local jurisdiction level, requiring collection of data files from many local election officials. For this reason, state political parties were often best suited to collect these data. They would disseminate the data further through data sharing agreements with campaigns, consultants, and their national party committee. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 required states to create a statewide master voter registration file. This greatly reduced data collection barriers and enabled the creation of a national voter registration list. It is not a coincidence that, in the words of Mike Podhorzer, the AFL-CIO “really embraced data collection and microtargeting in 2003”29 or that Ken Strasma founded his microtargeting company Strategic Telemetry in the same year. Interestingly, the parties’ voter list strategies follow their mobilization strategies. Republicans built their apparatus within the existing party structure. The Democrats also have an internal database, but have turned to outside organizations, such as Harold Ickes’ Catalist, for additional support. Clients are encouraged—often required—to enter the information collected from voter contacts into the data file so that an increasingly sophisticated profile of registered voters is continually developed.

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The extended primary campaign permitted Obama’s campaign operation to gain valuable experience. Ickes reported that the initially better-funded and presumptive front runner Clinton had a “full-blown contract” with Catalist from the beginning, while the Obama campaign had only a “minimal contract” and did not do their “due diligence” by fully merging their campaign’s database with Catalist’s database until June, after Obama wrapped up the nomination. 30 Given that Obama’s nomination victory was not a certainty from the start, and given his relative outsider status, it made sense for his campaign to operate state by state. Ken Strasma reflected that there was a cost to this approach: In the later primaries, which dragged on a lot longer than I had expected, we would find ourselves every few weeks shifting into another state and that was a bit of a challenge, [in] that the formats or the structure of what data was available was different, state by state. . . . ​So that was one of the values of shifting to a combination of Catalist and the DNC’s national standardized products. In general, then, there was one exact format for all the states and we only had to set it up once. And that is really a lot of broadening the volume, that we were able to turn around processing.31

Directing Volunteer Activities Presidential campaigns must direct the activities of thousands of volunteers throughout the country. In the not-so-distant past, the campaign office was the primary point of contact between campaigns and volunteers. Staff in campaign offices distributed to volunteers their lists of targeted voters formatted as telephone or walk sheets, depending on the mobilization activity. The results of these mobilization efforts would be entered into the data system at the campaign offices. These coordinated efforts have measurable positive effects on turning out a candidate’s supporters. 32 This top-down framework was in part driven by technology, since management of voter registration files occurred on paper or computers located in the campaign offices. Campaigns still rely on field offices, and Obama had more than 700 offices compared with McCain’s 400. 33 However, campaigns are no longer geographically tied to their physical field offices. Volunteers in nontargeted areas are willing to donate unused cell phone minutes and are sometimes even willing to travel to where they are needed. Campaign offices can also be virtual rather than physical. Telephone and walk sheets can be disseminated over the Internet, and Web-based data entry tools can be used to collect the results of these efforts. A campaign no longer needs an office to have a substantial presence; it just needs a volunteer with an Internet connection. Volunteers no longer need to show up at brick-and-mortar campaign offices; they often need little more than a cell phone and half an hour. The innovative Obama campaign found new ways to wield the power of volunteers. One of the most highly attended Obama events of the primary campaign was a December 2007 outdoor campaign rally featuring Oprah Winfrey at Williams-Brice Stadium on the Columbia campus of the University of South Carolina. The Obama campaign posted event volunteers at every entrance gate, and these volunteers distributed note cards to every adult entering the stadium.

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About 30 minutes before the event started, a young campaign staffer from the South Carolina headquarters asked everyone in the estimated crowd of 29,000 to use their cell phone to make calls to the five South Carolina registered voters whose names and contact information were printed on the cards. Attendees were asked to tell these prospective voters where they were and why they were supporting Barack Obama for president. When they completed the task, attendees were asked to text message the campaign’s five-digit number. Conservatively subtracting for children, those without cell phones, and those who did not comply, there were probably 15,000 participating cell phone callers that day. That means that the Obama campaign contacted upward of 75,000 South Carolina primary voters in about 15 minutes—and collected the cell phone numbers of 15,000 potential future volunteers, donors, and rally attendees. Nine months later, on the night of Obama’s Democratic National Convention acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver, the campaign signed up an estimated 30,000 cell phones for the campaign’s text messaging program. 34 This was the vision for organic mobilization that Senator Obama, himself a former community organizer, brought to the campaign from the very start, according to campaign technology adviser Joe Rospars: There was this feeling in January 2007 when we started that there was something out there, and the question was whether we were going to blow it and not take advantage of it, or whether we could build something that would give those folks the basic tools to do their thing locally—organizing, fundraising, doing outreach. And also—and I think this is the crucial point—is the ethos of that expectation that they should do that. 35 For example, having the infrastructure in place for Obama’s official campaign announcement from Springfield, Illinois, in February 2007 was critical, says Rospars. Using the campaign’s Web site, more than 1,000 online grassroots organizations formed within 24 hours of Obama’s announcement. 36 As November approached, the Obama campaign used other social networking tools to their advantage. With help from Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, the campaign used a Facebook application on its Web site to help supporters identify friends who were also Obama supporters and then to encourage them to contact those friends as their respective states’ early voting periods opened. More than two million supporters installed the Obama campaign’s Facebook application, according to Rospars. An application created by an Obama volunteer for the iPhone sorted through supporters’ address books and, using area codes, identified people living in swing states and kept a call log that both encouraged people to call their friends in swing states and kept track of those calls. “We’re very jealous,” McCain media adviser Becki Donatelli confessed to Rospars during a postelection conference co-sponsored by the University of Southern California’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and Politico.com. “We loved your iPhone application.”37 Though most media attention focused on Obama’s appeal to young voters, the McCain campaign received field help from their traditionally better-organized College Republican chapters, which also adapted new technology for the McCain campaign in a manner similar to that used by the Obama campaign,

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if on a smaller scale. According to Charlie Smith, College Republican national chairman, working with a $3 million budget, in 2008, the College Republicans hired 50 full-time organizers and recruited 142,000 field volunteers, up from 81,000 during the 2006 midterm cycle. Unlike methods used as recently as the 2004 presidential campaign, when volunteer information was often still recorded with pen and paper, the College Republicans used a digitized program called Student Tools for Online Mobilization, or STORM. “The first email they get says, ‘Hey John, welcome to the organization. We’re glad you could come. Please pass this on to five friends to help invite them into the organization,’” Smith explained. “So it starts to spread to a peer network that way as well. Because it is more effective if I ask my friend to join the organization than if I ask some stranger to do it.”38 Technological advances in social networking have had two major beneficial effects on campaigning. First, campaigns can be disaggregated to the individual volunteer level. Individual citizens, enabled by new technologies and more sophisticated and accessible lists, serve as modern ward bosses. Second, technology removes many of the limitations that geography imposes on campaigning. With a little bit of information and encouragement from campaigns, modern ward bosses can use cell phones, e-mail, text messaging, and other applications to communicate and organize inside and outside their own virtual ward—and often from the privacy of home. Put another way, while the broader, precinctlevel of intimacy that ward bosses relied on decades ago cannot be duplicated, technology today allows for more individuals with a narrower but equally intimate knowledge of their virtual neighbors to replicate ward boss tactics for modern campaigns. “People tend to believe information delivered by people they know and who live in their neighborhood more than an ad they see on television or what some third party from out of their state is telling them,” said longtime Democratic consultant John Sasso. “It can really change the electoral map.”39 And in 2008, it did.

Voter Mobilization and Early Voting As noted, another phenomenon of the 2008 presidential election was early voting. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, approximately 30 percent of all votes were cast before Election Day, up from 20 percent in 2004 and part of a steadily increasing trend from 7 percent in 1992.40 While these increases in early voting were generally experienced in states across the country, some states saw tremendous growth in early voting. As summarized in Table 4.1, among the sample states investigated in this book, in Colorado, ballots cast before Election Day increased from 48 percent to 79 percent (see Chapter 8). In North Carolina, the number increased from 31 percent to 61 percent (see Chapter 5). Even Ohio saw an increase from 11 percent to 25 percent (see Chapter 7), and in New Mexico, the increase was from 51 percent to 62 percent (see Chapter 9). A further important distinction is that early voting takes different forms in these states. In Colorado and Ohio, early voting primarily occurs though procedures that permit no-excuse absentee voting. Colorado further allows persons to sign up permanently to always receive an absentee ballot. In North Carolina and New Mexico, early voting predominantly occurs at special early voting sites.

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Table 4.1  Percentage of Votes Cast Early in 2004 and 2008 Jurisdiction National Colorado New Hampshire New Mexico North Carolina Ohio

2004 % Early Votes

2008 % Early Votes

20 48 9 51 31 11

30 79 10 62 61 25

Source: Personal communication with Don Rehill, Associated Press Elections Research and Quality Control Group, March 6, 2009. Used with permission.

North Carolina further permits persons who are not registered to vote to register and vote, simultaneously, at their early voting locations; however, only previously registered voters may vote on Election Day. Ohio has a similar, but smaller window permitting new registrants to participate in “one-stop” voting at the start of their early voting period. Rates of early voting are much lower in New Hampshire, where an excuse is required to vote absentee and early voting is primarily conducted by mail. The Obama campaign used early voting to their advantage. When the voter registration period concluded in many states, the campaign shifted its volunteers from voter registration to early voter mobilization. Jackie Lee, the head of Obama’s Florida voter registration effort, noted after the state’s registration deadline passed, “Registering to vote . . . ​that’s only half the challenge. We now need for all voters to get out to the polls, starting on Monday.”41 The message to vote early came from the candidates themselves. Obama urged his supporters, “If you haven’t voted yet, don’t wait until November 4.”42 Biden cruised Florida on an “Early Vote for Change” bus tour,43 and in an event he attended in Commerce City, Colorado, those supporters sporting an “I Voted” sticker were given the best seats.44 Whereas the Obama campaign had an early voting mobilization plan in place, the McCain campaign appeared to be caught off guard by the high volume of early voting.45 While campaigning in Florida during the state’s early voting period, McCain did not even mention early voting.46 The campaign only belatedly launched an early voting campaign a week after North Carolina’s early voting period opened, with Sarah Palin exhorting campaign rally attendees, “Cast that vote early for John McCain.”47 McCain advisor Mike DuHaime rosily predicted that their efforts would be sufficient: “I feel that our numbers in the absentee ballots, as well as the number of people who are going to turn out and early vote and the number of people that are going to turn out on Election Day, will more than compensate.”48 There is direct evidence in North Carolina that the Obama campaign was successful at mobilizing supporters to vote early, while the McCain campaign lagged. For every early voter, state election officials provide the voter registration record and date that the voter cast a ballot. This makes it possible to track the number of registered Democrats and Republicans voting on each day during the early voting period. North Carolina election officials typically permit early voting during weekdays and during a limited period during the weekend. Yet,

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in one instance, the Obama campaign held a campaign event on Sunday, October 19, in Cumberland County. Concerned that early voting would overtax their polling places on Monday, county election officials—a Republican included— took the unusual move of opening early voting locations on Sunday and expanding the number of early voting sites.49 The number of persons voting early on that Sunday was 2,817, with 72 percent registered as Democrats. In the week that followed, the mobilization effect persisted: The number of registered Democrats voting early surged to more than 3,400 voting on Monday and Tuesday, before declining back toward 3,000 later in the week. 50 In Cumberland County, as elsewhere in North Carolina and other states, the number of early voters surged as the end of the early voting period approached. Throughout the entire period in North Carolina, Democrats consistently held nearly a two-to-one partisan registration advantage over Republicans in early voting. In Cumberland County, Democratic registrants held more than a threeto-one advantage over the entire early voting period. As an indicator of the contrast in the early voting mobilization efforts of the two campaigns, when McCain visited Cumberland County on Tuesday, October 28, the number of registered Republicans voting early increased from 1,123 on Monday to only 1,255 on Tuesday and 1,341 on Wednesday. It is difficult to discern whether this bump is due to McCain’s visit or the trend for early voting to rise as the end of the early voting period nears. During this same period, Democrats continued to surge along at slightly less than a three-to-one advantage. The tilt of early voting toward Obama that was seen in North Carolina occurred nationally, too. Polls consistently showed that Obama was decisively winning the early vote. For example, in their last pre-election tracking poll, ABC News/​Washington Post reported that Obama held a margin of 58 percent to 40 percent among early voters. 51 This advantage was greater than his margin of 53 percent to 45 percent in the election, suggesting that Obama did indeed win the early vote, while McCain was more at parity in the Election Day vote. Despite optimistic predictions by McCain advisors, in states with high levels of early voting, Obama had banked so many early votes that McCain simply could not catch up on Election Day. As McCain’s 2008 national political director Bo Harmon explained, a risk of early voting is the lost impact of late-campaign events, messaging, and persuasion efforts. “[Early voting] makes it harder to incorporate newer items that may come up,” said Harmon. “That’s different. When people are voting early, they can’t incorporate those things that happened the weekend before the elections.”52 This downside of early voting was perhaps no better evident than during the primary campaigns. After John Edwards dropped out of the Democratic nomination contest, a California voter who had cast his ballot for Edwards grumbled, “I would have rather been able to vote for somebody that’s on the ticket.”53 In addition to its effect on voter mobilization efforts, early voting may change the dynamics of voter persuasion. If, for example, a campaign has negative information about the opponent, early voting forces campaigns to get the damning “October surprise” message out before the last weekend before the election. The opponent then has time to develop a response, muting the effect of such last-minute information. For a high-profile contest such as the 2008 presidential election, in which Obama supporters maintained high levels of enthusiasm

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despite widely publicized negative information (such as that concerning his former pastor Jeremiah Wright), it is difficult to imagine what “October surprise” information could have been made public that would have changed the minds of Obama voters. Indeed, enthusiasm likely motivated many Obama supporters to vote early absent any direct mobilization by the campaigns. Early voting has clearly changed the way in which presidential elections operate. What deserves further investigation is how early voting affects lower ballot races, where there is not as much information circulating publicly. State and local campaigns do not have the same resources as a presidential campaign to persuade and mobilize supporters. Early voters may choose to skip voting in elections where there is little information or may follow their normal partisan voting tendencies, which may differ from their presidential vote choice.

Implementing Voter Mobilization Strategies in the 2008 Presidential Election As discussed in Chapters 1 to 3, the story of the 2008 election is one of disparate resources. The greater enthusiasm among Obama’s supporters gave him an advantage in volunteers and money, the latter being invested back into the campaign to recruit more volunteers. To have a chance, the McCain campaign would need to effectively target their relatively limited resources. As the two campaigns entered August convention season, blogger Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com estimated that in key states the Obama campaign unofficially had more than a three-to-one advantage in field offices opened compared with the McCain campaign. Silver noted that the Obama offices were both more organic—many of McCain’s locations were actually so-called victory offices run by the respective state Republican parties rather than directly by the McCain campaign—and were located more strategically in swing states. 54 To take just one notable example, by October, in the battleground state of Virginia, the Washington Post reported that the Obama campaign had a 51-to-19 advantage in campaign field offices. 55 Obama had a record-setting volunteer operation as well. Using the thirteen million e-mail addresses and more than a million cell phone numbers they collected, the Obama campaign sent 7,000 different e-mail solicitations and texted people five to twenty times per month—including three texts on Election Day. Using the campaign’s social networking tool, my.BarackObama.com, volunteers also organized 200,000 events, generated 400,000 blog posts, raised $30 million and, in the final four days of the campaign, completed three million telephone calls. 56 A grateful David Plouffe noted, “We were blessed to have this grass roots energy. This isn’t all about a plan. People were motivated, not just to give us money and volunteer occasionally, [but] we had people who were giving us 20, 30, 40, 50 hours a week, who had one, two, three jobs. It was a remarkable thing.”57 Top Republicans knew that, in organizational terms, they were fighting an uphill battle. McCain senior advisor Greg Jenkins acknowledged that “the McCain ground game wasn’t as good as [Obama’s] ground game was.”58 As far as paid campaign staff, by late July 2008 the Obama paid campaign staff was already twice the size of George W. Bush’s in 2004, and thrice the size

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of McCain’s. 59 “There’s a lot out there to be fearful of from our perspective,” Republican campaign consultant Chris LaCivita admitted in July 2008. “It will be just interesting to see how it all unfolds, but if it comes down to a neck and neck campaign, we’ll lose because we don’t have the ground operation that the Bush campaign had.”60 LaCivita’s fears were realized: In the final week of the election, as the campaign was forced to choose between spending money on television advertising versus field operations, many McCain field operatives were told that they should not expect that the campaign would cover their airfare, hotel, and other travel expenses for get-out-the-vote efforts. “The desire for parity on television comes at the expense of investment in paid boots on the ground,” a top Republican strategist told the Washington Post during the last week of the campaign. “The folks who will oversee the volunteer operation have been told to get out into the field on their own nickel.”61 Still, the McCain campaign may have reached parity in mobilization efforts in some key battleground states. In terms of strategy, Michael Beach, national director for the Republican National Committee’s Victory program, reported that the McCain campaign husbanded its resources by targeting only low- to moderate-propensity voters, hoping that high-propensity voters would take care of themselves.62 While the election outcome tells the success of these strategies, we can investigate deeper with some polling data. The media’s national exit polls provide an overall measure of the effectiveness of the two campaigns’ voter mobilization efforts. In 2008, 34 percent of respondents reported a contact with a political campaign, a decline of 2 percentage points from the 36 percent reported in 2004. Reflecting the resource differential, this lower level of contact occurred entirely among McCain supporters. Only 19 percent of respondents reported a contact with the McCain campaign, compared with 24 percent for Bush, while an equal 26 percent reported a contact from the Obama and Kerry campaigns (some respondents reported contact from both campaigns).63 In selected states, the media asked a campaign contact question on their national and state-level exit polls. The question was asked in three of the five battleground states under study. Nationally, 13 percent of voters reported a contact from only the Obama campaign, 6 percent from only the McCain campaign, and 13 percent from both. As expected, the reported levels of contact were higher in battleground states than across the entire country. In Colorado, where the Democrats held their party convention and brought together their supporters at a large outdoor rally at Invesco Field, 22 percent of voters reported a contact from the Obama campaign only, 4 percent from the McCain campaign only, and 29 percent from both. In North Carolina, 14 percent of voters reported a contact from the Obama campaign only, 5 percent from the McCain campaign only, and 20 percent from both. In Ohio, 15 percent reported a contact from the Obama campaign only, 8 percent from the McCain campaign only, and 28 percent from both. The last ABC News/Washington Post pre-election tracking poll, conducted the weekend before the election, suggested that the imbalance in reported contact among exit poll respondents may have been overstated. Nationally, 28 percent of likely voters reported a contact with the Obama campaign, while 22 percent reported a contact with the McCain campaign, which is a similar pattern but at a slightly lower level of contact than was later reported in the exit

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polls. As the states increased in importance, the reported levels of contact originating from the two campaigns narrowed. In the poll’s eighteen defined battleground states, 39 percent of likely voters reported a contact with the Obama campaign, and 34 percent reported a contact with the McCain campaign. In the ABC News/Washington Post five toss-up states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana, the two campaigns reached parity, with 36 percent of likely voters reporting a contact with the Obama campaign and 35 percent reporting a contact with the McCain campaign. There are many reasons for these seemingly conflicting results. The National Election Pool exit poll queried about contact taking place in person or by telephone, while the ABC News/Washington Post poll included any contact, including those made electronically. The exit poll had no time frame, while the pre-election poll asked specifically about campaign contact the week before the interview period (October 30 to November 2). Thus, voters who had contact with the Obama campaign during the primaries or in the general election early voting period may have reasonably responded in an exit poll that they had received a contact, but might have responded “no” if they participated in the ABC News/Washington Post poll. In terms of actual votes generated, these polls suggest that, while the Obama campaign was more efficient nationally, McCain achieved a semblance of parity in key states. Nationally, exit polls reported that 64 percent of respondents contacted by the Obama campaign voted for Obama, while 60 percent of respondents contacted by the McCain campaign voted for McCain. The ABC News/ Washington Post poll indicated an even greater disparity, with 70 percent of likely voters contacted by the Obama campaign the week before the election expressing support for Obama and 53 percent contacted by the McCain campaign supporting McCain. These disparities persisted in the poll’s eighteen defined battleground states, with 66 percent of Obama contacts supporting Obama and 54 percent of McCain contacts supporting McCain. However, in the toss-up states, McCain actually had an apparent advantage, with 56 percent of Obama contacts supporting Obama and 60 percent of McCain contacts supporting McCain. In other words, McCain was more efficient at targeting his supporters. The exit polls told a similar story, at least among some of the toss-up states defined by ABC News and the Washington Post. In Florida, 60 percent of Obama contacts reported voting for Obama and 58 percent of McCain contacts reported voting for McCain. In Ohio, 59 percent of Obama contacts voted for Obama and 58 percent of McCain contacts voted for McCain. Obama perhaps had an advantage in North Carolina, where 66 percent of Obama contacts reported voting for Obama and 58 percent of McCain contacts voted for McCain. The problem for McCain’s campaign was that the electoral battleground had shifted so much that the toss-up states, as defined by ABC News and the Wash­ ington Post, were insufficient for McCain to win the presidency. As November drew near, Obama’s consistent lead in national polls, coupled with his campaign’s funding advantage, created an asymmetry in the strategic approach of the two campaigns. McCain, who initially harbored hopes of flipping battleground states where he had shown strength in early polling such as Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, was effectively boxed into the position of trying to recreate the Bush maps from the two previous cycles. Those combinations of states

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were sufficient for a win, of course, but in effect McCain was playing defense and was forced to invest heavily in swing states such as Ohio and Florida that were red, but barely so, in 2000 and 2004. Obama, by contrast, was enjoying comfortable leads in most of the 19 states carried by Al Gore and John Kerry, freeing him to spend ample resources on offense. He no longer needed to worry about holding blue-leaning swing states such as Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and he had the luxury of contesting red-leaning swing states such as Florida, New Mexico, and Ohio, and investing heavily in Colorado, Indiana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Virginia—states that McCain would otherwise assume were in his column. Had the national poll results been closer or had fundraising totals been more equal, Obama would have been unable to risk expending mobilization resources in states such as Indiana and North Carolina—places he won narrowly, thanks in part to such efforts. The success of these mobilization efforts can also be measured by turnout rates among targeted groups. A media-driven story from the 2008 presidential primaries and extending through the general election was the effectiveness of the Obama campaign in expanding the electorate by bringing in new voters, primarily young people and minorities. The exit polls indicated that turnout rates increased by roughly an equal amount among all age categories between 2004 and 2008. Persons 18–29 years old constituted 17 percent of the 2004 electorate and 18 percent of the 2008 electorate. Thus, young people did vote at a higher rate, but so did all other age groups.64 The Obama campaign appears to have been more successful at mobilizing African Americans, who constituted 11 percent of the 2004 electorate and 13 percent of the 2008 electorate (see Chapter 5). While this increase of 2 percentage points may seem minor, and perhaps is not even outside the exit poll’s margin of error, significant increases in turnout in states with large African American populations—particularly non-battleground states—indicate that turnout was higher among African Americans. In fact, nationwide, the overall turnout numbers for whites increased just 1 percent between 2004 and 2008, but jumped 19 percent for minorities and 23 percent for African Americans.65 Obama’s targeted mobilization effort appears to have been a key component for this surge in minority voting.66 Interestingly, the exit polls also indicated that, in battleground states with large African American populations, increasing white turnout kept pace with African American turnout. For example, according to the exit polls, African Americans constituted 26 percent of the 2004 North Carolina electorate and 23 percent of the 2008 North Carolina electorate. McCain appears to have kept pace with Obama in turning out older white voters in key toss-up states. Unfortunately for McCain, however, these states were all red states won by Bush in 2004, and even winning these states would not have been sufficient for a McCain victory.

Conclusion In 2002, the Bush campaign fashioned a voter mobilization organization to surpass the prowess of their Democratic rival and propel Bush to victory in 2004. Just four years later, this organization was already out of date. Hobbled by early

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voting and technological innovations, the 72-hour plan earned this epitaph from McCain campaign media adviser Rob Kubasko: “What an old, old antiquated model that is completely obsolete.”67 If Bush had been more popular and conservatives more enthusiastic about John McCain, we would likely be writing about how the Republicans continued their voter mobilization edge in 2008. Even so, the clock was running out on the 72-hour strategy. Early voting has been dramatically increasing, and in 2008, innovations in social networking were ripe for exploitation by the campaigns. The last decade demonstrated that necessity is the mother of political invention. Republicans evolved to address perceived Democratic advantages, and Democrats evolved as well. The onus is now on the Republicans to refashion their campaign strategies and tactics. Republicans may find it difficult to do so because their conservative, older base is not as comfortable with new technologies as the younger Democratic base, as evident from disparate cell phone usage among younger and older respondents in exit polls. The silver lining for the Republicans is that tremendous change has occurred over the last decade and will likely continue in the near term. Republicans have the incentive to adapt, while Democrats may be lulled into complacency by their success. Despite the recent changes, and regardless of the form that political campaigns take in the next decade, the centuries-old basic principles will remain. Campaigns need to convince persuadable persons to support their candidate and get the supporters to the polls. American citizens have reengaged with the democratic process by volunteering and voting; the forms may have changed, but not the functions. In the short term, the conditions for heightened political involvement are likely to persist and may even expand.

Notes 1. Robert Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty (New York: Knopf, 2002); Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of Amer­ ican Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000); Ruy Teixeira, The Disappearing Ameri­ can Voter (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1992). 2.  American National Election Study data are compiled by the authors from various years of the survey, available at http://www.electionstudies.org/ (accessed June 2, 2009). 3.  Alan S. Gerber and Donald P. Green, “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment,” American Political Science Review, 94, no. 3 (2000), 653–663. 4.  The Census Bureau conducts a monthly survey to generate labor statistics, known as the Current Population Survey. In a federal election year, the Census Bureau asks a limited number of questions about registration and voting on the November survey. These statistics are compiled by the authors from data available through the Current Population Survey’s webpage, available at http://www.census.gov/cps/ (accessed April 5, 2009). 5. Edward J. Larson, A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, Amer­ ica’s First Presidential Campaign (New York: Free Press, 2007). 6. Mark Gray and Miki Caul, “Declining Voter Turnout in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997: The Effects of Declining Group Mobilization,” Comparative Political Stud­ ies, 33, no. 9 (2000), 1091–1122; Benjamin Radcliff and Patricia Davis, “Labor Organization and Electoral Participation in Industrial Democracies,” American Journal of Political Science, 44, no. 1 (2000), 132–141. 7. Matt Bai, The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics (New York: Penguin Press, 2007); David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson, “The Lingering Effects of a Night Spent Dancing,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties, and Interest Groups Interact in the Presidential Campaign, ed. David B.

Voter Mobilization in the 2008 Presidential Election  /  105 Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 163–172. 8.  J. Quin Monson, “Get on Television vs. Get on the Van: GOTV and the Ground War in 2002,” in The Last Hurrah?: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elec­ tions, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 107–110. 9.  Thomas F. Schaller, “All the President’s Man,” Baltimore, June 2004, 42–46. 10. Matt Bai, “The Multilevel Marketing of the President,” New York Times Magazine, April 25, 2004, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/magazine/25GROUNDWAR. html (accessed June 28, 2010). 11. Steve Rosenthal, co-founder of the Organizing Group, interview by David B. Magleby, May 19, 2008. 12. Matt Bai, “Machine Dreams,” New York Times Magazine, August 21, 2005; David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson, “Introduction,” in Dancing without Part­ ners: How Candidates, Parties, and Interest Groups Interact in the Presidential Campaign, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 1–31. 13.  For example, see a description of Obama’s volunteer organization posted by blogger Zack Exley, available at http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/546,October 8, 2008 (accessed April 20, 2009). 14.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking, 2009), 380. 15.  Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-powered Politics (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2006), 2. 16.  Bill Schneider, in an appearance on Lou Dobbs Tonight, December 26, 2008. 17.  Jon Carson, “Campaign Management and Field Operations,” in Electing the President 2008: An Insider’s View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 42. 18.  Current Population Survey (see note 4). 19. Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, interview by David Magleby, November 14, 2008. 20.  The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “McCain’s Enthusiasm Gap, Obama’s Unity Gap: Likely Rise in Voter Turnout Bodes Well for Democrats,” July 10, 2008. 21.  Becki Donatelli, McCain–Palin 2008, comments at post-election conference co-sponsored by the Jesse M. Unruh Institute for Politics and Politico.com, November 22, 2008, Los Angeles. 22.  Trevor Potter, lead counsel for McCain campaign, interview by David Magleby, July 17, 2008. 23. Ibid. 24. Peter Baker, “Alliance and Rivalry Link Bush, McCain,” Washington Post, April 27, 2007, A4. 25.  Adam Nagourney, “McCain Orders Shake-up of His Campaign,” New York Times, July 3, 2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/03/us/politics/03manage.html?_ r=1&scp=1&sq=McCain%20orders%20shakeup%20of%20his%20campaign&st=cse (accessed May, 27 2009). 26. Podhorzer, interview. 27. Evan Tracey, TNS Media/Campaign Media Analysis Group, interview by David Magleby, September 24, 2008. 28.  Current Population Survey (see note 4). 29. Podhorzer, interview. 30.  Harold Ickes, Catalist president, interview by David Magleby, November 14, 2009. 31.  Ken Strasma, founder of Strategic Telemetry, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 32. See Seth E. Masket, “Did Obama’s Ground Game Matter?: The Influence of Local Field Offices During the 2008 Presidential Election,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 73, no. 5 (2009), 1023–1039. 33. Michael Luo and Mike McIntire. “With Ambitious Campaign, Obama Is Both Big Spender and Penny Pincher,” New York Times, October 31, 2008, A18.

106  /  Michael P. McDonald and Thomas F. Schaller 34.  Jose Antonio Vargas, “Obama Raised a Half Million Online,” washingtonpost.com, November 20, 2008, available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/20/obama_ raised_half_a_billion_on.html (accessed June 6, 2009). 35.  “Election 2008: Obama v. McCain: What Happened and What Comes Next?” postelection conference co-sponsored by the Jesse M. Unruh Institute for Politics and Politico.com, November 21–22, 2008, Los Angeles, available at http://capture.usc.edu/college/ Viewer/?peid=b4223dfd-d888-40af-9d3a-e3a2dbd8dc62 (accessed June 6, 2009). 36. Ibid. 37.  Donatelli, comments. 38.  Charlie Smith, College Republican national chair, interview by David Magleby, November 13, 2008. 39.  John Sasso, quoted in Brian C. Mooney, “Obama’s Paid Staff Dwarfing McCain’s,” Bos­ ton Globe, July 20, 2008, available at http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/07/20/ obamas_paid_staff_dwarfing_mccains/ (May 27, 2009). 40.  Current Population Survey, 2008 (see note 4). 41.  Beth Reinhard, “Clinton Campaigns in Florida to Promote Early Voting,” McClatchyTribune News Service, October 20, 2008. 42. Mike Barker, “NC GOP Lashes Out at Voting Sites near Obama Rally,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 19, 2008. 43.  “Early Vote Leaning Obama’s Direction?” St. Petersburg Times, October 26, 2008, 3B. 44.  “Palin, Biden in Colorado as Early Voting Starts,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 20, 2008. 45. Mike Baker, “NC Early Voting Continues at Breakneck Pace,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 18, 2008. 46.  Beth Reinhard, “Clinton Campaigns in Florida to Promote Early Voting,” McClatchyTribune News Service, October 20, 2008. 47. Mike Baker, “More than 1M People Cast NC Early Voting Ballots,” Associated Press State and Local Wire, October 27, 2008. 48.  “Early Vote Leaning Obama’s Direction?” St. Petersburg Times. 49. Mike Barker, “NC GOP Lashes Out.” 50. Statistics from the North Carolina voter registration and November 2008 early voter files compiled by the authors, available at ftp://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/ (accessed January 1, 2009). 51.  ABC News/Washington Post Tracking Poll: Election Tracking #15, “Obama Leads on Election Eve; Economy Makes a Difference,” November 3, 2008. 52.  Bo Harmon, McCain national political director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 53. Scott Martell, “Early-bird Voters Sometimes Get Burned,” Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2008. The citizen’s claim is backed up by real data—in Contra Costa County, more than 80 percent of John Edwards’s votes were cast absentee while only 40 percent of Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s votes were cast absentee (both figures are close to the overall proportion of absentee ballots in the primary). 54. Nate Silver, “Obama Leads Better than 3:1 in Field Offices,” fivethirtyeight.com, available at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/obama-leads-better-than-31-in-field.html. 55. Matthew Mosk, “With Huge Money Advantage, Obama Ramps Up Ads,” Washington Post, October 15, 2008, A5. 56.  Jose Antonio Vargas, “Obama Raised a Half Million Online,” washingtonpost. com, November 20, 2008, available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/20/ obama_raised_half_a_billion_on.html. 57.  David Plouffe, “ Campaign Management and Field Operations,” in Electing the Presi­ dent 2008: An Insider’s View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 41. 58.  Alexander Burns, “Obama Aides: Lieberman Would Have Helped,” Politico, November 21, 2008, available at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15876.html (accessed December 6, 2008). 59.  Brian C. Mooney, “Obama’s Paid Staff Dwarfing McCain’s,” Boston Globe, July 20, 2008. 60.  Chris LaCivita, Republican campaign consultant, interview by David Magleby, July 28, 2008.

Voter Mobilization in the 2008 Presidential Election  /  107 61. Matthew Mosk, “In Final Stretch, McCain to Pour Money into TV Ads,” Washington Post, October 31, 2008, A3. 62. Personal communication, December 9, 2008. Michael Beach made similar comments in a conference panel entitled “Early Voting in 2008” during the Pew Center on the States conference “Voting in America: The Road Ahead,” December 9, 2008, Washington, DC. 63.  2008 National Election Pool, available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26843704 (accessed December 11, 2008). 64. Roper Center Public Opinion Archives, National Election Pool Exit Polls, available at http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/ (accessed June 20, 2010). 65. Philip A. Klinker and Thomas F. Schaller, “LBJ’s Revenge: The 2008 Election and the Rise of the Great Society Coalition,” The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contempo­ rary Politics 6, issue 4, article 9 (2009), available at http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol6/iss4/art9 (accessed June 6, 2009). 66.  Tasha S. Philpot, Daron R. Shaw, and Ernest B. McGowen, “Winning the Race: Black Voter Turnout in the 2008 Presidential Election” Public Opinion Quarterly 73, no. 5 (2009), 995–1022. 67.  “Election 2008: Obama v. McCain: What Happened and What Comes Next?” political conference co-sponsored by the Jesse M. Unruh Institute for Politics and Politico.com, November 21–22, 2008, Los Angeles, available at http://capture.usc.edu/college/Viewer/?peid=b4223dfdd888-40af-9d3a-e3a2dbd8dc62 (accessed June 6, 2009).

5

The Conditional Party Teams of the 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

A

mong the tidal wave of victories for Democrats during the 2008 election, three of the party’s most significant wins came, somewhat surprisingly, in North Carolina. In the battle for the presidency, Democrat Barack Obama defeated Republican John McCain by just over 13,000 votes, 49.9 percent to 49.5 percent. Obama’s victory reversed more than a quarter century of success for Republicans in the Tar Heel State, dating back to Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter in 1980. Congressional races brought their share of upsets and national attention as well, in part because of the unusual team effort between the Democratic presidential candidate and the North Carolina Democratic candidates. North Carolina Democrats usually attempt to avoid the liberal taint of the party’s presidential candidate. In 2008, they found appropriate conditions to collaborate as a team: an unpopular GOP, and a presidential candidate who committed substantial resources to winning the state and who had the ability to mobilize the party base without turning off “Dixiecrat” (conservative Democratic) voters. In North Carolina’s U.S. Senate election, Democrat Kay Hagan, a state senator with relatively little statewide name recognition, defied early odds and cruised to a 53 percent to 44 percent victory over Republican Elizabeth Dole.1 In the Eighth Congressional District, Republican Robin Hayes’s slim margin of victory of just 329 votes in the 2006 midterm elections against political neophyte Larry Kissell set the stage for their rematch in 2008. Despite outspending Kissell $3.7 million to $1.5 million in their 2008 contest, Hayes could not overcome the impending national Democratic landslide and heavy spending by Kissell’s party and group allies, and he lost his seat after a decade in office.

National and Statewide Conditions North Carolina’s recent history as a consistently “red” state in presidential elections was reason for GOP optimism in the early stages of the 2008 election. However, troubling signs began to emerge for Republicans as the 2008 election cycle progressed. The sagging popularity of Republican President George W. Bush was amplified by the declining economic situation in 2008. In North Carolina, President Bush’s disapproval ratings topped his approval ratings for much of his second term, forcing Republican candidates into the difficult position of distancing themselves from the unpopular head of their party. 2 A competitive Democratic presidential primary was another factor that benefited North Carolina Democrats. Late primaries, such as North Carolina’s

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  109

May primary, often come after the nominees have been determined. That was not the case in 2008, as Barack Obama, the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, won the North Carolina primary against Hillary Clinton on May 6, 2008. Leading up to the primary, Obama built a sizable grassroots operation throughout the state that brought with it the potential to mobilize thousands of first-time, young, and minority voters for down-ballot candidates in November. Indeed, this was especially important in the Eighth Congressional District, where 27 percent of the residents are African American compared with 21 percent statewide. 3 Finally, North Carolina Republicans were challenged by population changes in the state. An influx of professionals and Latinos led to the possibility of altering the usual composition of the statewide electorate.4 Among the new professionals moving to North Carolina, many came from non-Southern states, bringing with them a greater willingness to vote for a Democrat. Paul Shumaker, a Republican strategist, summarized: “[North Carolina] is increasingly made up of voters who have moved here in the past fifteen years, voters more attuned to national issues and less affiliated with any party. . . . ​T heir feelings are reflective more of the mood of the country than the mood of the state.”5

The Candidates North Carolina was unusual in 2008, with highly competitive contests for president and U.S. Senate, and one U.S. House contest. Multiple factors make elections competitive, but one essential element is the candidates themselves.

Presidential Election What proved to be the crucial feature of the presidential campaign for North Carolina was almost assuredly the state’s hotly contested Democratic primary. While McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination by the time of North Carolina’s primary, Obama was in a tight race with Hillary Rodham Clinton, requiring his campaign to spend money in the state and to organize a ground attack. Obama later remarked, “We probably worked as hard during that week as we did at any time in the election.”6 The primary election provided the Obama campaign with crucial experience in developing strategies for the state’s early voting procedures.7 As part of Obama’s strategy of expanding the electoral map, his North Carolina organization was left largely intact after the primary, providing a substantial head start for the general election campaign. During the general election campaign, Obama made thirty-three scheduled appearances in North Carolina, and his running mate, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, added another six.8 Obama’s decision to opt out of public financing and his unprecedented success at raising campaign funds allowed him to invest heavily in North Carolina. Additionally, the tightening of the polls in September, after McCain’s uneven response to the banking crisis, gave Obama additional motivation to invest heavily in this race.9 The McCain campaign took North Carolina for granted until late in the race. Bush had twice carried the state by thirteen-point margins, even with North Carolina’s own John Edwards on the Democratic ticket in 2004, and no Democratic presidential candidate had won the state since 1976. Therefore,

110  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

North Carolina should have been a safe state for McCain. Throughout most of the summer, while Obama was making occasional appearances, running television ads, and developing an extensive ground operation, the McCain campaign invested few resources in North Carolina. By September, Obama’s early and strong efforts in the state made it clear to the McCain campaign that they would need to invest more resources or risk defeat. As Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager of the McCain campaign, explained, “We couldn’t get to 270 [Electoral College votes] without winning North Carolina. Those resources had to come from other competitive states.”10 McCain began running television ads, and both McCain and running mate Sarah Palin made appearances in the latter stages of the campaign.11 After Obama’s considerable head start, though, the McCain campaign was left playing catch-up. Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, described the importance of North Carolina in 2008 as follows: We needed everything to break perfectly to have a chance to win North Carolina, and it appeared that it just might happen. We saw that the African American turnout was ballooning, and turnout in white progressive areas was through the roof as well. Conversely, GOP base turnout looked depressed. We added even more trips from our principals into the state, a decision made easier by McCain’s waiting until far too late to acknowledge the danger he was in, almost stubbornly refusing to spend time or money in North Carolina, despite overwhelming evidence that those fifteen normally reliable Republican electoral votes were in jeopardy. By my calculation there was no way McCain could win the election having lost North Carolina.12

U.S. Senate Although Democratic congressional candidates in North Carolina historically have kept their distance from presidential campaigns, Obama’s strong campaign presence was a boon to competitive Democratic Senate and House candidates, who faced well-known incumbents. In contrast to Hagan’s lack of experience in statewide or federal races, Republican incumbent Senator Elizabeth Dole entered her reelection campaign in 2008 as a nationally recognized political figure, known not only as the wife of the Republicans’ 1996 presidential nominee, former U.S. senator Robert Dole of Kansas, but also for running as a presidential candidate herself in 2000. A native of Salisbury, North Carolina, Dole was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, easily defeating Democrat Erskine Bowles, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, by a 54 percent to 45 percent margin, despite a well-financed, professional campaign on Bowles’s part. Dole’s road to the U.S. Senate followed a lengthy career in Washington politics, most notably as secretary of transportation, secretary of labor, and president of the Red Cross. Senator Dole compiled a conservative voting record on most issues, summed up by her lifetime rating of 90 from the American Conservative Union.13 On economic and energy issues, Dole supported making President Bush’s proposed 2001 tax cuts permanent, as well as a “do it all” approach to energy.14 Dole supported the invasion of Iraq and maintained consistently conservative positions on social issues. She also secured federal dollars for projects in North Carolina,

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  111

ranging from anti-gang programs and road construction to helping sheriffs in the state partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and process illegal immigrants with criminal records.15 Dole, however, had some weaknesses heading into the 2008 election. During the 2005–2006 election, she served as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). Her national responsibilities set her up for attacks that she was an absent senator. In addition, Dole’s conservative voting record in the Senate put her on the same side as many of the positions supported by President Bush. This was a benefit in 2002, when President Bush was popular in North Carolina, but a major drawback for Dole in 2008, as President Bush’s approval ratings reached historical lows. While Dole led in most polls throughout the first eight months of 2008, she gradually saw her lead slip away.16 Dole’s Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, had comparatively little experience in the public spotlight. Still, Hagan was not a political novice. In 1992, she ran Governor Jim Hunt’s campaign in Guilford County, home of Greensboro and approximately 450,000 people, and in 1998, she was elected to the North Carolina state senate, where she served for five terms. After several more prominent North Carolina Democrats opted not to challenge Dole, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) turned to Hagan, who initially declined, but later entered the race. Hagan was a high-energy candidate who stayed relentlessly “on message.” On the major issues, Hagan positioned herself as a moderate Democrat. She tied issues such as energy policy back to the voters’ top concern: the economy. Hagan countered Dole’s positions on taxes by supporting middle-class tax cuts, while opposing the Bush tax cuts, which she framed as “tax cuts for the wealthy.”17 On the war in Iraq, Hagan’s “responsible withdrawal” position seemed carefully crafted to avoid upsetting either pro-military or anti-war voters. Hagan also attempted to appeal to “business progressives” (i.e., business-friendly, socially moderate voters) who play an important role in North Carolina politics.18 The candidates’ issue positions did not decide the race. Hagan generally avoided taking clear positions on hot-button issues, such as immigration, and refused to take a position on the federal banking bailout until Dole did. The Charlotte Observer endorsed Hagan, but criticized her for being “vague.”19 Hagan’s moderate positions and strategic ambiguity helped her secure enough moderate voters to win, despite the Dole campaign’s best efforts to paint her as “too liberal” on the issues for North Carolina voters.

Eighth Congressional District The unprecedented nature of Obama’s North Carolina campaign and North Carolina’s switch from red to blue was also evident in North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District. This district includes the Republican-leaning textile towns of Kannapolis and Concord and runs east through poorer, agriculturally oriented and Democratic-leaning counties along North Carolina’s south-central border, as well as heavily Democratic sections of east Charlotte. Its eastern terminus includes sections of Fayetteville, including sections of the U.S. Army’s Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base. 20 Outside of Charlotte, the district has suffered substantial job losses in the last decade in manufacturing and textiles. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans (51 percent Democratic to 31

112  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

percent Republican), 21 although the district traditionally has a slight Republican tilt in presidential elections. Despite the Democratic registration advantage in the district, Republican Robin Hayes represented the district in Congress. He ran Mt. Pleasant Hosiery Mills and is the grandson of Cannon Mills founder Charles Cannon. Hayes started in politics as a Concord alderman in the late 1970s. He was elected to the North Carolina House in 1992 and was defeated in a 1996 campaign for governor by incumbent Jim Hunt. Given Hayes’s wealth and name recognition, he drew an inexperienced and underfunded opponent when Bill Hefner, the Democrat who had held the seat since 1974, retired in 1998. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) did not invest any funds in the race, and Hayes won by a three-point margin. In later elections, Hayes consistently deterred politically experienced and well-funded Democrats from challenging him. Hayes maintained a mainstream Republican voting record during his tenure in the U.S. House. Two last-minute vote switches on trade agreements—in 2001 to give President Bush “fast track” negotiating authority, and in a 2006 vote to help pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement—were controversial in the district, given its loss of textile jobs. 22 Democratic opponents and their allies consistently attacked these votes, with little success. After his close call in 2006, Hayes decreased his party loyalty voting scores, from 96 percent in 2005–2006 to 88 percent in 2007–2008 (from four points above the GOP average to four points below the average) and his support for President Bush decreased from 97 percent to 49 percent in the same period. 23 Hayes ranked second among members of the North Carolina delegation in 2008 in bringing home federal dollars, sponsoring $44 million in projects. 24 Larry Kissell had never sought office nor had experience in politics before 2006, but he had a biography that resonated with many people in the district. He worked in a textile plant for more than 20 years before returning to school to be retrained as a teacher. Kissell positioned himself as a moderate Democrat, supporting traditional Democratic priorities of education and health care, yet also supporting gun rights and a gradual withdrawal from Iraq, while opposing a path to citizenship for illegal aliens.

Money In looking at the overall fundraising picture of the 2008 elections, perhaps the most significant strategic factor was Barack Obama’s choice to opt out of the presidential public financing system and John McCain’s decision to remain in it (see Chapter 1). Obama’s success in raising money was a key factor in his decision to compete in North Carolina. This affected not only the presidential election in North Carolina, but also down-ballot contests, including the contests for U.S. Senate and the Eighth Congressional District, which would likely not have been as intensely contested had Obama not spent as much money as he did in North Carolina. 25 In the Senate election, Dole raised $17.3 million for her reelection campaign compared with $9 million raised by Hagan (Table 5.1). Dole’s funds came mainly from individuals, who contributed $11.3 million (65 percent of total Dole funds raised). Business groups provided more than $2 million of her $2.6

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  113

Table 5.1 Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, North Carolina Congressional Races, 2007–2008 From PACs From individuals From candidate Other contributions Total receipts Total expenditures Cash on hand (as of 12/31/08)

Kay Hagan (D) Elizabeth Dole (R) Larry Kissell (D) $920,069 $7,252,212 $420,000 $383,131 $8,975,412 $8,953,274 $29,464

$2,103,266 $11,348,107 $3,141,896 $675,057 $17,268,326 $17,468,134 $45,206

$585,273 $888,387 $0 $40,080 $1,513,740 $1,509,753 $11,615

Robin Hayes (R) $1,306,279 $2,069,926 $250,000 $142,473 $3,768,678 $3,808,201 $69,699

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007–2008 Election,” December 31, 2008, available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+S8NC00239 and http://query.nictusa.com/ cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+S2NC00083 (accessed May 18, 2009).

million political action committee (PAC) total. 26 Individual donors accounted for an overwhelming share of Hagan’s campaign receipts (81 percent). The bulk of her PAC money came from labor unions (38 percent) and ideological and single-issue PACs (49 percent). The women’s group EMILY’s List ($269,658) and the liberal activist group MoveOn.org ($25,504) were also two of Hagan’s largest contributors. 27 Lawyers contributed $400,573, in part through a Web page established by the Trial Lawyers Association to raise money for Hagan. 28 ActBlue, a group that provides online fundraising support to Democratic candidates, collected more than $2.4 million for Hagan. 29 In addition to funds raised by the candidates, there was significant spending by the party committees and outside interest groups. Most notably, the DSCC helped Hagan close the financial gap, spending as much as $8.1 million on television ads supporting Hagan (see Campaign Media Analysis Group estimates in Table 5.2). The NRSC countered on behalf of Dole, but with a mere fraction of the DSCC’s effort, spending $3.6 million on ads against Hagan during the same period. 30 Despite being significantly outspent in North Carolina, the NRSC spent more on Dole than on any other candidate. 31 In the Eighth Congressional District race in 2006, Hayes outspent Kissell by more than three to one: $2,475,169 to $779,341. 32 In 2008, both candidates spent considerably more, but as shown in Table 5.1, Hayes still outspent Kissell by a similar margin: $3.8 million to $1.5 million. Party campaign committees and leadership PACs sponsored by members of Congress were the largest source of funds for both candidates. Hayes and Kissell further received substantial sums from party-allied groups. Real estate, agriculture, health professionals, and general contractors were major contributors to Hayes. Kissell received substantial financial support from unions ($258,050) and lawyers ($70,550). 33 In 2006, with many other competitive districts insisting on resources, the DCCC ignored the race and did not spend money on behalf of Kissell. His narrow defeat drew the DCCC’s attention, and in 2008, the committee made the Eighth Congressional District a top-priority race: They invested nearly $2.4 million in independent expenditures, the largest amount spent independently by the DCCC on any non-incumbent Democratic candidate in the country (and the second largest amount among all House Democrats). In contrast, a cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent $1.2 million in

Table 5.2 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, North Carolina Senate Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

CMAG TV

alliesa

Democratic   Candidates   Hagan Senate Committee $2,581,344 $31,305 $2,612,649   Political parties   DSCC $7,036,902 $83,763 $7,120,665   DCCC $36,045 — $36,045   DSCC/Hagan — — —   Interest groups    Citizens for Strength and Security $764,924 — $764,924   VoteVets.org $247,502 — $247,502   MoveOn.org $222,917 — $222,917   Patriot Majority $218,500 — $218,500   League of Conservation Voters $196,800 — $196,800   Majority Action $19,345 — $19,345   National Education Association — $15,946 $15,946   EMILY’s List — $5,100 $5,100 Republican alliesa   Candidates   Elizabeth Dole Committee $4,490,967 $56,516 $4,547,483   Political parties   NRSC $4,588,004 — $4,588,004   RNC $217,750 — $217,750   Interest groups $974,194 — $974,194    Freedom’s Watch   Employee Freedom Action Committee $588,600 — $588,600   Americans for Job Security $510,415 — $510,415    U.S. Chamber of Commerce $483,917 — $483,917   RightChange.com $290,603 — $290,603   National Right to Work Committee — — —

$4,490,801 $8,114,198 — $116,279 — $89,096 $390,751 $498,033 $200,238 $230,924 — —

$4,899,118 $3,569,984 — $730,344 — $400,581 $738,067 $86,866 $7,278

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organization spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 5.5. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  115

independent expenditures on Hayes in 2008. 34 In past competitive campaigns, Hayes benefited from heavy spending for media advertising by the NRCC and GOP-allied interest groups. 35 Hayes knew that the DCCC would outspend the NRCC substantially, and his goal was to raise enough of his own funds to match the combined spending of Kissell and the DCCC. 36

Team Mobilizing in the Ground Game Compared with earlier elections in North Carolina, the ground game marked perhaps the Democrats’ largest advantage over Republicans, and it redounded to the benefit of Democrats throughout the state. 37 Perhaps nowhere was the contrast between parties greater than in the number of paid staff in the state for the two presidential candidates—400 for Obama versus 35 for McCain. 38 The Obama organization was unusually extensive and well organized. Using their huge advantage in paid staffers and enthusiastic volunteers, the Obama campaign and party allies were able to organize the state as no Democratic presidential candidate had ever done. The Democrats and their allies dominated the contest, turning the GOP and its allies, metaphorically, into a small-market team—after a long road trip—playing the New York Yankees: The GOP team played together, but played under poor conditions against a team with star power and a bigger payroll. With competitive races for president, senator, and governor, one observer declared, “North Carolina was the most politically targeted state in the nation.”39 This ground operation was primarily run through the Campaign for Change—the coordinated efforts of the Obama campaign and the North Carolina Democratic Party (NCDP). Obama staffers worked closely with state and local party leaders to create the best possible coordination of resources, including office space and volunteers. In contrast to past efforts, the 2008 coordinated campaign, in the words of North Carolina Democratic Party executive director Caroline Valand, “was actually both”40 —both coordinated and effective. North Carolina’s early voting period and one-stop voting and registration, available during the early voting period, was a major focus of the Democratic ground game. The Democrats invested tremendous resources into registering new voters and getting these new voters to the polls during the early voting period.41 The campaign and the party targeted new voters and “non-regular” voters using proprietary databases combining political and consumer data.42 North Carolina’s unaffiliated voters were overwhelmed with information and contacts from the Democratic Party. The campaign used these databases, as well as thorough record keeping, to target their canvassing and telephone calls as strategically as possible, ignoring voters who were certain votes for McCain or Obama. The organization focused on those it labeled “sporadic voters” (i.e., those leaning toward the Democrats and Obama, but who could not necessarily be counted on to vote).43 Rather than targeting African Americans, per se, or any particular demographic or geographic groups, decisions were driven by the database’s identification of these “sporadic voters.” Based on lessons from the primary, the national field office focused heavily on encouraging use of the early voting period for “weak-voting” Democrats and new Democrats.44 The emphasis on early voting was also strategically used to avoid potential Election Day problems at polling places, as noted in Chapter 4.45

116  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

Democratic registration efforts proved enormously successful. The Obama Campaign for Change added more than 800,000 new voters in the calendar year, second only to Florida in the number of new voters registered, and dwarfing the registration efforts of Republicans in the state. African Americans were a particular demographic group targeted by the Obama campaign. As David Plouffe later expounded, “If we did not register enough African Americans and young voters in North Carolina and then turn them out on Election Day, we could not win. Facing a traditional electorate meant we shouldn’t even bother with a state like North Carolina, no matter how much money we spent.”46 The substantial number of new voters enabled North Carolina to see the largest percentage increase in turnout of any state between 2004 and 2008, at 12.8 percent (see Chapter 4). The focus on early voting, carried over from the Democratic primary, appeared to be crucial to Obama’s eventual victory.47 Obama ran up huge margins among those who voted early. Some 64 percent of Obama’s votes came from early or absentee voters, compared with 51 percent of McCain’s votes,48 with early voters outnumbering those voting on Election Day by a margin of 2.6 million to 1.7 million.49 Given Obama’s narrow win in the state, it seems safe to conclude that the Democratic registration efforts and early-voting-focused ground game played a critical role. As noted in Chapter 4, the McCain campaign was caught off guard by the high volume of early voting and belatedly deployed Sarah Palin to the state to bolster their efforts. In red states such as North Carolina, the Obama campaign placed emphasis not only on mobilizing Democratic votes but also on persuading Independents and even Republicans to vote Democratic. In describing this effort, Jon Carson, Obama’s national field director, stated, “The first thing that is different in these campaigns is an incredible emphasis on persuasion. Our assumption was that, we will go to win these red states. We’re actually going to win votes, have to win votes, of people who voted Republican most of their life. . . . ​So, we did a massive amount of canvassing well before election weekend focusing on people we believed to be persuadable.”50 In terms of persuading Republicans, the validating effect of peers identified in earlier canvassing efforts proved to be essential. 51 North Carolina Democrats usually avoid associations with Democratic presidential candidates, but not in 2008. The unusual feature of a popular and competitive Democratic presidential candidate was evident in the campaigning of Hagan and Kissell. Hagan introduced Obama, Biden, and their wives when they appeared in North Carolina and invoked Obama in her stump speech. Similarly, in the Eighth Congressional District, the DCCC sent a series of three mailers visually highlighting African Americans. One featured a composite photograph of Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Barack Obama; another, a composite photograph of Obama and Kissell. Each featured an Obama quote. The DCCC paid for two door hanger photographs of Kissell with African American families and with Obama. The fact that Hagan embraced the party standard bearer and that the DCCC conspicuously linked Kissell and Obama speaks to the importance of African American voters to their campaigns and to the excitement generated by the Obama campaign in the state. Obama’s field organizers included literature for Hagan and the local Democratic congressional candidates, including Kissell, in their literature drops across North Carolina’s 100 counties. 52 Obama’s canvassing message was inclusive: “Vote Obama and the Democratic ticket.” This message was a tremendous help

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  117

to other Democratic candidates. Democrats voted straight ticket by nearly a two-to-one ratio over Republicans. 53 Obama’s mobilization efforts also helped other Democrats. Statewide, 30 percent of newly registered voters were black, and nearly half were younger than 30 years of age (both percentages were even higher in urban areas). 54 Additionally, 35 percent of same-day voter registrants were black, and 51 percent of black voters turned out for early or one-stop voting. 55 To put these statistics into context, 21.5 percent of all registered voters in North Carolina are black. African American turnout was 59 percent in 2004 and 74 percent in 2008 (see Chapter 4). 56 Democratic-allied interest groups played a relatively minor role in the ground game. While organized labor, most prominently, and other organizations contributed volunteers, these efforts were generally run through and coordinated by Obama for America and the Campaign for Change. 57 The majority of telephone contacts were done by Obama for America. The Republican ground game in North Carolina proved no match for the Obama Democratic effort. Whereas the party organizations made up a significant amount of the gap in the air game with their spending, the gap in paid staff, volunteers, and overall ground game organization efforts remained significant. Although Republican Party and allied efforts were swamped by Obama and the Democrats, the North Carolina Republican Party, from a historical perspective, actually made a strong grassroots effort. According to North Carolina Republican Party executive director Chris McClure, the Republicans had 30 offices across the state, and their “Victory ’08” efforts actually exceeded those in 2004. 58 Unlike the Democrats, who focused on the entire early voting period, Republicans maximized voter contact in the 72 hours before Election Day, during which time the party contacted more than half a million voters. 59 Similarly, the traditional business groups in support of the Republican Party—realtors, home builders, and so on—did not appear to be very active compared with their chief rival, organized labor. The most active Republican allies were ideological and single-issue groups. Two anti-abortion groups sent a total of twelve mailers, and the National Rifle Association (NRA) added another eight. Despite these efforts, the Republican ground game simply lacked the resources and enthusiasm of the Obama campaign and faced the additional hurdle of a late start.

Senate Ground Game While Obama’s superior grassroots operation had important implications for down-ballot contests, the Dole campaign attempted to counter that influence with 123 county coordinators, at least one per county.60 The county coordinators were volunteers who organized telephone banking, precinct walks, voter registration programs, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, yard sign distribution, bumper sticker distribution, and surrogate speaking, to assure that there was a Dole presence at all events occurring in the county. County coordinators and their coalition teams were also given talking points about ads that the Dole and Hagan campaigns were running. Dole received grassroots support from the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Susan B. Anthony List, RightChange.com, the NRA, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.61

118  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

Hagan worked to further grassroots efforts on her own behalf by campaigning in person across the state. In addition, her husband and three grown children represented her at public events and spoke as surrogates on her behalf. The family was assigned to cover overlapping regions of the state—such that large cities received double coverage. Often each family member participated in multiple events per day.62 The North Carolina Democratic Coordinated Campaign, working on behalf of Kay Hagan, had thirteen regional offices, employed more than sixty staff across the state, and claimed “thousands” of volunteers.63 Hagan’s offices were generally housed near local party headquarters, local Obama headquarters, or the offices of the local congressional candidate, so there was a moderate level of coordination among the campaigns for voter mobilization activities.64 Hagan and the state party’s coordinated campaign focused on persuasion, leaving GOTV efforts to the Obama campaign.65 The Hagan campaign’s grassroots efforts were supplemented by those of the North Carolina Democratic Party. The party put substantial effort into volunteer telephone banks early in the campaign to raise Hagan’s name recognition. Late in the campaign, new registrants and irregular voters were key targets of the party. As a consequence, explained Caroline Valand, executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, “There was an education component of who to vote for once we get people to the polls. . . . ​We wanted to make sure people didn’t walk in, vote for Obama, and leave.”66 Their efforts apparently succeeded, as fewer than 1 percent of voters cast votes in the presidential contest but did not vote in the Senate contest.67

Eighth Congressional District Ground Game In the Eighth Congressional District, Kissell also benefited substantially from the ground game of the Obama campaign but, similar to Hagan, Kissell supplemented these efforts with his own grassroots organization. Kissell demonstrated his effectiveness in organizing grassroots volunteers, winning the DCCC’s 2008 Mobilize for Change Contest by recruiting more than 1,700 volunteers for door knocking and telephone banking on August 2. 68 Continuing the competition among its local offices, the campaign sponsored four Saturday volunteer recruiting contests.69 Kissell’s ground game started in the summer with identification calls. Independents and infrequent Democratic voters initially received calls focused on Kissell’s biography. Late in the campaign, calls focused on the economy and responses to Hayes’s attacks. Once early voting started, the campaign made GOTV calls in the morning and persuasion calls in the afternoon and evening. GOTV calls gave the early voting locations that were closest to the voter and had the shortest lines.70 On Election Day, telephone banks would switch their calls to targeted precincts in which turnout was less than expected.71 The DCCC, the North Carolina Democratic Party, and the Obama campaign provided major support in the Eighth Congressional District ground game. The North Carolina Campaign for Change assigned six field organizers to Kissell’s campaign and disbursed them to key areas of the district.72 Their ground game was closely coordinated with the DCCC,73 which in turn, according to the committee’s executive director Brian Wolff, “lockstepped with the Obama campaign.”74 The DCCC hired canvassers who targeted newly registered voters or

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  119

those who had voted once.75 The DCCC ultimately spent about $400,000 in independent expenditures for its GOTV operations in the Eighth Congressional District.76 By comparison, Hayes’s efforts followed the same grassroots strategy that had succeeded in previous competitive elections.77 The Hayes campaign emphasized maximizing GOP turnout by contacting every Republican in the district twice by telephone and knocking on every Republican door in Cabarrus and Stanly counties. Volunteers distributed nonpartisan voter guides, and Hayes visited evangelical churches across the district nearly every Sunday. Supportive Independents received calls, while undecided “middle-of-the-road” voters and “persuadable Democrats” were targeted with mail. Supporters or potential supporters, based on their issue positions, as identified by telephone banks, were encouraged to vote early or to cast absentee ballots. Republican Party committees took the lead in increasing GOP voter registration and organizing GOTV canvassing. The North Carolina Republican Party made calls urging voters to support McCain, Dole, and Hayes. Hayes was the only member of the House included in state party calls.78 The NRCC also targeted the district with telephone calls.79 The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NRA, the National Right to Life Association, and the National Federation of Independent Business were also active in GOTV efforts for Hayes, although to a lesser extent than were Kissell’s allies.80 In the end, Hayes, like Dole and McCain, could not overcome the size and intensity of the Democrats’ overall grassroots operation. The ground game in North Carolina was central to Democratic victories.

Team Persuasion In addition to the contested federal contests, North Carolina also had a competitive and intensely fought gubernatorial race, where the two candidates raised more than $23 million, thus inundating voters with campaign advertising.81 The teams largely used complementary messages: The Democratic team argued for “change,” and the GOP team attacked the character or liberalism of the Democratic candidates. Interest groups and party organizations were most involved in the Senate race, given the potential for the Democrats to gain a filibuster-proof sixty-seat majority. The most memorable ads were in the Senate race, with the first set of DSCC spots framing the contest as a referendum on Dole’s ineffectiveness. Without majority status at stake in the House, there was considerably less involvement by interest groups in the Eighth Congressional District campaign, although DCCC advertising was critical to boosting Larry Kissell.

Presidential Contest The presidential campaign saw extensive television and radio advertising from both sides. Both sides also kept in constant contact with supporters by e-mail. As with most aspects of the race, the main story was the overwhelming advantage of the Obama campaign. Obama’s presidential campaign spent nearly $9.7 million in North Carolina, while McCain’s campaign spent only about $1.2 million (Table 5.3). The National Cable Communications analysis of Obama’s television spending in North Carolina showed that his spending was ­geographically

Table 5.3 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in North Carolina, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Obama for America $9,469,540 $221,138 $9,690,678   Political parties $1,213 $37,427 $38,640   DNC   DSCC — $13,128 $13,128   North Carolina Democratic Party — $1,672 $1,672   Interest groups $330,965 — $330,965    Citizens for Strength and Security   Healthcare for America Now $279,733 — $279,733   MoveOn.org $200,892 — $200,892   League of Conservation Voters $160,575 — $160,575   Patriot Majority $63,160 — $63,160   Healthcare United $41,950 — $41,950   Power PAC — $7,505 $7,505   People for the American Way $1,128 — $1,128 Republican alliesa   Candidates   McCain for President $1,205,718 $33,625 $1,239,343   Political parties   RNC $3,260,577 — $3,260,577   RNC/McCain $2,007,213 $5,304 $2,012,517   NRSC $67,860 — $67,860   Interest groups $219,950 — $219,950    Freedom’s Watch   Employee Freedom Action Committee $30,200 — $30,200   RightChange.com — — —    Committee for Truth in Politics — — —   National Republican Trust PAC — — —   National Pro-Life Alliance $10,722 — $10,722    Trust in Small Business — — — Nonpartisan   Interest groups   Healthcare for America Now $27,256 — $27,256    ONE Campaign — — —   AARP — — —

CMAG TV

$10,631,713 $17,975 — — — — $419,745 — — — — —

$3,519,260 $2,782,758 — — — $269,033 $49,142 $7,579 $6,403 $3,710 $285

$169,980 $4,198 $1,187

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 5.4. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  121

and demographically targeted. 82 For example, 69 percent of his television spending occurred in two media markets, Charlotte and Raleigh. These markets produced 60 percent of his vote in the state. He emphasized cable rather than broadcast advertising, probably as a means of reaching younger voters, who disproportionately watch cable. Similarly, Obama’s buys on cable channels such as Lifetime and HGTV likely targeted female viewers, while his buys on ESPN, MSNBC, and FX likely sought male viewers. Obama’s greater resources allowed him the flexibility to make ad buys “targeting” nearly every key demographic. Given Obama’s massive spending in the state, the Democratic Party spent only a token amount, less than $40,000. The Republican Party, in part, made up for the gap between the two candidates. The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the RNC/McCain joint committee added another $5.2 million in North Carolina in television spending for McCain. When party and candidate expenditures are combined, the Democrats and Obama spent more than $3 million more on television than McCain and the RNC. Thus, the overall gap between Obama and McCain in television and radio spending, while still considerable, is much diminished by the spending of their respective parties. Interestingly, the Democratic advantage in North Carolina was only amplified in the advertising spending by outside groups. As Table 5.3 shows, Democratic-leaning groups aired more than $1 million worth of television and radio ads in support of Obama in North Carolina. Two union-backed groups, Citizens for Strength and Security and Healthcare for America Now, spent more than $500,000 between them, while MoveOn.org and the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) added $200,000 and $160,000 respectively. On the Repub­ lican side, only Freedom’s Watch, a conservative counterpart to MoveOn.org, spent significantly, spending approximately $220,000 on television ads. Together, Democratic interest groups outspent Republican groups by more than four to one. There was very little to distinguish the air wars in North Carolina from those occurring in other presidential battleground states. Obama focused heavily on the theme of jobs and portrayed McCain as out of touch with American workers. One Obama ad about the closure of textile mills specifically targeted job losses in North Carolina and McCain’s support of free trade legislation. McCain and GOP ads were more consistently negative, following the same national theme of Obama as an “untested” and “risky” choice for president. The Republicans left radio advertising almost entirely to Obama and the Democrats. Obama and the Democrats spent nearly a quarter million dollars combined on radio, compared with less than $40,000 spent by Republicans. Obama’s radio ads largely followed the themes of several television ads, such as attacking McCain on the issues of jobs and wasteful spending in Iraq. Interestingly, one radio ad reassured voters of Obama’s support for guns.83 Much of the Obama mail was positive in nature, focusing on general economic themes (Table 5.4). (The campaign mail was collected by the North Carolina Reconnaissance Network [NCRN].) Large numbers of mailings had a “team for change” theme and, along with Obama, provided support for other federal candidates (e.g., Kay Hagan), as well as Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bev Perdue. The NCDP had fourteen unique mailings, and the Campaign for Change added another twenty-seven. Democrats also used mail to ­counteract

Table 5.4 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in North Carolina, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Obama for America

36

12

—

  North Carolina Democratic Party

—

14

—

  DNC

18

6

—

  DSCC

3

6

—

  DCCC

—

4

  Local Democratic parties

—

   Campaign for Change    Change to Win

2

13

15

34

112

10

5

—

1

30

—

—

1

1

26

—

—

—

2

11

—

—

—

—

1

5

2

—

—

1

—

—

3

—

27

—

—

2

—

—

29

—

9

—

5

1

—

—

15

4

2

—

—

1

—

1

8

—

6

—

—

—

—

—

6

3

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Healthcare for America Now

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

2

  International Brotherhood      of Teamsters

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  League of Conservation Voters

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Sierra Club

—

1

—

—

1

—

—

2

   United Auto Workers

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  American Association      of University Women

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  AFSCME

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  American Federation of Teachers

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

  Americans United For Change

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Black Political Caucus      of Charlotte-Mecklenburg

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  National Education Association

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  National Nurses Organizing      Committee

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Political parties

  Interest groups

  MoveOn.org   North Carolina Association      of Educators   Democracy for America   AFL-CIO    Brave New Films

  Rock the Vote

  Alliance for Retired Americans

  HillPAC

  Net Movement Politics   North Carolina National      Organization for Women PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Progressive Future

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  Race Fans for Change

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Southern Piedmont Central     Labor Council

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Working Families

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

Table 5.4  Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb   Candidates   McCain for President

38

10

—

1

19

—

14

82

9

16

—

1

25

2

14

67

  Political parties   RNC   North Carolina Republican     State Executive Committee

—

26

—

10

7

—

—

43

  RNC/McCain

—

—

—

—

12

1

—

13

3

1

1

—

—

—

—

5

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  National Right to Life PAC

—

3

—

1

3

2

—

9

  NRA

—

4

—

—

1

—

3

8

3

—

—

—

—

—

1

4

  National Pro-Life Alliance

—

—

—

—

2

1

—

3

  Americans in Contact PAC

—

—

—

—

2

—

—

2

  National Republican Trust PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

  American Conservative Union

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  American Rifleman

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Americans for Job Security

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

  Land of Sky Realty

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  Let Freedom Ring

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  National Shooting Sports      Foundation

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  Divided We Fail

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Americans for Visual Literacy

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Grassfire.org

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  North Carolina Family Policy Council

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Peace Impact

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   TaxCutFacts.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  NRSC   Local Republican Parties   Interest groups

   GOP USA

  Safari Club International PAC    The Clarion Fund Nonpartisan   Interest groups

   WebMD

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 5.3. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, North Carolina Right to Life data have been included in the National Right to Life political action committee totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

124  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

Republican claims of Obama’s association with William Ayers, which was a common point of attack in Republican mailings and telephone calls. Change to Win, a coalition of major unions, sent out fifteen unique mailing pieces supporting Obama. While most Democratic-leaning organizations focused on targeting their own membership with their mail, there was coordination between the North Carolina Association of Educators and various labor organizations.84 Some local flavor was apparent in a flyer by Race Fans for Change, which pictured Obama and McCain in NASCAR driver suits. The group gave Obama more green flags on an issue-by-issue comparison. They also sponsored a billboard at Lowe’s Motor Speedway promoting Obama. The McCain campaign and the North Carolina GOP both invested heavily in the mailings gathered by the NCRN, with eighty-two unique mailings from the McCain campaign and well over 100 from the various state party committees (see Table 5.4). The mail efforts proved to be almost unremittingly negative. Every attack leveled against Obama seemed to come out in these mailers, while few made more than a perfunctory mention of McCain. In many ways, Republican efforts presented the election in North Carolina as a referendum on Obama, who was portrayed as out of touch with North Carolina values. Obama’s William Ayers connection was a frequent theme of mailings. One mailer announced, “With Wall Street in crisis, Obama partied with Hollywood’s elite,” decrying Obama’s attendance at a “liberal Hollywood” fundraiser. A “Crime and Punishment” mailer decried Obama as acting “more as a friend to criminals than cops.”

Senate Race Messages On the Senate side, North Carolina has a history of no-holds-barred political advertising, and the 2008 Senate campaign again showcased North Carolina’s ability to produce attention-grabbing ads. All players—the candidates, the parties, and interest groups—advertised heavily in the Senate race. Approximately $24 million was spent on television advertisements for and against Dole and Hagan through the late stages of the election (see Table 5.2). While the earliest ads from the candidates’ campaigns were mostly positive and biographical, the tone significantly shifted by the late summer months. In mid-August, the DSCC aired one of the more memorable commercials of the election. The ad began with two elderly men sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch of a country store, where they debated whether Dole was ninety-two or ninety-three. At first, the men seemed to be debating Dole’s age (she was seventy-two), but as the ad progressed, they related the numbers to Dole’s effectiveness ranking (ninety-three out of 100) and the percentage of her roll call votes that were in agreement with President Bush (92 percent of the time). One of the elderly men ended the ad with the following line: “She’s just not a go-getter like you and me.” Whether the DSCC ad really was able to convince people to question whether Dole was too old for the job is unclear; however, it is more likely that the ad effectively portrayed her as out of touch. Considerable “free media” attention to the ad only magnified its effect. The Democratic Party’s Caroline Valand and the NRSC’s Scott Bensing both saw the DSCC ads as quite effective in negatively defining Dole early in the race.85 Indeed, after the commercials had

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  125

blanketed the state, polls taken after Labor Day began to show that Hagan was edging ahead of Dole.86 The DSCC’s “old men” appeared throughout the campaign in a series of ads. Just before the election, the DSCC directly hammered the theme of Dole’s lack of engagement and lack of effectiveness. One spot accused Dole of making no statements and asking no questions in six years of Senate Banking Committee hearings. The DSCC’s last ads argued that Dole had spent only thirteen days in North Carolina in 2006 and twenty days in 2005. Mail gathered by the NCRN from the North Carolina Democratic Party and interest groups such as the unions’ Change to Win coalition also made Dole’s absence from the state an issue. Before there was even a Democratic candidate in 2007, the state party sent mailings with a “Where is Liddy Dole?” milk carton.87 The state party sent two mailers during the campaign highlighting Dole’s lifetime in Washington, DC. One featured a North Carolina tourism brochure addressed to Elizabeth Dole at “The Watergate” in Washington. The other featured a T-shirt with Dole’s photograph and a paraphrase of the ubiquitous tourist T-shirt line, “My Senator only spent 33 days in North Carolina . . . ​and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.” The Dole campaign responded with its own series of negative ads attacking Hagan. In one, a yelping dog exclaimed, “Fibber Kay Hagan.” The fib, according to the ad, suggested that Hagan falsely minimized her husband’s financial interests in oil stocks.88 These ads were supplemented with ads from the NRSC. The first NRSC ad ran during the Olympics and awarded Hagan a “gold medal” for “financial irresponsibility, government waste, and twisting the truth.” A popular line of attack against Hagan was on the issue of taxes. One ad accused Hagan of leaving North Carolina with the highest tax burden in the Southeast.89 Several interest groups, including Freedom’s Watch, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Americans for Job Security, spent heavily on television ads criticizing Hagan’s record as budget chair of the North Carolina state senate. Dole’s allies were active with grassroots communications as well. The Susan B. Anthony List led the charge, sending five unique mailers and making three unique telephone calls to contrast the candidates’ positions on abortion (Table 5.5). Illegal immigration was another hot button for Dole allies and was ­addressed in mail sent by Americans for Job Security, the North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee, and the RNC. Jobs, taxes, and spending were the other main themes of the pro-Dole, anti-Hagan mail from Dole, the state GOP, the Associated Builders and Contractors, Freedom’s Watch, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Two groups opposed to union organizing legislation, the Employee Freedom Action Committee and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, sent considerable amounts of mail to North Carolina voters attacking Hagan for her support for the legislation (see “card check” discussion in Chapter 3).90 Allies of Hagan were active, too. In August, MoveOn.org spent nearly $500,000 on television commercials that attacked Dole for “being in the pocket of Big Oil.”91 In September, the LCV added Dole to its “Dirty Dozen” list for her poor legislative record on environmental issues.92 Three union-sponsored Section 527 groups—Citizens for Strength and Security, Patriot Majority, and Majority Action—spent heavily on ads attacking Dole, giving labor a large

Table 5.5 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, North Carolina Senate Race, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates   Hagan Senate Committee

1

8

—

—

5

  DSCC

—

—

—

—

2

  North Carolina Democratic Party

—

7

—

—

2

  Local Democratic Parties

—

2

—

—

1

  DCCC

—

—

—

—

  DNC

—

—

—

   Change to Win

—

5

  North Carolina Association      of Educators

—

  League of Conservation Voters

—

  AFL-CIO

1

17

32

5

17

24

—

—

9

—

—

3

—

—

2

2

—

—

1

—

1

—

3

—

—

—

8

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

3

—

—

—

—

1

4

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Majority Action

—

2

—

—

1

—

—

3

  Planned Parenthood

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

   Campaign for Change

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  International Association      of Firefighters

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  MoveOn.org

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

2

  Patriot Majority

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

  American Association      of University Women

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  American Federation of Teachers

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Black Political Caucus      of Charlotte-Mecklenburg

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Citizens for Strength and Security

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  North Carolina National      Organization for Women PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Sierra Club

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Southern Piedmont Central     Labor Council

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   United Auto Workers

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  VoteVets.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

4

5

—

—

9

3

14

35

  RNC

—

5

—

2

11

—

2

20

  North Carolina Republican     State Executive Committee

—

6

—

1

5

—

—

12

  NRSC

—

—

—

—

—

1

11

12

  Local Republican Parties

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Political parties

  Interest groups

  HillPAC

Republican alliesb   Candidates   Elizabeth Dole Committee   Political parties

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  127

Table 5.5  Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb (continued)   Interest groups   Americans for Job Security

—

4

—

2

8

2

3

19

   Freedom’s Watch

—

4

—

2

3

—

3

12

  NRA

—

3

2

1

—

—

4

10

   U.S. Chamber of Commerce

—

2

—

—

7

—

1

10

  Associated Builders and Contractors —

7

—

1

1

—

—

9

  Susan B Anthony List

—

5

—

1

3

—

—

9

  Employee Freedom Action Committee —

4

—

—

4

—

—

8

  National Right to Life PAC

—

2

—

1

3

2

—

8

  Americans for Prosperity

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

   Citizens for Job Security

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Coalition for a Democratic Workplace —

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Family Research Council

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Free Enterprise Alliance

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  National Pro-Life Alliance

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

  National Republican Trust PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  National Shooting Sports Foundation —

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  RightChange.com Nonpartisan   Interest groups   Divided We Fail   North Carolina Family Policy Council

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 5.2. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, North Carolina State American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations data have been included in the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

­ resence in the air game (see Table 5.2).93 In an attempt to undercut Dole’s prop troops image in a state with a large military population, VoteVets.org spent nearly $250,000 to run one ad charging Dole with voting against funding for body armor for troops. The most controversial ad came in the election’s final week, when the Dole campaign ran its now infamous “Godless” spot. In the ad, the Dole campaign questioned Hagan’s attendance at a fundraiser hosted by two individuals with ties to the Godless Americans PAC. The ad closed with an image of Hagan and

128  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

a voice that sounded similar to Hagan’s, but was not, saying, “There is no God.” Media accounts quickly scrutinized the ad and reported that its content was misleading. Hagan, a Sunday school teacher and elder at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro, responded with her own ad, claiming, “Elizabeth Dole is attacking my strong Christian faith.”94 Dole countered with a second “Godless” ad, expressing her surprise that anyone would think that she would accuse Hagan of being an atheist. Instead, Dole argued, the issue was Hagan’s judgment in attending the fundraiser, as the words on the screen asked, “Would you attend if the Godless Americans threw a party in your honor?” Dole had two robocalls on the topic as well, one with the original charge and another playing the tape of Hagan’s stumbling response to a radio interviewer’s question on why she attended the fundraiser.95 The Godless ads were not a complete surprise. The Dole campaign had run radio ads with similar content in September. Those ads, however, ran outside of the Charlotte and Raleigh markets, and thus did not attract media attention. Similarly, the North Carolina Republican Party and RNC sent mail on the topic earlier in the campaign. The radio ads and mail had gained some “traction,” and the Hagan campaign developed talking points to respond to callers and trained its telephone bank callers and door knockers to deal with questions about the charges.96 However, as Raleigh News and Observer reporter Rob Christensen observed, “There’s no [widespread] impact until you go on television. . . . ​T he fact that they did not use the ad until the end indicated that they had qualms about using it. . . . ​If nothing happened to shake things up, they were going to lose.”97 Dole campaign manager Marty Ryall admitted that the ad was an act of desperation of a losing campaign, calling it a “Hail Mary pass.”98 The controversy may have ultimately backfired on Dole. Though Hagan was ahead of Dole by three points when the ads ran, Hagan won the race by nine points.99

Eighth Congressional District Messages While not nearly as controversial as the air game between Dole and Hagan, the Eighth Congressional District also saw its share of fireworks. Hayes spent roughly three times more than Kissell on television ads (Table 5.6). The television spending evened out at $1.6 million on both sides when the ad buys of the candidates, party organizations, and interest group allies on each team are summed. Hayes’s ads and mail emphasized the incumbent’s efforts to fight for jobs in North Carolina, particularly against unfair trade practices with China. The ads emphasized energy independence and Hayes’s support for drilling off of the North Carolina coast. An early Hayes television ad implicitly recognized the difficult political environment for Republicans and sought to assert Hayes’s independence. In the ad, Hayes said, “Sometimes I have to fight my party,” but also stated, “I always fight for jobs for North Carolina.” Hayes further attacked Kissell, in a series of ads that ran frequently throughout the campaign, for failing to pay benefits to his campaign workers.100 The messages of the North Carolina Republican Party’s mail complemented Hayes’s messages. Although the NRCC did not make any ad buys on Hayes’s behalf, the RNC paid for an ad jointly with the Hayes campaign. Several GOP-allied interest groups also made ad buys to support Hayes (Table 5.7). The U.S. Chamber of

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  129

Table 5.6 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, North Carolina Eighth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Kissell for Congress $400,122 — $400,122   Political parties   DCCC $1,240,555 — $1,240,555   DSCC $147,875 — $147,875   Interest groups    Blue America PAC $62,108 — $62,108

CMAG TV

$173,230 $1,464,719 — $12,198

alliesa

Republican   Candidates   Hayes for Congress $1,369,079 — $1,369,079   Political parties   RNC/Hayes — — —   Interest groups    U.S. Chamber of Commerce $253,248 X $253,248   National Federation of Independent      Business — X —   National Rifle Association — X —   National Right to Life Association — X —

$996,284 $282,418 $70,756 — — —

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 5.7. Key: The designation “X” indicates that the groups ran radio ads in support of the Republican candidate but no ad buy data were obtained for the ads. The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Commerce ran radio ads in late August and early September that praised Hayes’s positions on health care, then ran television ads on the same topic in early October, spending more than $250,000 (see Table 5.6). The NRA, National Pro-Life Alliance, Associated Builders and Contractors, and National Federation of Independent Business all ran radio ads for Hayes late in the race. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the NRA sent mail praising Hayes for his advocacy on their issues.

Table 5.7 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, North Carolina Eighth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ phone Unique Type and Organization E-mail Mail Magazine Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Kissell for Congress

—

3

1

1

1

2

8

  DCCC

—

13

—

3

  North Carolina Democratic Party

—

8

—

2

—

5

21

—

—

  Local Democratic Parties

—

1

—

10

1

—

—

  DNC

—

—

2

—

—

1

—

  DSCC

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

1

  North Carolina Association of Educators    Black Political Caucus of Charlotte-Mecklenburg

—

2

—

—

—

—

2

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

   Blue America PAC

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  Southern Piedmont Central Labor Council

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

   Team for Change

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Truth NC

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   United Auto Workers

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

—

6

—

—

1

4

11

  North Carolina Republican State     Executive Committee

—

3

—

1

—

—

4

  Local Republican Parties

—

3

—

—

—

—

3

  RNC

—

1

—

—

—

1

2

   U.S. Chamber of Commerce

—

3

—

—

1

1

5

  NRA

—

2

2

—

—

—

4

  Associated Builders and Contractors

—

—

—

—

2

—

2

  National Right to Life PAC

—

1

—

1

—

—

2

  National Federation of Independent Business

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

  National Pro-Life Alliance

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Political parties

  Interest groups

Republican

alliesa

  Candidates   Hayes for Congress   Political parties

  Interest groups

Nonpartisan   Interest groups   Divided We Fail   North Carolina Family Policy Council

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 5.6. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  131

Hayes drew some unplanned and unwanted free media attention late in the campaign. At an October 18, 2008, rally for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Hayes warmed up the crowd by saying, “Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and believe in God.” Hayes denied making the remark, but admitted it when a reporter produced an audiotape.101 Despite the fact that Hayes’s comment drew national media attention, both campaigns agreed that the comment did not affect the race, as Kissell had already established a statistically significant lead over Hayes in polls.102 By comparison, Kissell first advertised in early August, attacking the direction of the country during Hayes’s tenure in office. Kissell looked into the camera and said, “During Robin Hayes’ ten years in Congress,” while the following words on screen punctuated his comments: “Gas up $3.00 a gallon,” “Over 60 thousand NC jobs lost,” and “stuck” in a mismanaged war in Iraq. Kissell continued, “He’s had his chance. We cannot continue two more years of this.” Kissell closed with his campaign theme: “Let’s take our country back.” Similarly, Kissell’s mail promised to make jobs and gas prices a top priority and claimed that Hayes’s votes for tax breaks for oil companies and foreign trade agreements proved that he had not. Most Kissell television ads had a folksy touch, picturing Kissell with a variety of common people doing ordinary things while country music played in the background. The ads were aimed at competing for the rural, white Dixiecrat vote. When Hayes attacked Kissell’s failure to pay benefits to campaign workers, Kissell responded personally, standing in front of a barn and speaking directly into the camera. He calmly dismissed Hayes’s “negative” attacks and called them a diversion from the real issues in the race, such as creating jobs. Kissell’s television expenditures were allocated to maximize the chance that viewers within the Eighth Congressional District would see the ads, without the campaign’s spending heavily on viewers outside the district. His campaign bought only broadcast ads in Charlotte (43.2 percent of his television spending), spending nothing on cable. Cable ads in Charlotte would be seen mostly by viewers in the Ninth and Twelfth Congressional Districts, whereas broadcast ads in Charlotte would cover almost the entire Eighth Congressional District. Kissell spent an additional $167,723 on cable ads (38.9 percent of his television spending) in the counties east of Charlotte, but within the Charlotte broadcast area. Conversely, Kissell spent very little on broadcast in Raleigh (4.2 percent of his television spending), which covers Fayetteville, but would mostly be seen by people outside the district, and spent $59,566 on cable in Fayetteville (13.8 percent of his television spending; 26.2 percent of his cable spending). The DCCC aired six ads on behalf of Kissell, from early August through Election Day, and spent almost as much as the incumbent on television ads, $1.2 million compared with $1.37 million for Hayes (see Table 5.6), offsetting Kissell’s financial disadvantage. Ads by the DCCC attacked Hayes’s support for President Bush’s economic policies, accused Hayes of being in the pocket of Big Oil, and criticized his votes for trade agreements. In contrast with multimillionaire Hayes, Kissell was praised in the DCCC ads for his career as a millworker and teacher; the ads pitched him as someone who would fight for the middle class. The Democratic Party’s mail (from the DCCC and the North Carolina Democratic Party) emphasized the same issues (see Table 5.7). Pieces in the DCCC’s “jobs” series pictured stacks of moving boxes labeled “jobs,” with shipping

132  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

labels marked “from Robin Hayes” and addressed to Mexico, India, and China; a “U Hayes” moving van; and a map of the recipient’s “commute” from Charlotte to Central America to get to the jobs that Hayes has created. The early ads, particularly the heavy early investment by the DCCC, clearly affected the race. A late summer poll by Public Policy Polling (PPP) had Hayes ahead by ten points, and 60 percent to 70 percent of respondents had not heard of Kissell, despite the fact that he had run before. After nearly two months of DCCC ads and, to a lesser extent, Kissell’s own ads, a late September poll by PPP showed that Kissell had improved his name recognition and name recall. He had moved ahead of Hayes by four or five points.103

A Change Election for North Carolina Obama’s narrow victory in North Carolina was among the most impressive accomplishments of his election campaign. Only Indiana, which had not voted for a Democratic president since 1964, marked a more impressive turnaround. His win in a state that had gone Republican in every presidential election since 1976 was the culmination of an array of factors, all of which worked in Obama’s favor. In short, building on the strength of the primary organization, Obama and the Democrats built an unprecedented ground game that took full advantage of North Carolina’s new early voting and same-day registration laws.104 This organizational success was largely predicated on the energy and enthusiasm that Obama generated, as well as national political circumstances that favored any Democratic presidential candidate. Additionally, changing demographic trends in North Carolina—growing numbers of non-native moderate and independent voters from the Northeast and Midwest—changed the political geography of the state to be more amenable to a Democratic presidential candidate.105 The Democrats’ organizational efforts and the dramatic increase in newly registered Democratic voters worked enormously to Obama’s benefit in the final results. North Carolina went from about 3.5 million votes cast in 2004 to almost 4.3 million in 2008. John McCain actually received about 150,000 more votes than George W. Bush did in 2004, but Barack Obama received nearly 600,000 more votes than John Kerry did. Urban counties, with their educated professionals and high percentages of African Americans, formed the core of Obama’s support; here, Democratic turnout was up tremendously over 2004 levels. For example, Wake County (home to Raleigh) and Mecklenburg County (home to Charlotte) saw countywide increases in turnout among African Americans of approximately 25 percent. The urbanization of North Carolina—fifteen counties now comprise more than half of the state’s total electorate—thus worked to make the state more fertile ground for Obama’s victory (see Chapter 4). The exit polls in North Carolina aligned with national trends, yet also presented several noteworthy features. Relative to John Kerry, Obama increased Democratic support among virtually every demographic group. Most notably, given the targets of the organization, Democratic support among African American voters increased from 85 percent to 95 percent, and Democratic support among voters eighteen to twenty-nine years old went from 59 percent to 74 percent.106 Though North Carolina has remained Democratic in state-level voting, split-ticket voting among Democrats has historically hurt presidential candidates, so it is notable that Obama received 90 percent of the votes from Demo-

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  133

cratic identifiers, in contrast to Kerry’s 84 percent. Obama’s efforts to reach new voters were clearly successful, as he captured 68 percent of this group, which represented 13 percent of the electorate. The turnout results and exit polls, taken together, further validate the effectiveness of the Democratic ground game in North Carolina. Likewise, Hagan’s final nine-point victory over Dole was made possible by winning several key demographic groups.107 Hagan won the vote of North Carolina women, who made up 54 percent of the electorate, by a convincing fourteen-point margin, 55 percent to 41 percent, while keeping her losing margin among men to only three points, 50 percent to 47 percent. Hagan drew considerable support from young voters, winning 71 percent of those between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine years, and 72 percent from first-time voters. Hagan won 96 percent of the vote from African Americans compared with just 1 percent for Dole. This substantial advantage helped Hagan more than overcome Dole’s 57 percent to 39 percent lead among white voters (including an even larger 67 percent to 31 percent advantage for Dole among white evangelicals). Geographically, Hagan dominated in the Raleigh/Durham area (which makes up 20 percent of the electorate), winning 63 percent to Dole’s 36 percent. Hagan also won the critical swing region of the state—eastern North Carolina, with its 17 percent of the electorate, by a margin of 57 percent to Dole’s 38 percent—as well as the Charlotte area (22 percent of the electorate), 50 percent to 47 percent. Dole’s areas of strength came in the west and in the Greensboro area. Hagan won among self-identified moderates (making up 43 percent of the North Carolina electorate) by an almost two-to-one margin, 64 percent to 33 percent, (and a whopping fifteen-to-one margin among self-identified liberals, who were 18 percent of the electorate). This ultimately left Dole with little more than her conservative base, which supported her four to one. Finally, Hagan and Obama supporters were more unified than Dole and McCain supporters. Hagan captured the support of 93 percent of Obama voters, while Dole won the support of 86 percent of McCain voters. Unlike previous presidential elections in North Carolina, when the Democratic presidential candidate did little to assist down-ballot candidates, Hagan appears to have been helped by Obama’s presence on the ticket. In North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District race, Kissell’s victory was made possible by securing dominant majorities in the Democratic urban and rural counties, winning 75 percent in the Charlotte section of the district, and generally reached the high fifties in the eastern rural counties. He won the key swing section of the district in Fayetteville, with 58.5 percent.108 Hayes won the two GOP-dominated suburban and exurban counties outside Charlotte— Cabarrus and Stanly. Two urban counties were key to the different outcome in 2008.109 In Mecklenburg County (Charlotte), Kissell increased his margin by seven points (68 percent to 75 percent). In Cumberland County (Fayetteville), he improved his margin by a dramatic thirteen points (45.6 percent to 58.5 percent). In all of the other counties in the Eighth Congressional District, Kissell performed 1.6 points better than in 2006. Kissell’s margins in the urban counties improved, as did turnout as a proportion of the district electorate. Cumberland and Mecklenburg Counties contributed 30.7 percent of the district vote in 2006 and 36.3 percent in 2008.110 In short, larger proportions of the vote,

134  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene

multiplied by larger shares of the electorate, equaled substantially more votes for Kissell.

Conclusion As Raleigh News and Observer reporter Rob Christensen put it, “Obama supersized the electorate” in North Carolina.111 Democrats registered hundreds of thousands of new voters and dominated early voting, same-day voter registration, and straight-ticket voting. These trends were particularly apparent among African American voters. Democratic voters seemed eager to vote, while the Republican Party struggled to get out its base.112 The Obama campaign and the Democratic Party used their greater enthusiasm to mobilize voters. Obama’s fundraising ability and his rejection of public financing allowed him to put North Carolina into play at the presidential level. However, his extensive grassroots operation and funding of the North Carolina Campaign for Change mobilized a wave of turnout that helped all Democratic candidates. Additionally, the DSCC and DCCC started their air game attacks early to undermine Dole and Hayes. The DSCC especially deserves credit for taking a largely unknown state senator and beating one of the best-known Republican incumbents. Their series of “old men” ads framed the election as a referendum on Dole’s attentiveness and effectiveness. Once the DSCC started its ads, Dole never recovered. Clay Haynes, Senate Coordinated Campaign Director for the North Carolina Democratic Party, formulated the dynamics, “The DSCC was on one side peeling persuadable voters away [from Dole]. Hagan and the coordinated campaign were picking them up. Obama was turning them out.”113 The Democrats were able to nationalize the North Carolina election by making the performance of Bush and the GOP a liability in a conservative, Republican-leaning state. Although North Carolina Democrats typically distance themselves from the presidential candidate, they showed that they were good team players under the right conditions—when the presidential candidate’s popularity and investment in the state worked to their benefit. The 2002 and 2008 elections in North Carolina provide a good case to assess the effects of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). Both cycles featured campaigns that attracted significant outside money.114 The 2002 contest featured heavy television spending by interest groups, with some groups spending more in 2002 than the DCCC, the NRCC, or Hayes’s Democratic challenger. Also in 2002, interest groups’ grassroots activity was much more substantial on the GOP side than on the Democratic side. The 2008 campaign showed a clear shift of campaign activity toward the parties and candidates. Interest groups were very active in the U.S. Senate campaign, but not in the presidential or Eighth Congressional District campaigns. The possibility that Democrats could win sixty Senate seats and limit GOP filibusters made the Senate campaigns an important battleground for interest groups. With majority party control of the House unlikely to change, House races were not an interest group priority. However, the Democratic Party was still actively engaged in the House race through independent expenditures and the North Carolina Campaign for Change. Grassroots activity in 2008 was much more coordinated through the Democratic Party than in 2002.115 The Republi-

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  135

can Party was much less involved than in 2002, but this was due to the NRCC’s lack of funds, not the restrictions of BCRA. Ultimately, McCain, Dole, and Hayes could not overcome the numerous forces propelling Democratic candidates nationwide. The declining economy, an unpopular war in Iraq, a Republican president with record low approval, changes in the state, and excitement about Obama’s campaign all translated into a favorable environment for Democrats.116 To their credit, Obama, Hagan, and Kissell each capitalized on their opportunities. With significant outside assistance, notably from the national Democratic Party committees, and unusually strong and coordinated intraparty cooperation, Obama, Hagan, and Kissell emerged as winners, despite relatively unfavorable odds just a year earlier. In the end, these three contests epitomized the disappointing 2008 election for Republicans.

Notes Acknowledgments: The authors thank our graduate assistants, Kristen Casper of East Carolina University, Travis Hargett of North Carolina State University, and Joshua Hoke of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. We also thank Professor Dan Masters of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for providing us with campaign mailings from the Wilmington area during the 2008 election. 1.  Andrew Barksdale, “Who Knew the Senate Race Would Be So Close?” Fayette­v ille Observer, September 14, 2008, available at http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/09/14/3649021. htm (accessed May 7, 2009). 2. President Polls USA, “North Carolina President Bush Approval Rating Polls,” available at http://www.presidentpollsusa.com/georgewbush/north-carolina.html (accessed March 16, 2009). 3.  CQ Press, “North Carolina 8,” Congressional Districts in the 2000s (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2003). 4.  John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira, The Emerging Democratic Majority (New York: Scribner, 2002). 5.  Barksdale, “Who Knew?” 6.  Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordi­ nary Election (New York: Viking Penguin, 2009), 213. 7.  Carolina Valand, North Carolina Democratic Party executive director, interview by Steven Greene, December 18, 2008; Rob Christensen, reporter, Raleigh News and Observer, interview by Steven Greene, November 17, 2008. 8.  “Campaign Tracker: North Carolina,” Washington Post, March 16, 2009, available at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/states/nc/ (accessed May 6, 2009). 9. Pat McCrory, mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina, speech given to North Carolina Political Science Association, Greensboro, NC, February 27, 2009. 10.  Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager, John McCain for President, interview by Eric Heberlig, June 23, 2009. 11.  “Campaign Tracker: North Carolina,” Washington Post, March 16, 2009, available at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/states/nc/ (accessed May 6, 2009). 12.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking Penguin, 2009), 351. 13.  American Conservative Union, “2007 U.S. Senate Votes,” available at http://www. acuratings.org/2008senate.htm (accessed May 5, 2009). 14. Mark Binker, “Dole, Hagan Debate Energy,” Greensboro News and Record, August 10, 2008, available at http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/08/09/article/dole_hagan_debate_ energy (accessed May 7, 2009). 15.  Barbara Barrett, “Dole, Hagan Pledge to Disclose Their Earmark Requests,” Raleigh News and Observer, October 30, 2008, available at http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/

136  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene story/1274483.html (accessed May 7, 2009); Andrew Barksdale, “Who Knew the Senate Race Would Be So Close?” 16. Real Clear Politics, “North Carolina Senate,” available at www.realclearpolitics.com/ epolls/2008/senate/nc/north_carolina_senate-910.html#polls (accessed March 16, 2009). 17.  Keren Rivas, “Hagan Talks Jobs in Campaign Stop: Democrat Swings Through County in Bid to Unseat Dole,” Times-News, October 24, 2008 (accessed January 14, 2009, through Lexis-Nexis). 18. Rob Christensen, The Paradox of Tarheel Politics (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 311. 19.  “Hagan Victory Was Referendum on Dole,” Charlotte Observer, November 5, 2008, 20A. 20.  Army Community Service, “Ft. Bragg is Home of the Army’s Only Airborne Corps and Airborne Division, the ‘Green Berets,’ and the Army’s Largest Support Command,” Answers Unlimited, available at http://www.fortbraggmwr.com/MWRpublications/answersunlimited.pdf (accessed May 22, 2009).0 21. Eric S. Heberlig, “The Survival of a Targeted Incumbent,” PS Online e-Symposium, July 2003, available at http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PSJul03Heberlig.pdf (accessed June 2, 2009). 22.  “North Carolina 8: Robin Hayes,” CQ’s Politics in America 2008, ed. Jackie Koszczuk and Martha Angle (Washington: CQ Press, 2008), 757. 23. Ibid., 758; “2007 Voting Scores,” CQ Weekly Report, January 14, 2008, 141, 151; CQ Politics, “CQ Vote Studies in the 110th Congress,” available at http://innovation.cq.com/ multimedia/cqvotestudies08 (accessed December 31, 2008). 24. Lisa Zagaroli, “Swing Voters Key in Eighth,” Charlotte Observer, October 21, 2008, 8A. 25.  Jay Newton-Small, “Obama Scales Back His 50-State Strategy,” Time Magazine, September 23, 2008, available at http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1843532,00.html (accessed May 7, 2009). 26.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Elizabeth Dole,” available at http://www.opensecrets. org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00008071 (accessed June 2, 2009). 27.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Kay Hagan,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/ politicians/summary.php?newMem=Y&cid=N00029617 (accessed January 29, 2009). 28. Ibid., Linda Lipsen, spokesperson for the American Association of Justice, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 29. Erin Hill, Managing Director for ActBlue, telephone interview by David Magleby, March 18, 2009. 30.  Jim Morrill, “N.C. Campaigns Rake in More than $20 Million from Outsiders,” Char­ lotte Observer, October 24, 2008, available at http://www.newsobserver.com/662/v-print/story/ 1266728.html (accessed May 20, 2009). 31. Scott Bensing, National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 32.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Total Raised and Spent: 2006 Race: North Carolina District 08,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id=NC08&cycle=2006 (accessed October 31, 2008). 33.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Top Industries: 2008 Race: North Carolina District 08,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/indus.php?cycle=2008&id=NC08 (accessed January 29, 2009). 34.  Federal Election Commission, available at ftp://ftp.fec.gov/FEC (accessed March 12, 2009). 35.  Heberlig, “Survival of a Targeted Incumbent.” 36. Steve Quain, Hayes for Congress campaign manager, interview by Eric Heberlig, November 17, 2008. 37. Steven Greene and Eric Heberlig, “BCRA and the 2004 North Carolina Senate Election,” in Dancing without Partners, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2005); Heberlig, “Survival of a Targeted Incumbent.” 38.  Raleigh News and Observer, “Obama and McCain Staffs in NC,” November 4, 2008, available at http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/obama_and_mccain_staffs_ in_n_c (accessed February 16, 2009). 39. Valand, interview.

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  137 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43.  Tracey Woodward, Obama for America staging/location director, interview by Steven Greene, February 5, 2008. 44.  Jon Carson, Obama for America national field director, interview by David Magleby, December 11, 2008. 45.  Carson, interview. 46. Plouffe, Audacity to Win, 256. 47. Rob Christensen, “Economy Not Race, NC Key,” Raleigh News and Observer, November 9, 2008. 48.  Calculated by Michael Bitzer, Catawba College, based on North Carolina Board of Elections data, available at http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/7937/14537/en/summary.html (accessed March 2, 2009). 49. Lynn Bonner, “More People Voted Early than on Election Day,” Raleigh News and Ob­ server, November 6, 2008. 50.  Carson, interview. 51. Ibid. 52. Nick Tosco, Max Melton for North Carolina Senate campaign director, interview by Eric Heberlig, November 17, 2008. 53.  Jim Morrill and Ted Mellnik, “Losing is New for McCrory,” Charlotte Observer, November 6, 2008, 1A; Taylor Batten, “Straight-Ticket Voters Skewer GOP,” Charlotte Observer, November 9, 2008, 25A. 54. Michael McDonald, “Analysis of Selected 2008 Voter Registration Databases,” United States Election Project, http://elections.gmu.edu/voterfile_2008.html (accessed June 8, 2009). 55. Mike Baker, “AP: Same-day Registration in N.C. Helped Obama,” Greensboro News and Record, November 13, 2008, available at http://www.news-record.com/content/2008/11/13/article/ap_same_day_registration_in_nc_ helped_obama (accessed June 8, 2009). 56.  Democracy North Carolina, “2008 Recap: The Year of the Voter,” available at http:// www.democracy-nc.org/nc/2008/WrapUp.pdf (accessed June 8, 2009). 57.  Tracey Woodward, Obama for America staging/location director, interview by Steven Greene, February 5, 2008. 58.  Charles Prysby, “The 2008 Elections in North Carolina: Change or Continuity?” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the North Carolina Political Science Association, February 27, 2009. 59. Ibid. 60.  Garth Regan, Elizabeth Dole Campaign political director, e-mail to Eric Heberlig, November 11, 2008. 61. Ibid. 62.  Jeanette Hagan, daughter of Kay Hagan, interview by Eric Heberlig, October 19, 2008. 63.  Clay Haynes, Senate Coordinated Campaign Director for the North Carolina Democratic Party, interview by Eric Heberlig, July 8, 2009. 64. Nick Tosco, Max Melton for North Carolina Senate campaign director, interview by Eric Heberlig, November 17, 2008; Eli Timberg, North Carolina Campaign for Change Charlotte field organizer, interview by Eric Heberlig, November 7, 2008. 65.  Haynes, interview. 66. Valand, interview. 67. North Carolina Board of Elections, “Statewide: 2008 General Election Results,” available at http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/NC/7937/14537/en/summary.html (accessed May 21, 2009). 68.  Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “North Carolina’s Eighth District,” available at http://dccc.org/content/races/nc_08/ (accessed August 4, 2008). 69.  Justin Simpson, Larry Kissell for Congress volunteer, interview by Eric Heberlig, February 5, 2009. 70.  Timberg, interview. 71. Simpson, interview. 72.  Timberg, interview.

138  /  Eric S. Heberlig, Peter L. Francia, and Steven H. Greene 73. Valand, interview. 74.  Brian Wolff, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) executive director, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 75.  Karin Johansen, DCCC consultant and head of California practice, Dewey Squire Group, interview by David Magleby, November 13, 2008. 76.  Wolff, interview. 77. Steve Quain, Hayes for Congress campaign manager, e-mail communication with Eric Heberlig, November 18, 2008; Quain, interview; Heberlig, “Survival of a Targeted Incumbent.” 78.  Quain, interview. 79. Politico, “NRCC: Ten They’re Worried about,” available at http://www.politico.com/ blogs/thecrypt/1008/NRSC_Desperately_seeking_volunteers_.html?showall (accessed October 22, 2008). 80.  Quain, interview. 81. North Carolina State Board of Elections, “Campaign Finance 2008 Fourth Quarter for: Elect Pat McCrory Governor,” available at http://www.app.sboe.state.nc.us/webapps/cf%5Frpt% 5Fsearch/cf_report_sections.aspx?RID=96448&SID=STA-AIYGP3-C-001&CN=ELECT%20 PAT%20MCCRORY %20GOVERNOR&RN=2008%20Fourth%20Quarter (accessed June 3, 2009). 82.  Timothy Kay, “The Shift Occurring in Paid Media,” available at http://www.spotcable. com/spot_downloads/ShiftOccurringinPaidMediaAAPC.pdf (accessed June 3, 2009). 83.  Raleigh News and Observer, “Obama Targets McCain on the Radio,” October 1, 2008, available at http://projects.newsobserver.com/under_the_dome/obama_targets_mccain_on_radio (accessed March 16, 2009). 84.  Cecil Banks, North Carolina Association of Educators government relations director, interview by Steven Greene, November 14, 2008. 85. Valand, interview; Bensing, interview. 86. Robert G. Kaiser, “In Senate Battlegrounds, Fusillades of Television Ads,” Washington Post, October 28, 2008. 87. Valand, interview. 88.  Barksdale, “Who Knew?” 89. Matthew Murray, “North Carolina: New NRSC TV Ad Hits Dole Foe on Taxes,” Roll Call, September 10, 2008, available at http://www.rollcall.com/issues/54_30/atr/28166-1.html (accessed June 2, 2009). 90.  Opponents of card check spent generously on issue advertising (the EFAC spent $358,900 and the CDW $111,232) attacking the legislation, but did not mention the Senate campaign or the candidates in their television advertising. 91.  Barksdale, “Who Knew?” 92. Matthew Murray, “North Carolina: Dole Added to LCV’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ List,” Roll Call, September 17, 2008. 93. Steve Rosenthal, co-founder of the Organizing Group, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 94. Lisa Zagaroli, “Dole’s ‘Godless’ Ad Riles Hagan,” Raleigh News and Observer, October 30, 2008. 95.  Associated Press, “Robocalls Start on Hagan, Atheists,” Charlotte Observer, November 2, 2008, 5B. 96.  Haynes, interview, July 8, 2009. 97.  Christensen, interview, November 17, 2008. 98.  Jim Morrill, “Dole Operative Defends ‘Godless’ Ad,” Charlotte Observer, March 4, 2009. 99. Lisa Zagaroli, “Dole’s ‘Godless’ Attack Drew Boost for Hagan,” Charlotte Observer, November 12, 2008, 3B. 100.  During 2007, Kissell paid campaign workers as contract employees, so he did not pay social security or unemployment taxes. 101. Lisa Zagaroli, “‘Hate’ Remark Stalks Hayes,” Charlotte Observer, October 24, 2008, 1B. 102.  John Freudenberger, North Carolina Campaign for Change Fayetteville field organizer, interview by Eric Heberlig, November 9, 2008; Quain, interview; Timberg, interview; John McArdle, “DCCC Poll Gives Kissell Big Lead in N.C.,” Roll Call, October 11, 2008. 103.  Timberg, Eric Heberlig; Freudenberger, interview.

The 2008 North Carolina Federal Elections  /  139 104. Rob Christensen, Raleigh News and Observer reporter, interview by Steven Greene, November 10, 2008; Valand, interview. 105.  Amy Baldwin, “Newcomers are Proof—This is Not Your Father’s NC,” Charlotte Observer, October 27, 2008; Shaila Dewan, “Obama Makes Historic Inroads in South,” New York Times, November 6, 2008. 106. Presidential voting data from Cable News Network, “Exit Polls: President North Carolina,” CNNPolitics.com, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/ polls/#val=NCP00p3 (accessed May 6, 2009). 107. Senate voting data in the following paragraphs from CNN, “Exit Polls: U.S. Senate North Carolina,” CNNPolitics.com, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/ polls/#NCS01p1 (accessed March 17, 2009). 108.  CNN, “US House North Carolina 08: Anson—Union,” CNNPolitics.com, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/county/#NCH08p1, last updated January 12, 2009 (accessed May 5, 2009). 109. North Carolina Board of Elections: North Carolina State Board of Elections, “2006 Election Results,” available at http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/content.aspx?id=69 (accessed November 14, 2008). 110.  Cable News Network, “US House North Carolina 08: Anson—Union,” CNNPol­ itics.com, January 12, 2009, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/ county/#NCH08p1 (accessed May 5, 2009); CNN, “US House of Representatives/North Carolina 08/County Results,” CNNPolitics.com, available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/ pages/results/states/NC/H/08/county.000.html (accessed May 5, 2009). 111.  Christensen, interview, November 10. 112.  Quain, interview; Don Worthington, Fayetteville Observer reporter, interview by Eric Heberlig, November 20, 2008. 113.  Haynes, interview, July 8, 2009. 114. Information on the 2002 campaign in this paragraph comes from Heberlig, “Survival of a Targeted Incumbent.” 115. Eric S. Heberlig, “North Carolina’s Eighth and Ninth Districts,” in The Last Hurrah: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2003), 260–261. 116.  Christensen, interview, November 10, 2008.

6

Shifting Granite New Hampshire’s Change from Largely Republican to Largely Democratic over Two Election Cycles Dante J. Scala

T

hanks to its first-in-the-nation presidential primary, New Hampshire is said to be a place where people never stop talking politics. However, Granite State voters’ attention spans were put to the test in the 2008 electoral cycle. The 2008 campaign began almost immediately after the 2006 midterms concluded, with Illinois senator Barack Obama making a star turn with his visit at the end of the calendar year. Even apart from presidential politics, though, the 2008 elections promised high-intensity matchups, including the possibility of not one, but two rematches. Former governor Jeanne Shaheen plotted to wrest a U.S. Senate seat from John Sununu, who had bested her six years earlier. Further down the ballot, former First Congressional District representative Jeb Bradley was preparing to avenge his surprise upset two years earlier at the hands of a little-known progressive Democrat, Carol Shea-Porter. Bradley was hardly the only New Hampshire Republican wanting to reverse the party’s 2006 election fortunes. Democrats had swept into office from the top of the ticket to the bottom, seizing both seats in the House of Representatives and gaining control of both houses of the state legislature for the first time in more than a century. Stunned Republicans were left arguing about what type of natural disaster had befallen them: a hundred-year tsunami of anti-Republican sentiment most unlikely to occur again, or an earthquake that had left the political landscape forever transformed. Observers wondered whether 2008 would prove 2006 a fluke or whether it would confirm the sense that the lone Republican holdout in New England had fallen under Democratic control.

Political History and Geography of New Hampshire For decades, political observers regarded New Hampshire as a lock for the Republican Party. Suspicious of big government and staunchly anti-tax (in a state that has neither an income tax nor a sales tax), New Hampshire’s “Yankee Republicans” were the core of the “leave us alone,” libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Throughout the twentieth century, Republicans routinely controlled the state’s congressional delegation and the state legislature. In presidential elections, Granite State voters typically voted several percentage points more Republican than the nation as a whole. Democrats, particularly those who nurtured a reputation for fiscal conservatism, occasionally managed to win office and even achieve reelection. None of these victories, however, changed

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  141

the state’s underlying partisan alignment. Therefore, in typical presidential election years, after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary concluded, presidential campaigns usually did not return to the state because the outcome of the election was regarded as a foregone conclusion. Republican granite, however, began to show serious cracks in 1992. The state had endured a financial crisis at the beginning of the decade, with several major banks closing.1 Nationally, President George H. W. Bush had aroused the ire of his party by reneging on his 1988 “read my lips” pledge never to raise taxes. New Hampshire Republicans, who had salvaged Bush’s presidential run with a primary victory in 1988, this time turned against him in large numbers in favor of conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan. Bush won the New Hampshire primary and secured his party’s nomination, but the first warning shot about his electability had been fired. In the fall, Bush faced serious competition from not one, but two major candidates: Democrat Bill Clinton and Independent businessman Ross Perot. More than two of ten New Hampshire voters turned out for Perot, effectively splitting the Republican Party and handing the state’s four electoral votes to Clinton; Bush won only 38 percent of the vote in the Granite State, while Perot finished with 23 percent. Clinton’s victories in 1992 and 1996 signaled the movement of New Hampshire from the “safe GOP” column to battleground state. His brand of fiscally conservative, socially moderate to liberal politics appealed not only to Democrats but also to the growing numbers of Independent voters who registered themselves as “undeclared” on the state’s voter rolls. Meanwhile, New Hampshire Republicans found themselves increasingly out of sync with a national party that embraced conservative positions on social issues such as abortion and, a decade later, gay marriage and stem cell research. In the 2000 presidential primary, New Hampshire voters turned their backs on the socially conservative, anti-tax frontrunner George W. Bush. Instead, Granite State Republicans rallied around insurgent John McCain, who emphasized balanced budgets more than tax cuts and downplayed the importance of social issues. Despite his loss in the primary, Bush managed to carry the state over Al Gore in the general election, though he did not win a majority of the vote. Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who won 4 percent of the vote, was widely blamed for preventing Gore from carrying New Hampshire, and thus the presidency itself. Four years later, Bush again fell short of a majority—this time, without a progressive third-party candidate—as Massachusetts Senator John Kerry carried his neighboring state, 50 percent to Bush’s 49 percent. New Hampshire had transformed from Yankee Republican stronghold to a state with a modest Democratic tilt. Despite the tilt in their favor, Democratic candidates had only modest success in state and congressional elections. Democrats began the 2002 electoral cycle, for instance, with several open-seat electoral opportunities. Most notably, First Congressional District congressman John Sununu, son of former governor and presidential chief of staff John Sununu, had decided to leave his seat in pursuit of a successful primary challenge to incumbent Republican Senator Bob Smith. New Hampshire Democrats had high hopes that three-term Governor Jeanne Shaheen, the first elected female governor in the state’s history, could capture the Senate seat and become the state’s first Democratic senator since John Durkin in 1981. Polling had the race close all through September and October.

142  /  Dante J. Scala

Shaheen and the entire Democratic ticket, however, were hampered by the presence of a pro–income tax gubernatorial candidate at the top of the ticket. That candidate, Mark Fernald, lost by 21 percentage points on Election Day. In addition, Shaheen and New Hampshire Democrats were swimming against the national political tide. 2 A year after the September 11, 2001, attacks, voters were still very concerned about national security and quite enthusiastic about President Bush’s performance. 3 In the last days of the campaign, Bush visited the state to endorse Sununu at a Republican campaign rally.4 On Election Day, Shaheen fell short of her goal, losing to Sununu by a margin of fifty-one to forty-seven. The rest of the Democratic ticket did far worse. Republicans ended the evening still in control of all four seats in the state’s congressional delegation and with large majorities in both houses of the state legislature. To add insult to electoral injury, Shaheen watched millionaire Republican Craig Benson take the governor’s seat that she had held for three terms. The 2002 election, however, marked a watershed for the Republican Party. Shortly after the election, news broke that Republican national and state party officials had engineered a scheme to jam the telephone lines of Democrats and an allied group who were conducting get-out-the-vote operations. The jamming was aborted on Election Day and was not considered a decisive factor in determining the outcome; still, the scandal remained a stain on the party for years afterward. 5 Governor Benson’s administration also was marked by scandal, and the governor’s relationship with his own party was sometimes strained.6 Typically, New Hampshire voters hand their governor a second two-year term, but Benson proved an exception, losing reelection in 2004 to Democrat John Lynch. Lynch’s victory, coupled with Kerry’s winning the state at the top of the ticket, gave renewed hope to the Democrats. The next two years only amplified Democratic optimism. Mirroring the national mood, voters statewide continued to sour on Bush and the war in Iraq; by the fall of 2006, the president’s job approval rating stood at just 36 percent in the Granite State.7 In contrast, Lynch was riding high in public opinion polls, and his campaign for reelection meant that he would sit at the top of the ticket for the Democrats. The state’s two Republican congressmen, Charlie Bass and Jeb Bradley, could find no place to hide from the coming storm. Bass, a moderate Republican who represented an increasingly Democratic district, watched his campaign unravel early. Polling several weeks before the election indicated that voters were in a mood to fire the incumbent, and well-funded challenger Paul Hodes, in his second try for Bass’s job, was well positioned to take advantage. Bradley, however, had the distinct displeasure of seeing his reelection bid fall apart at the very end. Facing lightly regarded, lightly funded anti-war activist Carol Shea-Porter, Bradley was widely thought to hold a safe seat, even in an anti-Republican environment. Instead, Shea-Porter pulled off a most surprising upset, defeating Bradley with 51 percent of the vote. For Democrats, the reversal of fortune was astounding. They now controlled the governor’s seat, both houses of the state legislature, and half of the state’s congressional delegates: both House members were Democrats, while both Senators remained Republican. Republicans suddenly appeared to be on the verge of becoming the minority party; after the 2008 presidential primary in January, Democrats only trailed Republicans by some 12,000 voters in party registration, a gap they fully closed by Election Day (Table 6.1).

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  143

Table 6.1  Voter Registration Totals in New Hampshire, by Party, 2002–2008 Year

2002 2004 2006 2008 Change, 2002–2008

Republican

Democratic Independent

253,504 267,141 256,353 280,507

176,634 228,395 221,549 282,421

260,021 360,325 372,934 395,600

+27,003

+105,787

+135,579

Sources: Michael McDonald, “2008 General Election Voter Registration Statistics,” available at http://elections.gmu.edu/Registration_2008G.html (accessed June 8, 2009).

Credit (or blame) for the change in New Hampshire’s political environment typically was given to “Massachusetts liberals” who had migrated north and settled in the state’s burgeoning southern tier. Detailed demographic and polling analysis, however, indicated a more nuanced picture.8 One actual cause of Republican decline has been the influx of highly educated, upper-income voters who increasingly vote Democratic, just as their counterparts do nationally. Many of these new state residents traveled from the Boston metro area. Between 2001 and 2005, nearly 80,000 new Granite State residents migrated from the Boston metro area, more than migrated from the rest of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont combined.9 However, the most dramatic changes in New Hampshire’s political landscape did not occur in Massachusetts border counties such as Hillsborough and Rockingham. More significant changes occurred elsewhere in the state, as New Hampshire’s rural counties hollowed out as sources of Republican strength. Yankee Republicans were dying off or migrating. In addition, there was speculation that older Republicans, who remembered fondly the heyday of moderates such as Nelson Rockefeller or Gerald Ford, had become disenchanted with the party led by evangelicals and southerners, Rush Limbaugh, and George W. Bush. While observers debated the causes, there was no disputing the fact that once-reliable Republican counties had become politically neutral or now belonged to the Democrats. As the 2008 electoral cycle began, Democrats were near parity with Republicans on the voter rolls, and Senator John Sununu, up for reelection to a second term, was widely regarded as vulnerable to defeat.

The Presidential Election: For Obama, the Second Time Is the Charm For the 2008 presidential election, as had been the case since 1992, New Hampshire was billed as a battleground state. Observers regarded the Granite State as especially interesting because the two major party nominees had very different previous experiences in the state. New Hampshire, which had made John McCain a national political figure eight years earlier when he upset George W. Bush, provided his campaign with another critical primary victory in January 2008, this time over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. In contrast, New Hampshire Democrats halted Barack Obama’s much-vaunted momentum after the Iowa caucuses, delivering the state to Hillary Rodham Clinton and setting up a battle for the nomination that would extend through all states

144  /  Dante J. Scala

and territories and last five more months. McCain had long been known as the Republican for Independent voters, a constituency critical to winning the state. However, Obama also sought the Independent vote. His state party cochair Jim Demers observed that both McCain and Obama had staked claim to “McBama voters,” Independents who were reputedly still choosing between the two candidates.10 David Plouffe, the Obama campaign manager, described the view of their campaign in New Hampshire: All things being equal, New Hampshire would have joined Iowa and New Mexico on the list of Bush states leaning toward Obama. The Democrats were in ascendance there, having won just about all there was to win in 2006. But McCain had a special relationship with the voters in New Hampshire—they had given him a huge win in each of his runs, and we were a little gun-shy after Hillary had the rug pulled out from under us in the primary.11 As the summer months began, the prevailing wisdom suggested that McCain’s long-term relationship with the state, coupled with the coolness of “Clinton Democrats” toward the Democratic nominee, would give the GOP nominee a solid opportunity to carry the state in the general election. Democratic operative Steve Rosenthal of the Organizing Group shared Plouffe’s view: “New Hampshire, then, is kind of in a separate category. . . . ​It’s trending more Democratic, but McCain has a special relationship with that state, with independent voters of that state. It’s not quite a pure toss-up, meaning that it leans slightly our way. We should win it, but we are going to have to work really hard.”12 This GOP optimism lasted through September, as Obama held a narrow lead that mirrored his advantage in national polls. However, when the shock of the financial meltdown sent voters rapidly and decisively toward the Democratic nominee, New Hampshire once again behaved as a bellwether; a University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll for the Boston Globe, taken in late October, showed Obama with a fifteen-point lead in the Granite State.13 Further, the Obama campaign behaved as if it trailed the Republican campaign, pouring far more money into the state than McCain did, thanks to its far larger war chest (see Chapter 1). McCain was never able to regain his footing in his adopted political home. Obama easily carried New Hampshire by 54 percent to 45 percent, sweeping all of the state’s ten counties.

Presidential Campaign: Themes and Messages The deteriorating economy was one recurrent theme of the Obama campaign. New Hampshire provided important reinforcement for Obama’s campaign theme. As David Plouffe put it: There was just a palpable sense that people wanted something new and different. Some of that was directed at him, and some of it was just he’s a vessel. But it was striking and very instructive and it helped further the discussion about him doing this. It was clear to us that we might be able to build a grassroots organization.14

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  145

In television ads that appeared in the New Hampshire media market, Obama indicted the economic policies of the Bush presidency: Bush had pursued a stronger economy by giving tax breaks to the wealthy, but instead of prosperity trickling down, Obama argued, pain trickled up. His campaign expectedly made the case for change and asserted that McCain would offer only more of the same. In particular, Obama accused McCain of supporting companies that outsourced jobs to foreign countries. The following Obama ad focused on a North Carolina mill in which workers who made thread for American flags lost their jobs: [Announcer]: Carolina Mills forced to shut down 17 plants; 2,600 lose their jobs. Workers once proud to make the thread for American flags have their futures outsourced to Asia. Washington sold them out with the help of politicians like John McCain. He supported trade deals and tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. McCain even said all Buy-American provisions were, quote, “disgraceful.” We just can’t afford more of the same. Obama’s television ads often took on a populist tone, promising that he would not let banks and oil companies exploit the people, and announcing that he would put homeowners first, not CEOs. Obama also went on offense on the typically Republican-owned issue of taxes. He promised to provide more tax cuts to the middle class than would his opponent, while closing special interest loopholes and refusing to extend the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy. He also attacked McCain’s health care proposals for their tax implications, claiming that his opponent would tax voters’ health benefits, raising the costs of health care for employers and threatening Americans’ health care.15 McCain fired back on taxes, attacking Obama as a big-government liberal with a long record of voting for higher taxes.16 His campaign also tried to raise doubts about his opponent’s readiness to assume the office of the presidency. In one such McCain ad, aired soon after the financial crisis began, the campaign made the case that experience matters in a crisis: While Obama would provide no leadership and would expose the country to unaffordable risks, McCain would protect voters’ savings and pensions. Another ad accused Obama of blind ambition, bad judgment, and a history of working with terrorists; the ad referred to his associations with Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers and blamed “Congressional liberals” for the housing market collapse. Yet another ad cast shadows on Obama’s support for national defense. The ad bluntly asked, “Who is Barack Obama?” [Announcer]: He says our troops in Afghanistan are— [Barack Obama]: Just air-raiding villages and killing civilians. [Announcer]: How dishonorable. Congressional liberals voted repeatedly to cut off funding to our active troops, increasing the risk on their lives. How dangerous. Obama and congressional liberals. Too risky for America.

146  /  Dante J. Scala

McCain also attempted to capitalize on his advantage in foreign policy experience. When Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, commented that some unfriendly foreign power would surely test the young president early in his administration, the McCain campaign quickly capitalized on the apparent gaffe with an ad highlighting Biden’s comments. In a departure from the norm, Obama felt compelled to respond, accusing McCain of selectively editing Biden’s words.

The Air Game Obama’s New Hampshire state co-chair Jim Demers described his candidate’s campaign as the rare political organization that, almost from day one, had the money to do what needed to be done, and went out and did it.17 On television, for instance, Obama established clear superiority over his opponent, doubling McCain’s spending in the New Hampshire media market by a margin of $4.8 million to McCain’s $2.2 million (Table 6.2). An examination of selected major radio stations in the New Hampshire market indicates that the Democrat’s radio presence was similarly superior to his opponent’s. Our examinations were done through two sources: Campaign Media Analysis Group and the New Hampshire Reconnaissance Network (NHRN). Through the NHRN, various strategic television and radio stations were targeted and campaign contacts were collected from many volunteers. An especially glaring indication of McCain’s relative weakness was his absence from Boston television. Statewide political campaigns in New Hampshire typically consider ad buys on Boston television to be mandatory, given the large number of residents in the state’s southern tier who are oriented toward the Boston metropolitan area; these residents may have once lived in Massachusetts, and many still commute there on a daily basis. Ads for Obama appeared on Boston network television right after Labor Day, the traditional start of the fall campaign season. He proceeded to spend $2.1 million and run more than 1,200 ads in that venue, while the McCain campaign remained dark in Boston. Obama’s state party co-chair Demers noted that the McCain campaign may have been forced to make such difficult decisions because of the combination of his lack of resources and the number of states that were in play nationwide (see Chapter 1). The Obama campaign continually kept the state “in play” and maintained pressure on McCain, said Jayne Millerick, a McCain advisor who was part of his leadership team in the Granite State. Millerick stated that it is “hard to compete when the numbers are that skewed. You can have the best message in the world, but if you don’t have the money to communicate it, your funding doesn’t compare with your opponent’s, it’s awfully hard to be successful.”18

The Ground Game Obama’s money advantage also had a large effect on the ground game in the Granite State. Ground operations include personal contact, direct mail, and telephone calls to register, persuade, and mobilize voters. (See Table 6.3 for a summary of unique campaign communications during the presidential campaign.) According to a poll commissioned by the Concord Monitor just before the election, “just under half of those surveyed say they’ve been personally contacted by

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  147

Table 6.2 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in New Hampshire, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Obama for America $3,979,160 $218,335 $4,197,495   Interest groups    United Food and Commercial Workers $38,000 — $38,000   American Federation of Teachers — $19,175 $19,175 Republican alliesa   Candidates   McCain for President $1,907,755 $78,497 $1,986,252   Political parties   RNC/McCain/Palin $64,095 $1,245 $65,340   RNC — $101 $101   Interest groups   Employee Freedom Action Committee — — — Nonpartisan   Interest groups   AARP — — —   Mayors Against Illegal Guns — — —    ONE Campaign — — —

CMAG TV

$4,821,258 $15,860 —

$2,162,466 — $141,209 $31,401

$155,919 $2,464 $850

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 6.3. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Obama’s campaign, while nearly a third said McCain’s campaign had reached out to them by phone or in person.”19 The Monitor poll mirrored what both Democrats and Republicans described as Obama’s decided advantage on the ground in New Hampshire. McCain advisor Millerick said that the Democrats’ money advantage translated into a greater number of direct voter contacts on the ground; the more contacts the Democrats made with voters, the better they were able to fare. 20 The strength of Obama’s

Table 6.3 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in New Hampshire, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organization E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Obama for America

61

9

—

7

8

4

14

103

  Political parties   New Hampshire Democratic Party

1

10

1

5

1

—

—

18

  DNC

—

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

  Local Democratic parties

—

3

—

1

—

—

—

4

  DSCC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Campaign for Change

—

26

—

2

—

—

—

28

  American Federation of Teachers

—

10

2

—

—

1

—

13

  NEA-New Hampshire

—

9

—

—

—

—

—

9

  NARAL Pro-Choice America

—

4

—

—

1

—

—

5

  NH Women VOTE

—

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

  League of Conservation Voters

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  SEIU COPE

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  New Hampshire AFL-CIO

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Sierra Club State Action Fund

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

49

2

—

1

—

1

7

60

  New Hampshire Republican     State Committee

—

30

—

—

2

—

—

32

  RNC

—

9

—

—

—

1

—

10

  Local Republican parties

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Interest groups

Republican alliesa   Candidates   McCain/Palin 2008 Political parties

  Interest groups   Susan B Anthony List

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Associated Builders and Contractors —

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Hampton’s Tax Fighting Team

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  National Republican Trust PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  National Right to Life PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  NRA Political Victory Fund

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Priests for Life

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  New Hampshire Citizen’s Alliance

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  Power Vote

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

Nonpartisan   Interest groups

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 6.2. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  149

operation was apparent even to Republicans working on down-ticket races. Congressional candidate Jeb Bradley’s campaign manager, Debra Vanderbeek, recalled hearing stories of registered Republicans receiving calls twice a day. 21 One couple residing in Manchester, Charles and Meredith Cook, both registered Republicans, received four Democratic calls on the evening of October 31, notifying them of an upcoming campaign event featuring President Bill Clinton. 22 Until the 2008 Obama campaign, Demers was convinced that New Hampshire’s tradition of grassroots politics was being supplanted by media-driven campaigning. However, the grassroots effort generated by Obama changed his mind. At its base was a volunteer network that had originated at the end of 2006 and now numbered in the thousands. Ned Helms, a longtime state activist who also served as a co-chair, recalled that people who volunteered for the Obama primary campaign remained engaged as the nomination contest continued, sometimes traveling to other states to aid Obama in those primaries. 23 These volunteers were put to work during the summer of 2008, working the telephones and canvassing door to door. The campaign realized that neighbors talking to neighbors about Obama could play a significant role in generating support for the candidate, particularly in a state with an “almost abnormally informed electorate,” said Brian Wallach, Obama’s New Hampshire political director. 24 On top of that, Obama’s New Hampshire campaign had the advantage of working in the only battleground state in New England. For hundreds of miles around, New Hampshire was the only place where Democratic activists could work and have a discernible effect. All through the general election campaign, the Obama campaign received busloads of volunteers, sent by New England politicians such as Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. In contrast to the consistency of the Obama campaign, McCain’s operation had experienced ups and downs since its inception in 2007. In the summer of 2007, McCain’s primary campaign had come perilously close to running out of funds, and rumors of the candidacy’s demise were widespread in the political media. McCain endured the lows and came roaring back in the final weeks before the New Hampshire primary to win the Granite State and, eventually, the nomination. Trevor Potter, a McCain operative, offered a telling picture of the way grassroots enthusiasm helped fuel McCain’s comeback. According to Potter, “A Romney phone bank in New Hampshire . . . ​was a very well organized, clean, nice operation and everybody in the room was a paid phoner. It was like a business.” By contrast, the McCain telephone bank “was chaos—people of all ages adding [to a] much higher level of enthusiasm, because not one of them was paid.” Potter stated that “going all the way back to ‘[Get] Clean for Gene’”— when New Hampshire college students shaved their beards and cut their hair to support the 1968 presidential bid of Eugene McCarthy—“New Hampshire has a history of rewarding the volunteer efforts, and McCain’s effort was nothing but volunteer effort.”25 Potter’s description of the Romney campaign’s use of paid telephone banks was denied by a high-ranking Romney operative. 26 Once McCain had effectively captured the nomination, however, the campaign’s lack of organization reemerged. For weeks, the national campaign toyed with the idea of creating a nontraditional, decentralized campaign operation, then opted against it in favor of a more standard model. Former New Hampshire GOP

150  /  Dante J. Scala

state party chair Fergus Cullen recalled the spring and early summer months as lost time for McCain in New Hampshire. 27 While Obama and Hillary Clinton were still battling each other in the later primaries, McCain’s staff members in New Hampshire were “waiting to be told what to do.” Inside McCain’s New Hampshire headquarters, in the Manchester mill yards, there was “nothing going on,” Cullen said. There seemed to be a certain “fatalism” about the entire campaign, he said, perhaps reflecting the nature of the candidate himself. One effect of the McCain campaign’s delay, Cullen said, was that talented staff members from McCain’s primary competitors, who knew the state well after months of work on the presidential primary, had long since departed the state when the campaign was finally ready to hire for the general election. In addition, GOP morale at the grassroots level was low in New Hampshire, said Jim Barnett, McCain’s state director for the New Hampshire primary and his New England regional campaign manager for the general election. 28 After the beating the party had taken in 2006, “people were really disenchanted” and lacked unity as well as the enthusiasm it takes to do the tedious daily work of voter contact. It was not until Labor Day, and McCain’s selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, that volunteer activity began to take off, Cullen said. 29 Even so, the burst of enthusiasm did not necessarily carry over to the candidate at the top of the ticket. People walked into the office and asked for yard signs, Barnett recalled, but they specifically asked for a sign with Palin’s name on it. Those signs had not yet arrived, so GOP staffers asked if they would like McCain signs. The response: “No, thanks, we’ll wait for the McCain/Palin signs.” In New Hampshire, the McCain campaign worked at “limited capacity,” Barnett said, 30 especially compared with the resources their opponents enjoyed. The Republican “Victory” campaign, the counterpart of the Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign, had 30 staff members, about a third of whom were McCain campaign staffers. The statewide Republican Party coordinated campaign had eight offices, compared with the two dozen the Democrats opened. “Our staff members were handed huge swaths of land and big populations” to cover, he said, while a member of Obama’s operation was able to concentrate on much smaller groups of voters. 31 McCain’s staff was “thrown in,” he said, to do the best they could to recruit volunteers for voter contact efforts. Even so, McCain’s New Hampshire operation was among his best in the country, said Barnett and Cullen. 32 Granite State Republicans prided themselves on their philosophy of self-reliance, defiantly telling one reporter that they did not have to rely on union workers from Massachusetts to come and do their grassroots work for them.33 Obama co-chair Demers recalled one incident three weeks before the election that highlighted the balance of forces on the ground in New Hampshire: A dozen Republicans gathered in the city of Rochester to go door to door; they were met by the “demoralizing” sight of two busloads of Democrats, ready to canvass on behalf of Obama. 34 Obama’s campaign staff, over and above the state Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign personnel, numbered about fifty.35 Obama’s campaign staff had spent the entire general election season identifying voters, by both making telephone calls and going door to door. 36 In the week before the election, co-chair Helms recalled, the campaign contacted every person they needed to carry the state, based on their calculations of voter turn-

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  151

out. From Saturday to Monday, the campaign workers contacted that universe of voters a second time, and for good measure, the campaign reached out one more time on Election Day. When voters got up that morning, there was a door hanger reminding them to vote, Helms said. 37 At the beginning of summer 2008, New Hampshire Republicans held out hope that the McCain mystique, coupled with lingering ill feelings among Democrats from the long and bitter primary season, could result in a Granite State victory. By the fall, however, it was apparent that New Hampshire’s increasingly Democratic general election voters were not treating McCain much differently than any other Republican. The last straw was the collapse of the financial markets. Try as they might on the local level, there was no changing what was occurring to McCain’s campaign at the national level, according to McCain advisor Millerick. 38 As a result, rather than giving GOP candidates a boost, McCain’s performance at the top of the ticket was cited by New Hampshire Republicans as having a negative effect on down-ticket races such as the U.S. Senate and the First Congressional District contests. Jamie Burnett, Senator John Sununu’s deputy campaign manager, put it this way: Obama winning the state by 10 points, it hurts. While it doesn’t mean that if he would have won by 3 points, we definitely would have won, but I think we would have had a much better shot. . . . ​Independents, they woke up on Election Day, and they wanted to vote for change. And it wasn’t so important what the change was, or the details of the change, but they wanted change. I’m not saying that to sound partisan, I’m just saying that because I definitely get the sense that it was a very emotional election this time around. 39

Change and the U.S. Senate Election in New Hampshire The 2008 U.S. Senate race was a marquee rematch of the 2002 contest between Republican John Sununu and Democratic former governor Jeanne Shaheen. Sununu won the first contest, but his chances for reelection were in doubt. Polls taken by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center showed Sununu at less than 40 percent in a head-to-head matchup versus Shaheen, a clear sign of danger for an incumbent.40 Shaheen’s entry into the race cleared the field on the Democratic side. Of the three races profiled in this chapter, this was by far the most evenly contested in terms of resources spent by the candidates, parties, and allied interest groups. All efforts to aid Sununu, however, failed to move the needle for the incumbent. Sununu began the race with a majority of voters apparently ready to replace him, and that essential fact of the race never changed. Shaheen won the election, 52 percent to 45 percent—almost a mirror image of the contest she lost six years earlier. The 2002 contest between Sununu and Shaheen had generated national attention. Sununu defeated a sitting senator, Bob Smith, in the state’s 2002 Republican primary to face the moderate three-term governor Shaheen. After an intense battle, the Republican emerged victorious. While the campaign environment in 2008 was very different, the candidates were little changed. Judy Reardon, a senior advisor to Shaheen, summarized it this way:

152  /  Dante J. Scala

Jeanne Shaheen and John Sununu are established political figures in New Hampshire, and neither one of them had changed from ’02. [Both] came out of the ’02 race with tepid favorable/unfavorable ratings. . . . ​ Going into this race, Governor Shaheen had an advantage over Sununu in favorable/unfavorable, but nothing to write home about.41 While Sununu and Shaheen were well known to each other and many in the state, the reality was that New Hampshire had changed substantially since 2002. Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) representative Bernadette Budde described her surprise at the pace of change: “New Hampshire is a weird place. I was stunned with how much it’s changed. I mean, Sununu is without a doubt the most vulnerable incumbent.”42 The changed campaign environment was recognized by the Sununu and Shaheen campaign staff as well. Sununu’s deputy manager Burnett recalled that “2002 was definitely a friendlier environment for Republicans. . . . ​Independents at the time were breaking favorably toward Republicans in ’02. The president was popular in ’02.”43 However, as noted, 2006 had been a bad year for Republicans, especially in New Hampshire. In 2008, terrorism and the war in Iraq were issues less helpful to Republicans. “National security was a big issue for voters in ’02. It was not in ’08. And that is an issue area where a female Democrat has a real disadvantage,” senior Shaheen adviser Reardon said.44 Added to that, Burnett said, economic issues had become paramount, especially the collapse of the financial markets. Independents “were not coming our way,” and Republicans probably “to a degree . . . ​were a little bit depressed too.”45 Reardon said that major changes in New Hampshire’s political environment had all broken in favor of her candidate. One manifestation of this was Democrats’ gains on the voter rolls: “One of the major changes from ’02 was the change in party registration. In ’02, Republicans had an 11-point voter registration advantage over Democrats. . . . ​A fter the [2008] New Hampshire [presidential] primary, for all intents and purposes, the two parties were at parity.”46 These shifting party fortunes made Shaheen’s task significantly easier the second time around, Reardon noted. “For a Democrat to win in ’02, they had to win the unaffiliated, undeclared voters by a really big margin. For the ’08 race, going into it, we knew we had to win the unaffiliated voters, but not by an overwhelming number.”47 All of this assumed that Democratic voters would remain loyal to Shaheen. In addition, President Bush, who had helped Sununu in 2002, had become a hindrance to him in 2008: “The New Hampshire voters’ views of George Bush were night and day. In the fall of ’02, George Bush was at the absolute zenith of his popularity,” said Reardon.48 In 2008, time and again, the Shaheen campaign tied Sununu to Bush, and it was an association that the junior senator from New Hampshire could not shake. Shaheen’s message strategy remained constant throughout the campaign, said Reardon: This is the way Jeanne Shaheen would articulate it. . . . “If you were happy with how things have been going for the last six years, you should vote for John Sununu. But if you think that we need a new direction, then you should vote for me.” It was really that new direction message, and then using as proof points, economic proof points.49

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  153

As in the presidential context nationally, the theme of a change from Bush was central in the New Hampshire Senate race (see Chapter 1). In an early Shaheen television ad, the candidate appeared in a field, in front of a man digging a large hole in the ground. When you are stuck in a deep hole, Shaheen told the audience, the first thing to do is stop digging. The Democrat sounded the same note again and again, accusing Sununu of being a “puppet” of the Bush White House, remarked Sununu deputy campaign manager Burnett. 50 For his part, the first-term senator aimed to distinguish himself as a young, effective senator, said Burnett. An early campaign ad portrayed a vigorous Sununu briskly walking through scene after scene, a senator who represented the future of the Granite State. At the time of the election, Sununu was fortyfour years old and Shaheen was sixty-one years old. Sununu’s campaign also focused on portraying the candidate as a principled Independent—a tactic that his opponent had attempted to employ six years earlier. In one of the few mail pieces the Sununu campaign sent to voters, the campaign cited a New Hamp­ shire Sunday News editorial that described the senator as follows: He is the youngest member of a Senate that relies way too much on party hacks who do whatever their party or its backers demand. . . . He is his own man who has consistently put principle above party (witness his call for the ouster of President Bush’s Attorney General for political shenanigans and his insistence on civil rights protections in a revised ­Patriot Act). 51 In an ad broadcast just days before the election, Sununu spoke directly to the camera: “No one can possibly agree with me on every issue,” he said. “My seven brothers and sisters sure don’t. But I’ll always listen, do my homework, and be an independent, principled voice for New Hampshire.”52

Spending by the Candidates and Their Allies Both Sununu and Shaheen spent far more in their rematch than they did in the initial contest. Shaheen, who spent $5.8 million in 2002, spent $8.3 million this time (Table 6.4). The incumbent, who spent just $3.5 million to defeat Shaheen in 2002, spent $8.8 million in an unsuccessful attempt to defend his seat. The incumbent and the challenger were fairly evenly matched in terms of funding, particularly when compared with the race at the top of the ticket, which Obama dominated. Although fundraising ended in a standoff between the two candidates, Sununu began the campaign with a war chest of $5.1 million (at the end of the second quarter of 2008), 53 while money concerns continually weighed on the Shaheen campaign. Shaheen advisor Reardon noted, for instance, the campaign’s decision to make a significant early ad buy in May 2008, to reintroduce Shaheen to the state’s voters after her six-year absence from the political scene. 54 The decision to go on the air so early left the campaign vulnerable to an early attack from either Sununu or his allies, which had indeed occurred early in the 2002 campaign. The anticipated attack never materialized, a “very pleasant surprise” for Shaheen, said Reardon. Still, Shaheen’s early expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars left the challenger significantly behind an incumbent

154  /  Dante J. Scala

Table 6.4 Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, New Hampshire Senate Race, 2007–2008

Jeanne Shaheen (D)

John Sununu (R)

Carol Shea-Porter (D)

Jeb Bradley (R)

From PACs From individuals From candidate Other contributions Total receipts Total expenditures Cash on hand (as of 12/31/08) Expenditure per vote, 2008 Expenditure per vote, 2002

$1,140,192 $6,596,734 $0 $596,912 $8,333,838 $8,336,872 $38,771 $23.26 $28.06

$3,170,274 $5,469,096 $0 $239,937 $8,879,307 $8,768,017 $104,187 $27.89 $15.61

$584,019 $943,531 $0 $15,963 $1,543,513 $1,576,897 $35,329 — —

$506,043 $565,253 $259,500 $46,294 $1,377,090 $1,447,187 $1,898 — —

Source: Center for Responsive Politics, “Congressional Races,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/ index.php (accessed December 31, 2008); Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen,The Almanac of American Politics 2006 (Washington, D.C.: National Journal Group, 2005); Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007-2008 Election,” available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H6NH01230, http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H2NH01130 (accessed May 18, 2009). Note: Expenditure/vote analysis created by the author.

who already had $5 million in the bank. Shaheen’s financial disadvantage, coupled with the expense of running ads in the Boston television market, forced the candidate to spend precious time out of the state fundraising as late as October, Reardon said. 55 Given the Sununu campaign’s decision to refrain from going on the air early in 2008, the air game was relatively brief compared with the presidential battle, but it was more intense once it began. Scott Bensing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) described it this way: It was a race that developed very late. There wasn’t a whole lot happening on TV until just about Labor Day. Sununu was down significantly, and then during the convention, we went in the field, and it came back with a poll that had him down 2 points. We went up on TV immediately after Labor Day, and we saw the [race] had closed at two. It separated a little bit in September, and it started to close again in October, and we were in until the very end. 56 Anyone in New Hampshire who had a working television set in the fall of 2008 would attest to the heavy barrage of ads on behalf of both Senate candidates. Combined, the candidates and their respective national party campaign committees spent at least $19 million on television ads in the New Hampshire market (including the Boston metropolitan area) and hundreds of thousands of dollars on radio ads on top of that. A casual watcher of the evening news on WMUR-TV, New Hampshire’s only statewide commercial television station, was typically treated to multiple ads from both Sununu and Shaheen. Indeed, it is fair to say that, once it began, the U.S. Senate battle overshadowed the presidential race on the television sets of Granite State voters. The two candidates themselves spent virtually equal amounts of money in the New Hampshire television market, both topping $3 million. Based on a sam-

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  155

ple of selected major radio stations, Sununu and Shaheen also appeared at parity on the radio. Imbalances appeared, however, in support from allied party committees and groups. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) spent $7.5 million on Shaheen’s behalf, a sum nearly $2.5 million more than the NRSC spent on behalf of Sununu (Table 6.5). The DSCC also spent significant amounts of money on radio ads, an investment that the NRSC did not make. Interest group spending, however, favored Sununu, with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce weighing in particularly heavily on his behalf. Much more than for the presidential or House races in New Hampshire, interest groups from both teams concentrated their resources on the Sununu– Shaheen contest, as Table 6.6 demonstrates. Whether they were allies of the Democrats or the Republicans, interest groups recognized that New Hampshire’s Senate seat was essential to the Democrats’ goal of a filibuster-proof sixty seats in the Senate. As Tony Massaro of the League of Conservation Voters stated, “We were [concerned] about 60 votes to move global warming legislation. . . . [W]e made a strategic decision at the very beginning that we have to get global warming legislation passed in ’09–’10 and in order to do that, we have to add votes in the U.S. Senate.”57 All told, nearly three dozen organizations made unique campaign contributions. Business and labor associations, much more so than ideological or singleissue groups, were front and center. By far, the most prominent business group to weigh in was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent more than $2.8 million on television and radio ads on behalf of Sununu, more than twice as much as the second most active interest group. The Chamber had been a longtime supporter of Sununu, said Rob Engstrom, Chamber vice president: We broke precedent in 2002 by endorsing Sununu against the sitting incumbent Republican, Senator Smith. We knew New Hampshire would be a very challenging state for a variety of reasons. So we engaged a very aggressive campaign there highlighting Sununu’s support of business issues particularly regarding health care. We pointed out in a very comical way the change in Shaheen’s record with regard to taxing and spending. 58 All told, the ad buy data in New Hampshire and surrounding states with stations that reach into New Hampshire show that the Chamber spent more than $2.8 million on television ads such as that described by Engstrom. The Chamber’s ad buy rivaled Shaheen’s and helped neutralize the heavy spending by the DSCC (see Table 6.5). The content of one Chamber ad was as follows: As governor, Jeanne Shaheen enacted the first statewide property tax. Then Shaheen signed a second statewide property tax. Later, Shaheen proposed a sales tax and raised taxes on skiing, movies, fishing and phone bills. Shaheen admitted she would have signed the first state income tax. Notice a pattern? Jeanne Shaheen has been a taxing machine. Call her. Tell her we can’t afford any more taxes. The conservative, anti-tax group Club for Growth also ran ads attacking Shaheen on her tax policies as governor, though with a smaller ad buy of

156  /  Dante J. Scala

Table 6.5 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Hampshire Senate Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates   Shaheen for Senate $3,144,325 $187,722 $3,332,047   Political parties   DSCC $7,283,130 $194,800 $7,477,930   Interest groups   AFSCME $1,075,050 $33,800 $1,108,850   SEIU COPE $768,640 — $768,640   Patriot Majority $623,340 — $623,340   American Rights at Work $431,450 — $431,450   American Medical Association PAC $365,200 — $365,200   Health Care for America Now $160,500 $24,700 $185,200   AFL-CIO — $22,230 $22,230   League of Conservation Voters — $11,200 $11,200   Sierra Club — $3,800 $3,800   People for the American Way — $750 $750 Republican alliesa   Candidates    Team Sununu $3,026,340 $218,105 $3,244,445   Political parties   NRSC $5,022,920 — $5,022,920   Interest groups    U.S. Chamber of Commerce $2,806,900 $28,030 $2,834,930   American Future Fund $649,740 — $649,740    Club For Growth $394,500 — $394,500   Employee Freedom Action Committee $261,500 — $261,500   Americans for Job Security — $193,977 $193,977    Coalition for a Democratic Workplace $68,500 — $68,500   Americans for Prosperity — $46,259 $46,259   NRA Political Victory Fund — $7,557 $7,557    Granite Staters for Employee Freedom — — —    Trust and Small Business PAC — — —

CMAG TV

$3,452,439 $4,799,261 $683,708 $474,338 $443,073 $316,773 $91,268 $20,154 — — — —

$2,407,386 $2,953,309 $1,470,373 $228,381 $156,701 — — — — — $73,100 $627

(continued on next page}

$394,500. Prominent on the radio, with similar themes, was Americans for Job Security, which spent nearly $200,000 through that medium against Shaheen. As discussed in Chapter 3, the Employee Free Choice Act, or “card check,” was one issue on which both business and labor advertised. One pro-business group, the Employee Freedom Action Committee, weighed in against Shaheen for favoring legislation that would allow unions to organize workplaces without having to resort to workers’ casting secret ballots in favor of unionizing. 59 The ads attacking Shaheen on taxes caused her campaign considerable consternation. It was “a stressful time,” Reardon recalled.60 When groups allied with Sununu ran an ad asserting that Governor Shaheen wanted to ratify an income tax, the attack was not anticipated because it was not one that was made against

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  157

Table 6.5  C ontinued Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

CMAG TV

Nonpartisan   Interest groups    Center for Union Facts $166,600 — $166,600

—

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organization spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 6.6. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

her in 2002, Reardon said.61 Indeed, as the Nashua Telegraph pointed out, Shaheen had stopped the income tax in the New Hampshire Senate in 1999 with a veto threat.62 Nonetheless, the Shaheen campaign refrained from responding, Reardon said, because it did not want to be distracted from its main message: We had made a decision, even before the income tax ad went up, that we were not going to spend money responding to anticipated attacks on Governor Shaheen. And we knew that the most potent attack they had on her was taxes. But because we weren’t going to have the money to be running more than one track of ads until the last couple weeks of the campaign, we had decided that we would just take our hit on taxes because we believed that we got more of a benefit from running ads on Sununu’s record of siding with George Bush on economic issues.63 A second line of attack on Shaheen from interest groups was on the issue of energy, which appeared to loom large during a summer in which motorists were paying more than $4 for a gallon of gas. Sununu had moved toward the center on the issue, joining a bipartisan coalition of senators who supported conservation and alternative energy, as well as some offshore oil drilling. In late summer 2008, when gas prices remained high, the American Future Fund aired an ad attacking Shaheen’s opposition to offshore drilling: “New Hampshire families are hurting from record gas prices,” the announcer said, “but Jeanne Shaheen opposes exploring huge American oil reserves offshore and in Alaska. . . . ​John Sununu co-sponsored tax credits for renewable energy. And he supports safe exploration off our coasts.” This issue, however, quickly fell off of voters’ list of priorities after the financial market meltdown.

Table 6.6 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Hampshire Senate Race, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Jeanne Shaheen For Senate

27

—

—

3

2

2

17

51

  Political parties   New Hampshire Democratic Party

1

22

1

8

1

—

—

33

  DSCC

—

1

—

—

—

4

12

17

  Local Democratic parties

—

3

—

1

—

—

—

4

  DNC

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

  NH Women VOTE

—

8

—

—

—

—

—

8

  American Medical Association PAC

—

4

—

—

—

—

3

7

  SEIU COPE

—

5

—

—

—

—

2

7

  League of Conservation Voters

—

4

—

—

—

2

—

6

  AFL-CIO

—

3

—

—

—

1

—

4

  American Federation of Teachers

—

4

—

—

—

—

—

4

  NEA-New Hampshire

—

4

—

—

—

—

—

4

   Campaign for Change

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Health Care for America Now

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

2

  AFSCME

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  International Association      of Fire Fighters

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  NARAL Pro-Choice America

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

  National Wildlife Federation     Action Fund

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Patriot Majority

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  People for the American Way

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

  Sierra Club State Action Fund

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

22

1

—

2

—

1

8

34

  New Hampshire Republican     State Committee

—

19

—

—

1

—

—

20

  NRSC

—

10

—

—

—

—

8

18

  Local Republican parties

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  RNC

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

2

  Americans for Job Security

—

5

—

—

—

3

—

8

  Associated Builders and Contractors

—

7

—

—

—

—

—

7

  Susan B Anthony List

—

4

—

—

—

3

—

7

   U.S. Chamber of Commerce

—

2

—

—

—

—

4

6

   Freedom’s Watch

—

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

  Employee Freedom Action      Committee

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  NRA Political Victory Fund

—

1

1

—

—

1

—

3

  American Future Fund

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

  Interest groups

Republican alliesb   Candidates    Team Sununu Political parties

  Interest groups

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  159

Table 6.6  Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb (continued)   Interest groups (continued)    Coalition for a Democratic      Workplace

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

   Granite Staters for Employee Freedom —

1

—

—

—

—

1

2

  Americans for Limited Government

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Americans for Prosperity

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

   Club for Growth

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  Hampton’s Tax Fighting Team

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  National Right to Life PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  New Hampshire Advantage Coalition

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Trust and Small Business PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  New Hampshire Citizen’s Alliance

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  Power Vote

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

Nonpartisan   Interest groups

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 6.5. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render the picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, the New Hampshire American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations data have been included in the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Although the nation’s financial crisis had no discernible effects on the polls, Sununu aide Burnett allowed that the signal event may have prevented his candidate from gaining traction and making a run at Shaheen.64 In some ways, Burnett said, the economic crisis played to Sununu’s strengths as a legislator, inasmuch as he had worked on reform of financial services during his first term in Washington. During the campaign, however, this became one more negative event that occurred on Bush’s watch—and by association, Sununu’s watch— reinforcing the change theme of both Obama and Shaheen. The race became based largely on emotion, Burnett claimed, with voters appalled as they watched their 401(k) retirement accounts evaporate; with “panic” in the air, it became even more difficult for Sununu to make his case to New Hampshire voters. A DSCC television ad demonstrates the post–economic meltdown line of attack against the incumbent. Aired in mid-October, the ad displayed a clip from a debate between the candidates, in which the moderator asks Sununu about partial privatization of Social Security, a proposal Sununu supported. Interrupting the clip are the following words on the screen, accompanied by a

160  /  Dante J. Scala

voiceover: “Stock market loses $2 trillion in retirement savings. . . . ​T he Bush/ Sununu plan puts Social Security in the market.” The moderator concluded by asking whether privatization was “now dead, given how scary the stock market has been.” Sununu began his response by saying, “It shouldn’t be.” The ad abruptly cut to two more words on the screen: “Truly scary.” Among Shaheen’s interest group spenders, labor unions gave the most support. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the public employees’ union, and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the union of service employees, combined to air more than $1.8 million worth of television ads. Jon Youngdahl of SEIU recounted, “In New Hampshire, we spent $1 million on TV and spent $300,000 to $400,000 on mail in that race, focusing mainly on health care issues, but we also ran an ad on economics.”65 Other ads hammered Sununu during the general election season. For example, an AFSCME ad depicted a young boy struggling to climb up a long rope, with a voiceover suggesting, “John Sununu’s votes helped to bring us to the end of our rope. Maybe it’s time to let go.” In addition, Patriot Majority, an organization with significant union financing, worked against the incumbent, running an ad criticizing Sununu for supporting “billions in tax breaks for Big Oil.”66

The Senate Ground Game Shaheen’s campaign staff numbered ten altogether, said campaign manager Robby Mook.67 Some of Shaheen’s ground operation was folded into the larger coordinated campaign of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, which aided Democrats generally. The coordinated campaign bulged with resources, including 100 paid staff and field organizers, some of whom were working on their sixth or seventh Election Day; two dozen offices set up around the state; and 5,600 volunteers who attended October training sessions—according to Colin Van Ostern, who directed the coordinated campaign.68 The Shaheen campaign itself tried to “build capacity” early in the summer, starting small and ensuring that they could build a volunteer team that would steadily work for the candidate later.69 As the election neared, the Shaheen and Obama campaigns integrated their staff members in the various regions of the state, sometimes with a Shaheen staffer in charge and sometimes with an Obama staffer, said Mook.70 The key to absorbing the large numbers of volunteers who show up for a general election campaign in a presidential year, said Van Ostern, is to make sure that experienced people are on hand to organize them, so that those volunteers do not sit around with nothing to do. For instance, while volunteers were doing almost all voter contact, staff members were concentrating on recruitment calls to potential volunteers.71 All together, Van Ostern estimated that Democrats made more than one million telephone calls in the course of the campaign and knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors. On the Republican side, Sununu enjoyed the benefits of a personal organization that had served him well in 2002, said Sununu staffer Burnett. Fourteen paid staffers worked on the Sununu campaign. In addition, Sununu was aided by the Republicans’ Victory campaign, which was jointly funded by the Republican National Committee and the New Hampshire Republican Party. On the whole, Burnett said, Sununu’s ground operation had performed better than in 2002 in

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  161

terms of voter contact. However, he also admitted that Democrats had a great many people on the ground, and they were hitting parts of the state traditionally considered Republican.72 The sound and fury of the Shaheen–Sununu contest led experienced observers to expect that something was bound to change in a race in which the incumbent continually trailed. Internal polling by the NRSC, for example, forecast a possible replay of 2002, in which Sununu passed Shaheen in the final days of the campaign.73 Strikingly, national Democrats also had their doubts about this race, according to Brian Wolff of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC): We kept seeing seesaw numbers on Shaheen in our polling. So we were never quite convinced that Shaheen wasn’t going to do the same thing she did last time she ran for the Senate and just literally collapsed in the end. That’s what we were anticipating. Now what we didn’t really count on was the fact that a lot of those new voters . . . were Obama people.74 In the end, for all the millions of dollars expended on both sides in this Senate race, the net effects amounted to very little. From the earliest days of the 2008 cycle, Jeanne Shaheen enjoyed a considerable lead over the Republican incumbent, and nothing that occurred in the race changed these fundamentals in anything but marginal ways. At the beginning of October, Shaheen maintained a significant lead, and Sununu remained stuck in the low forties in headto-head polls. The final results were little different, with Shaheen winning by a margin of 52 percent to 45 percent.

Another Rematch: The New Hampshire First Congressional District Race New Hampshire’s First Congressional District hosted another rematch between political rivals. Republican Jeb Bradley, who represented the district from 2002 to 2006, aimed to regain his seat after losing it in 2006 in what he called a “perfect storm” of anti-Republican sentiment.75 The beneficiary of that Democratic typhoon, Carol Shea-Porter, had pulled off an upset that had appeared on no prognosticator’s list of likely events. The congresswoman’s supporters described her victory as a triumph of progressive grassroots politics. Observers pointed toward an extremely weak Republican year and described Shea-Porter as something of an accidental congresswoman. They wondered aloud whether SheaPorter could protect her seat in this Republican-leaning bellwether district. For example, in September 2008, Brian Walsh, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) field director, said of this contest: “I think New Hampshire One is one of our best pick up opportunities in the country. [Jeb Bradley’s] greatest asset in this race is the Democrat incumbent who defeated him last cycle but has not performed very well.”76 Other members of Bradley’s party, however, were not convinced that he was the right man to reclaim the seat. A former state commissioner of Health and Human Services, John Stephen, waged a strong primary campaign that Bradley barely survived in early September 2008. Bradley won by just 1,800 votes.77

162  /  Dante J. Scala

Shea-Porter, meanwhile, faced no opposition for the nomination of her party and posted respectable fundraising numbers as the general election season neared. In mid-summer 2008, she reported that she had raised more than a quarter million dollars in the second quarter, and she had a total of $750,000 cash on hand.78 The congresswoman joined the DCCC’s “Frontline” fundraising program, designed to aid freshman Democrats.79 She also hired an experienced local operative, Pia Carusone, who was communications director for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, said Mike Brunelle, who worked with Carusone while serving as the state party’s political director.80 Furthermore, as a freshman incumbent, she had the full support of the DCCC, which had ignored her underdog campaign two years earlier. In an interview with David Magleby, Brian Wolff of the DCCC described the committee’s involvement in 2008: “About seven months out she . . . ​changed the way she was running her campaign. She listened to us. She completely caught fire come September and was doing all the right things.”81 Unlike their involvement in New Hampshire’s U.S. Senate campaign, in which many interest groups jumped in on both sides, third parties largely stayed out of the fray in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District. All told, there were four main players: the two campaigns themselves and the two national party congressional committees, the DCCC and the NRCC (Tables 6.7 and 6.8). Despite the NRCC’s professed optimism about Bradley’s ability, it was unwilling to come anywhere close to matching the DCCC’s efforts. The NRCC’s priorities appeared to be to protect incumbent seats first, and only then to help challengers who had a shot at winning, said Bradley’s campaign manager, Debra Vanderbeek.82 “We knew we were going to get both barrels,” said Vanderbeek. “But the thing that was an unknown factor was how much NRCC would put in, because you can never communicate with the committees about what they’re doing. I mean, honestly, we guessed that they were going to come in, never knew for sure. . . . ​A nd they came in late.”

First Congressional District Advertising A typical First Congressional District voter, watching Democrats’ advertisements, might well have wondered who the current representative in Congress was. As Wolff of the DCCC put it, Carol Shea-Porter “was able to run against Jeb Bradley like he had been sitting in the seat all along.”83 Time and again, Democrats ran ads connecting Bradley to George Bush, just as they were doing with incumbent Senator John Sununu. In one such ad, the DCCC noted that Bradley had voted with Bush 85 percent of the time—a typical tagline, but one usually thrown at incumbents, not at challengers. Another DCCC ad noted Bradley’s alignment with Bush and warned voters that they should not make the same mistake twice with Bradley. A third ad, quoting a supporter of Bradley’s primary opponent, described Bradley as representing everything that was wrong with Washington. Yet another, airing in late October, laid blame for the economic crisis at Bradley’s feet. The Democrats’ efforts complicated the Bradley campaign’s message task, and the campaign had to find a way to untangle the candidate from the unpopular president and make clear that the candidate was actually the challenger in the race, said Bradley campaign manager Vanderbeek.84

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  163

Table 6.7 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Hampshire First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Carol Shea-Porter for Congress $373,950 $39,239 $413,189   Political parties   DCCC $1,844,100 $12,650 $1,856,750   Interest groups   America’s Agenda: Health Care for Kids $328,670 — $328,670   Americans United For Change $12,600 — $12,600   Sierra Club — $4,250 $4,250 Republican alliesa   Candidates    Jeb Bradley for Congress Committee $457,800 $49,446 $507,246    John Stephen for Congress $131,125 $3,077 $134,202   Political parties   NRCC $481,000 — $481,000   Interest groups   Employee Freedom Action Committee — — — Nonpartisan   Interest groups    Freedom’s Watch — $12,950 $12,950   NRA Political Victory Fund — $7,557 $7,557    U.S. Chamber of Commerce — — —

CMAG TV

$292,679 $741,242 — $8,278 —

$417,656 $317,274 $51,586 $31,401

— — $20,042

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or Presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes the CMAG data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad-buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organization spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 6.8. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

The DCCC’s efforts also allowed Shea-Porter to stay above the fray, with a largely positive message, said Vanderbeek. “Her campaign talked about, ‘We’re running a positive campaign, it’s just a shame that the other side won’t do that.’” But, Vanderbeek countered, “You’re not running a positive campaign when your [congressional] committee is spending millions of dollars” on mail

Table 6.8 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Hampshire First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organization E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Carol Shea-Porter for Congress

—

3

—

2

—

—

4

9

  Political parties   New Hampshire Democratic Party

1

12

1

6

1

—

—

21

  DCCC

—

11

—

—

—

—

3

14

  Local Democratic parties

—

3

—

1

—

—

—

4

  NH Women VOTE

—

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

  NEA-New Hampshire

—

4

—

—

—

—

—

4

  America’s Agenda: Health Care      for Kids

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

   Campaign for Change

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  New Hampshire AFL-CIO

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  American Federation of Teachers

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Americans United For Change

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  SEIU COPE

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Sierra Club

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

13

1

—

2

—

2

12

30

  New Hampshire Republican     State Committee

—

17

—

—

1

—

—

18

  NRCC

—

6

—

—

—

—

2

8

  Local Republican Parties

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  NRSC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  RNC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Interest groups

Republican alliesa   Candidates    Jeb Bradley for Congress Committee   Political parties

  Interest groups    U.S. Chamber of Commerce

—

3

—

—

—

—

1

4

  Associated Builders and Contractors —

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Hampton’s Tax Fighting Team

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  NRA Political Victory Fund

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

  New Hampshire Citizen’s Alliance

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  Power Vote

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

Nonpartisan   Interest groups

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 6.7. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  165

and television. “We were getting hit at a rate of probably two [mail pieces] a week.” Brunelle, the state Democratic Party’s political director, responded: Well, I think that the congresswoman would tell you all the time that she wants to run a positive campaign. . . . I think that the DCCC being involved in the race . . . allowed us to not allow Jeb Bradley to go and have his attacks go unfounded. He wasn’t allowed to sit there and throw bombs and there not to be a rebuttal. And that was very helpful.85 The DCCC mailers typically made mention of the Republican’s personal wealth, describing him as “millionaire” Jeb Bradley. In addition, the DCCC mail hit Bradley hard on his alleged failure to support military veterans. One such mailer, depicting an amputee on the cover, claimed that the Republican failed to support veterans’ health benefits. The Bradley campaign preferred to invest in television and radio buys, Vanderbeek said, rather than direct mail. In her own ads, Shea-Porter described herself as a stalwart fighter for the middle class. One such ad, which aired in early October, complained about corporate tax breaks and lack of oversight on Wall Street. Another Shea-Porter ad explained that, for the congresswoman, fighting for the middle class meant caring for veterans, protecting Social Security by keeping funds out of the stock market, and providing tax credits for middle-income citizens. Shea-Porter concluded the ad by saying, “I’m Carol Shea-Porter and I approved this message because we can’t go backwards. We need to keep fighting for the changes we need.” Bradley portrayed himself as a tax-cutting fiscal conservative, who broke with his party on illegal immigration, and as a fighter for working families, military veterans, children, and seniors alike. His opponent, he claimed, was a partisan Democrat who supported a five-week vacation for Congress, instead of working to lower gas prices, and then continued her life of leisure: [Announcer]: Now Congress sticks us with a Wall Street bailout to clean up a banking crisis. And where’s Carol Shea-Porter? Back home on vacation again. Why didn’t she stay and fight for a better solution? . . . ​How much vacation time does Carol Shea-Porter need? It’s time for a change. The Bradley campaign also attempted to draw close connections between Shea-Porter and the polarizing Democratic congressional leadership. One such ad noted a newspaper interview with the congresswoman: [Announcer]: She proudly marches in lockstep with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats 100 percent of the time. Carol told the Monitor, “I have voted I think 100 percent of the time with Democratic leaders because, frankly, I think they were 100 percent right.” Now that’s real, independent New Hampshire thinking. Not Carol Shea-Porter. Too partisan. Too liberal. Too Washington for us!

Spending by the Candidates and Their Allies Financially, the two campaigns were fairly evenly matched. Shea-Porter raised more than $1.5 million for her reelection campaign, a far cry from her 2006 total of $360,380. Despite the fact that Bradley contributed nearly $260,000

166  /  Dante J. Scala

of his own money to the campaign, his war chest fell short of Shea-Porter’s, at about $1.4 million. To make matters worse, Bradley had to spend significant money early in the campaign to fend off his Republican opponents; he spent nearly $160,000 in ad buys on WMUR-TV in the weeks before the September state primary. What really tipped the financial battle in Shea-Porter’s favor, however, was the spending by the DCCC—steadfastly behind her this time. On the airwaves in the pricey New Hampshire media market, for instance, the DCCC outspent its rival, the NRCC, by a four-to-one margin (see Table 6.7). The DCCC also invested heavily in direct mail against Bradley, at a rate of more than one mailer a week between the September state primary and the November general election (see Table 6.8). In contrast, the NRCC only produced and distributed six mail pieces on Bradley’s behalf, according to data collected for the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy. Bradley actually outspent Shea-Porter in total advertising expenditures on WMUR-TV and major Boston commercial television stations by $80,000. A survey of selected major radio stations in the New Hampshire market also indicated rough equality between the two campaigns. These figures, however, include the money that Bradley had to spend to ensure his primary victory. Whatever small advantage Bradley’s campaign possessed, however, was overwhelmed by the deluge he faced from the DCCC. The national committee spent more than $1.8 million on television and radio ads on Shea-Porter’s behalf, far more than the $500,000 the NRCC invested in the race for Bradley. The DCCC’s investment included ad buys on expensive Boston television; in contrast, Bradley and the NRCC confined their buys to WMUR in New Hampshire. Given the large number of First Congressional District residents regularly tuned in to Boston television, this left the Republican at a serious disadvantage. Compared with the U.S. Senate race, interest group investment in television was minimal in the First Congressional District contest. The one exception was America’s Agenda: Health Care for Kids, which spent more than $300,000 in positive ads for Shea-Porter. America’s Agenda, funded by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (a trade group of the drug industry), intended not so much to advocate for Shea-Porter as to press for expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP); the congresswoman had voted in favor of enlarging the program.86 Both New Hampshire Women Vote!, an offshoot of EMILY’s List, and the National Education Association sent out several mail pieces on Shea-Porter’s behalf. On Bradley’s side, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the most active interest group (see Table 6.8). On the ground, Shea-Porter and her campaign were able to build a coalition of two disparate, often conflicting groups in the First Congressional District: blue-collar Democrats from Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city, and more liberal Democrats from the Seacoast area, said Brunelle, the state Democratic Party’s political director.87 In 2006, Shea-Porter had upset the party’s establishment candidate, who hailed from Manchester, with the help of Seacoast progressives. After she won her seat in Congress, Shea-Porter was able to use her own working-class background to build relationships of “natural affinity,” according to Brunelle.88 During the campaign, Shea-Porter combined her original grassroots network with a professional staff that included a field director

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  167

and seven regional field operatives as well as paid canvassers.89 The size of SheaPorter’s paid staff was comparable to Bradley’s, which had six.90 Much like the U.S. Senate race, the contest in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District looked closer on paper than it was in reality. Shea-Porter, the underdog in 2006, proved herself quite capable of protecting her seat as a freshman incumbent, raising ample amounts of money herself while enjoying the strong intervention of the national party on her behalf. In contrast, former congressman Bradley endured the rough treatment that many congressional challengers are accorded in a contested primary and received only limited aid from the national party. Before the general election season, Shea-Porter was viewed as the weakest link at the top of the Democratic ticket, compared with Obama, Shaheen, and her fellow representative Paul Hodes of the Second Congressional District. In the end, however, the congresswoman held her own on the Democratic ticket. Obama won 53 percent of the vote in the First Congressional District.91 SheaPorter herself carried nearly 52 percent of the vote, quite a small drop-off. The First Congressional District clearly remained a national bellwether; Obama’s performance here mirrored his national performance. While Shea-Porter certainly upgraded her campaign operation in 2008, it was also quite clear that she had benefited from a second straight anti-Republican wave, both nationally and in New Hampshire. The congresswoman already faces challengers for 2010, including the two-term Republican mayor of Manchester, Frank Guinta.

Conclusion What was most striking about the Republican operatives interviewed for this study was the air of resignation they shared about the final results. No one on ­either the Republican or Democratic side spoke of exceptionally clever messaging or campaign maneuvers that spelled the difference between victory and defeat. Rather, in retrospect, the Republicans’ demise in 2008 almost appeared written in stone. Whether in money, message, or momentum, all factors favored the Democrats in the Granite State. The foundation for that change came when the Democrats picked up both House seats in 2006. Democrats in all three races had resources at least equal to those of their Republican rivals, and in Barack Obama’s case, resources were considerably greater. The Democrats’ national party campaign committees intervened heavily on the part of Jeanne Shaheen and Carol Shea-Porter, subjecting their opponents to a constant barrage of attacks. While the Republican national party campaign committees did respond in kind, they were not able to match the DSCC and DCCC dollar for dollar. In Sununu’s case, allied interest groups tried to rectify the imbalance. On the ground, Democrats clearly had more paid staff and volunteers. Democrats also had the advantage of conveying a much simpler message to voters. The Democrats’ message was all about change—change in the economy, change in the war in Iraq, change by turning the page on George W. Bush— said Colin Van Ostern, who headed the New Hampshire Democrats’ coordinated campaign. In retrospect, he said, it just was not all that complicated.92 In contrast, Republicans had the challenging task of running a campaign with

168  /  Dante J. Scala

George W. Bush as an invisible, unwelcome running mate. John Sununu, who had Bush by his side in the last days of the 2002 contest, had to run this time as an Independent-minded politician who had called for the resignation of Bush’s attorney general. Jeb Bradley, who was not even in Congress any longer, nonetheless was treated as an incumbent and tied tightly to the departing, unpopular president. Even McCain’s New Hampshire campaign, the supposed elixir, was unable to reinvigorate the local Republican Party. Last but not least, momentum on both the national and state levels fueled New Hampshire Democrats. When John Sununu was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, Republicans controlled the governor’s chair, both houses of the state legislature, and all four seats in the state’s congressional delegation. By the time Sununu ran for reelection, almost all of these had been lost to the Democrats, and as the incumbent senator found, to his dismay, a very solid campaign operation was not enough to offset the Democrats’ ability to persuade New Hampshire Independents. On top of all of the local changes, of course, New Hampshire Republicans were not immune to the national high tide for the Democratic Party. This was, above all, a national election that the top-of-the-ticket Democrat won nationally by seven percentage points. With that national context in mind, the losses of McCain, Sununu, and Bradley—all in the high single digits—only reinforced the new prevailing wisdom that cast New Hampshire as a Democratic-leaning bellwether state.

Notes Acknowledgments: Bridget Farmer and Timothy Boyle provided excellent assistance in compiling and coding the various political communications collected for this study. Special thanks also go to Tama Andrews and Andrew Smith of the Department of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire, to Linda Magay of WMUR-TV, and to various residents of New Hampshire who helped me track direct mail. 1.  For more information, see the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s historical account, “Seven Banks in New Hampshire,” available at http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/managing/ history2-10.pdf (accessed June 2, 2009). 2.  J. Mark Wrighton, “The New Hampshire Senate and First Congressional District Races,” in The Last Hurrah? Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2003), 141. 3.  David B. Magleby, “The Importance of Outside Money in the 2002 Congressional Elections,” in The Last Hurrah: Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elec­ tions, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 17. 4.  Wrighton, “The New Hampshire Races,” 142. 5. Michael Kranish, “Fallen Star Blames Self, GOP Tactics,” Boston Globe, June 10, 2006. 6.  The National Journal Group, “The Newly Elected: New Hampshire Governor: John Lynch (D),” available at http://www.nationaljournal.com/members/campaign/2004/profiles/nh_ gov_lynch.htm (accessed June 2, 2009). 7.  Andrew E. Smith, “Bush Approval Still Low Heading toward November Elections,” October 2, 2006, available at http://www.unh.edu/survey-center/news/pdf/gsp2006_fall_pres100206. pdf (accessed June 2, 2009). 8.  Kenneth M. Johnson, Dante J. Scala, and Andrew E. Smith, “Many New Voters Make the Granite State One to Watch in November,” Carsey Institute, available at http://www. carseyinstitute.unh.edu/publications/IB-NHVoter08.pdf (accessed June 2, 2009).

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  169 9.  Kenneth M. Johnson, “The Changing Faces of New Hampshire: Recent Demographic Trends in the Granite State,” Carsey Institute, available at http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/ publications/Report_NH_Demographics.pdf (accessed June 8, 2009). 10.  Jim Demers, Obama for America New Hampshire state co-chair, interview by Dante Scala, Concord, NH, January 30, 2009. 11.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking Penguin, 2009), 251. 12. Steve Rosenthal, co-founder of the Organizing Group, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 13.  General election poll taken October 2008 on behalf of the Boston Globe by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, available at http://www.unh.edu/survey-center/news/pdf/ bg_2008-oct26.pdf (accessed June 2, 2009). 14.  David Plouffe, quoted in, The Institute of Politics, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, “The Republican Primaries,” in Campaign for President: The Manag­ ers Look at 2008, ed. Daniel M. Shea and F. Christopher Arterton (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), 34. 15.  Associated press, “Obama Goes after McCain’s Health Care Plan,” available at MSNBC. com, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27020325/ (accessed June 4, 2009). 16.  “McCain Hits Obama on Taxes in N.H., Ohio,” MSNBC.com, updated October 22, 2008, available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27319844/ (accessed June 2, 2009). 17.  Demers, interview. 18.  Jayne Millerick, advisor, New Hampshire McCain leadership team, interview by Dante Scala, Concord, NH, January 30, 2009. 19. Lauren R. Dorgan, “On the Ground,” Concord Monitor, November 2, 2008, available at http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081102/FRONTPAGE/811020392 (accessed June 2, 2009). 20. Millerick, interview. 21.  Debra Vanderbeek, Jeb Bradley for Congress campaign manager, interview by Dante Scala, Bedford, NH, December 5, 2008. 22. Personal communication with author. The Cooks were part of a statewide volunteer network that monitored voter contacts during the general election season. 23. Ned Helms, Obama for America New Hampshire state co-chair, telephone interview by Dante Scala, May 18, 2009. 24.  Brian Wallach, Obama for America New Hampshire political director, telephone interview by Dante Scala, May 22, 2009. 25.  Trevor Potter, McCain Campaign general counsel, telephone interview by David Magleby, December 3, 2008. 26. Romney did not use any paid volunteers in his New Hampshire telephone banks, said Romney staffer Jamie Burnett in an October 20, 2009, e-mail correspondence with author. 27.  Fergus Cullen, former New Hampshire Republican party chair, interview by Dante Scala, Durham, NH, April 29, 2009. 28.  Jim Barnett, McCain regional campaign manager for New England, telephone interview by Dante Scala, May 21, 2009. 29.  Cullen, interview. 30.  Barnett, interview. 31.  Obama’s New Hampshire political director, Brian Wallach, noted that the Obama “Campaign for Change” was dedicated to field operations and hired an experienced New Hampshire activist, Lindsay Hanson, to be the women’s vote director. (The women’s vote was of particular concern to the Obama campaign after the months-long battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination.) The New Hampshire campaign also made particular outreach efforts to labor, veterans, and seniors, Wallach said, as well as voters particularly concerned with the environment and health care, to name just a few constituency groups. The campaign also had a youth vote director and Latino vote director; persons of Hispanic or Latino origin make up 2.5 percent of New Hampshire’s population, according to the Census Bureau. See a listing of Obama’s New Hampshire staff, available at http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/obama/obamagennh.html. 32.  Dorgan, “On the Ground.” 33. Ibid.

170  /  Dante J. Scala 34.  Demers, interview. 35. Mindy Myers, New Hampshire state director for the Obama campaign, e-mail communication with Dante Scala, May 26, 2009. 36.  Helms, interview. 37. Ibid. 38. Millerick, interview. 39.  Jamie Burnett, Sununu deputy campaign manager, interview by Dante Scala, Concord, NH, January 14, 2009. 40.  Andrew E. Smith, “Shaheen Still Leads in NH Senate Race,” University of New Hampshire Survey Center, February 11, 2008, available at http://www.unh.edu/survey-center/news/pdf/ gsp2008_winter_cong21108.pdf (accessed June 2, 2009). 41.  Judy Reardon, Shaheen campaign senior advisor, interview by Dante Scala, Dover, NH, November 25, 2008. 42.  Bernadette Budde, Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) senior vice president, interview by David Magleby, February 13, 2008. 43.  Burnett, interview. 44. Reardon, interview. 45.  Burnett, interview. 46. Reardon, interview. 47. Ibid. 48. Ibid. 49. Ibid. 50.  Burnett, interview. 51.  Joseph W. McQuaid, “Sununu for Senate—Best for NH and the Nation,” New Hamp­ shire Sunday News, October 12, 2008, available at http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx ?headline=Joseph+W.+McQuaid%3A+Sununu+for+Senate+--+Best+for+NH+and+the+nation& articleId=8afa3fe4-c1a9-466f-9198-c411652bbbcc (accessed January 28, 2010). 52.  Ad collected by author. 53.  Team Sununu, “Report of Receipts and Disbursements,” available at http://query.nictusa. com/pdf/669/28020303669/28020303669.pdf#navpanes=0 (accessed June 2, 2009). 54. Reardon, interview. 55. Ibid. 56. Scott Bensing, National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 57.  Tony Massaro, League of Conservation Voters senior vice president of political affairs, interview by David Magleby, Washington, DC, November 11, 2008. 58. Rob Engstrom, U.S. Chamber of Commerce vice president of political affairs and federation relations, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 59. See National Public Radio’s “Secret Money Project” blog from the 2008 election season, available at http://www.npr.org/blogs/secretmoney/outside_groups/employee_freedom_action_ commit/ (accessed June 2, 2009). 60. Reardon, interview. 61. Ibid. 62.  This point was made by the Nashua Telegraph, and trumpeted by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). See “Gov. Shaheen Never Backed Income Tax,” October 2, 2008, as posted on the DSCC Web site, available at http://www.dscc.org/news_item?news_item_ KEY=4458 (accessed June 2, 2009). 63. Reardon, interview. 64.  Burnett, interview. 65.  Jon Youngdahl, Service Employees International Union national political director, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 66. See National Public Radio’s “Secret Money Project,” available at http://www.npr.org/ blogs/secretmoney/2008/09/big_union_money_behind_new_ham.html (accessed June 2, 2009). 67. Robby Mook, Shaheen campaign manager, telephone interview by Dante Scala, May 8, 2009. 68.  Colin Van Ostern, New Hampshire Democratic Party coordinated campaign director, interview by Dante Scala, Concord, NH, November 25, 2008. 69. Mook, interview.

Shifting Granite: New Hampshire’s Change  /  171 70. Ibid. 71. Van Ostern, interview. 72.  Burnett, interview. 73.  Bensing, interview. 74.  Brian Wolff, DCCC executive director, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 75. See the Concord Monitor “Primary Monitor Blog” entry from Election Night 2006, available at http://199.125.75.56/primaryblog/shea_porter_wins (accessed June 2, 2009). 76.  Brian Walsh, National Republican Congressional Committee political director, interview by David Magleby, September 23, 2008. 77.  Data from the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Web site, available at http://www.sos. nh.gov/stateprimary2008/rcongress1-2008.htm (accessed June 2, 2009). 78.  John DiStaso, “John DiStaso’s Granite Status: Shea-Porter’s campaign has about $750K,” Union Leader, July 15, 2008, available at http://www.unionleader.com/columns.aspx/ Opinion?channel=139832ce-97eb-4460-bf99-b71df3b7f0cc (accessed June 2, 2009). 79.  Brian Lawson, “Carol Shea-Porter joins DCCC fundraising effort,” Politicker.com, May 16, 2008, available at http://www.politicker.com/new-hampshire/13466/carol-shea-porter-joinsdccc-fundraising-effort (accessed June 2, 2009). 80. Mike Brunelle, New Hampshire Democratic Party political director, interview by Dante Scala, Manchester, NH, March 25, 2009. 81.  Wolff, interview. 82. Vanderbeek, interview. 83.  Wolff, interview. 84. Vanderbeek, interview. 85.  Brunelle, interview. 86. Marianne Lavelle, “Election ’08: PhRMA Ads Offer Pat on the Back to Politicians Who Supported SCHIP,” PaperTrail, a blog produced by The Center for Public Integrity, October 21, 2008, available at http://www.publicintegrity.org/blog/entry/892/ (accessed June 2, 2009). 87.  Brunelle, interview. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Vanderbeek, interview. 91. Swing State Project, “Presidential Results by Congressional District, 2000–2008,” available at http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/4161/ (accessed June 2, 2009). 92. Van Ostern, interview.

7

The Battle for Ohio in 2008 The Politics of Pragmatism Daniel Coffey, David B. Cohen, John C. Green, Diana Kingsbury, Monica C. Schneider, Barry L. Tadlock, and Dustin Carnahan

I

n 2008 Ohio was once again a key battleground state in the presidential election, with Democrat Barack Obama securing Ohio’s twenty electoral votes by a slim majority of the popular vote. Although the Buckeye State did not play the same pivotal role as in the 2004 election,1 it was central to the campaign strategies of both the Obama and McCain campaigns. As in the 2006 midterm elections, 2 Ohio contributed to the Democratic gains in Congress, with the party picking up a net gain of three House seats. Ohio is a perennial battleground state because of its demographic diversity and close partisan balance. The dimensions of the 2008 results can be seen in the Democrats’ performance in the five major regions of the state. 3 First, Obama did well in Northeastern Ohio, the traditional bastion of the party, where the Democratic candidate also won in the Sixteenth Congressional District. Second, Obama continued a recent trend of Democratic gains in Central Ohio, and the party also won the Fifteenth Congressional District, one of the most competitive contests in the country. Third, Obama made some gains in Southwestern Ohio, a traditional Republican bastion, where the Democratic candidate won an upset victory over a fourteen-year House incumbent in the First Congressional District. Fourth, Obama held his own in Southeastern Ohio, the key swing region of the state, and the party easily held the potentially competitive Eighteenth Congressional District. Finally, Obama enjoyed large gains in Republican-leaning Northwestern Ohio, but no competitive congressional races developed in the region. At root, these successes fit a conventional pattern: The absence of incumbent candidates in the presidential contest and two of the congressional races heightened the importance of short-term political factors. In 2008, two such factors—campaign resources and the issue environment—strongly favored the Democrats, allowing for narrow but solid victories at the state and congressional district levels. The Democratic resource advantage came from Obama’s successful fundraising efforts and his decision to forgo public financing (see Chapter 1); from a Democratic advantage in fundraising by the party congressional committees (which came in part from Democratic control of Congress); and finally, from Democratic control of statewide offices in Ohio, achieved in the 2006 campaign. These conditions allowed the Democrats to wage a highly coordinated and integrated campaign. In parallel fashion, the Democratic candidates took advantage

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  173

of the favorable issue environment by stressing moderate or conservative themes that matched local conditions. Taken together, these advantages contributed to an unexpected congressional victory and the absence of serious challenges to potentially vulnerable Democratic seats. Pragmatic politics by the Democrats won the battle for Ohio in 2008.

The Ohio Presidential Campaign Given Ohio’s critical role in the 2004 election, it is hardly surprising that the major presidential candidates for 2008 targeted the Buckeye State. Obama was active in Ohio earlier than McCain because of the Democratic primary on March 4, which he lost to Hillary Rodham Clinton by ten percentage points. By the time the Democratic nomination was settled in June, the Obama campaign and its allies had an extensive operation in the state, seeking to build a broad coalition and exploit a favorable issue environment. In contrast, the McCain campaign found itself caught between the need to rally a disaffected Republican base and the need to attract Independents unhappy with the status quo. Despite a slow start, McCain and the Republicans eventually deployed a competitive general election campaign in Ohio. The race remained tight until late September, when Obama developed a lead that lasted until Election Day.

Candidate Combat The major presidential candidates and their surrogates lavished attention on the Buckeye State. Obama and Biden made thirty-seven appearances in Ohio from June through the general election (Obama made an additional twenty-seven appearances during the primary season). Some events featured Michelle Obama and, in September, Hillary Clinton.4 Obama held a three-city swing through Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati on the Sunday before the election, with Bruce Springsteen appearing in Cleveland. 5 Meanwhile, McCain and Palin made forty-six appearances (McCain made an additional sixteen appearances in the primary season). McCain events often featured speakers such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ohioan Joe (“Joe the Plumber”) Wurzelbacher.6 Just five days before the general election, McCain took a daylong bus tour across the northern edge of the state. Among the numerous Obama surrogates was Cleveland Cavalier forward and Ohio native LeBron James; on the Republican side, Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn appeared with McCain.7 The candidates’ appearances struck the major themes of each campaign. In the last few weeks, Obama argued that McCain had not a “single major thing he’d do differently from George Bush when it comes to the economy,” and he took pains to emphasize that his tax plan would cut taxes for “95 percent” of all Americans earning less than $200,000.8 Obama also issued a call for change and civic responsibility. McCain largely attacked Obama’s economic plans, labeling his opponent Barack the Redistributor. McCain argued that Obama would raise taxes and cripple economic growth, and he called Obama “the most liberal person ever to run for the presidency.”9 Palin frequently invoked Reagan’s legacy in her appearances, attacked Obama’s plans as experiments in “socialism,” and claimed that McCain would be ready to serve as president on “day one.”10

174  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

The Presidential Air Game As in 2004, the 2008 campaign involved a full-scale ad blitz. This “air game” in Ohio was illustrated using information from two sources: (1) the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) data for television advertising in the top media markets in the state, and (2) the Ohio Reconnaissance Network (ORN) data, which were constructed through visits to television and radio stations, including cable television. These sources of data differ in their coverage: CMAG data cover all television ads in the top media markets in Ohio, while ORN data cover smaller markets and a wider range of stations, including radio.11 Each of these data sources provides unique information on the campaign in the Buckeye State, and there are some discrepancies in the information provided. However, in terms of overall spending, both sets of figures were close, with CMAG data showing a grand total of $33.5 million in television spending for the presidential race and ORN data showing a grand total of $32.2 million in spending on television and radio (Table 7.1). In addition, the ORN data found a total of 123 unique television and thirty-one unique radio spots (Table 7.2). These figures were much lower than the overall estimate of $100 million for presidential ads in 2004.12 According to CMAG data, Ohio had the most television spots in the 2008 presidential campaign, with more than 100,000 airings. The next closest state was Pennsylvania, with 84,000. Ohio also ranked third in terms of overall media spending.13 The state was an early target of the campaigns, having more spots during this period than any other state.14 Over the summer, Cleveland was the number one market for television advertising in the nation, with Columbus and Youngstown also ranking in the top five. During that time, Ohio had 17,000 ads by the candidates—10,135 for McCain and 7,145 for Obama. However, in the period after the national conventions, Ohio had fallen to fourth place in candidate ads and only Cleveland ranked among the top ten cities.15 In the last full week of October, only three Ohio cities (Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton) ranked in the top twenty markets in terms of presidential candidate ads. The CMAG data showed that Obama spent $15.2 million on television ads, and the ORN data reported $14 million in spending on television and radio ads by Obama for America (see Table 7.1). These figures were less than one-half of the ad spending by the Kerry campaign in 2004. The ORN found twenty-eight unique television ads by the Obama campaign and fourteen unique radio ads. Both sources of data showed a small amount of spending and one television ad by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) (see Table 7.2). In Ohio, Democrats also benefited from ads by liberal interest group allies. The CMAG data showed approximately $785,000 in spending on television ads by six groups, led by labor unions, while the ORN data found $700,000 in spending on television and radio ads by eight groups, with fifteen unique television ads and eight unique radio ads (see Tables 7.1 and 7.2). These figures sum to about $16 million dollars for Obama and allied committees in television and radio ads. In 2004, comparable spending was estimated at $60.8 million. Obama’s ads in Ohio struck a mixture of positive and negative tones, showing a pragmatic approach to the state. His strategy focused on the theme of change, linking McCain to Bush, and seeking to undermine McCain by portraying him as erratic. However, unlike the Ohio Democratic primary, where Obama failed to appeal to the working class,16 in the general election, Obama

Table 7.1 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in Ohio, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Obama for America $12,932,600 $401,916 $13,334,516   Political parties   DNC $4,000 — $4,000   Interest groups   Patriot Majority $419,475 — $419,475   American Federation of Teachers — $66,915 $66,915    Bring Ohio Back $66,450 — $66,450   MoveOn.org $48,885 — $48,885   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund $35,125 — $35,125   America’s Agenda: Healthcare for All $27,285 — $27,285    United Auto Workers — $27,245 $27,245   Sierra Club — $9,640 $9,640   SEIU COPE — — —    Winning Message Action Fund — — —    ONE Campaign — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates   McCain for President $9,040,425 $192,902 $9,233,327   Political parties   RNC $4,223,210 $7,783 $4,230,992   RNC/McCain $3,197,890 $35,788 $3,233,678   NRCC $43,200 — $43,200   Interest groups $434,380 $300 $434,680   Vets for Freedom   Let Freedom Ring $255,190 $12,750 $267,940   National Republican Trust PAC $159,225 — $159,225   American Issues Project $152,050 — $152,050    Committee for Truth in Politics $136,481 — $136,481   Americans for Job Security — $92,700 $92,700   National Federation      of Independent Business $41,080 $31,500 $72,580   American Energy Alliance — $41,640 $41,640    U.S. Chamber of Commerce $9,935 $30,275 $40,210   Majority America $33,600 — $33,600   National Right to Life PAC — $22,625 $22,625   NRA Political Victory Fund $16,969 — $16,969    Federation for a Secure      and Prosperous America — $8,625 $8,625    Citizens for Community Values — $8,100 $8,100   Republican Jewish Coalition — — —    BornAliveTruth.org — — —

CMAG TV

$15,209,742 $2,832 — — $79,939 $28,567 $23,811 — $284,670 — $345,238 $23,826 $1,945

$10,369,298 $4,688,185 — — $638,613 $361,730 $250,569 $468,644 $385,904 — — — — — — $9,789 — — $165,136 $105,107

(continued on next page)

176  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

Table 7.1 Continued Type and Organization Nonpartisan   Interest groups   Americans for Clean Coal Technology    Common Cause    Truth From American Workers   Strong American Schools   AARP

TV

Radio

— — — — —

$80,700 $13,413 $8,250 — —

Total $ Spent

CMAG TV

$80,700 $13,413 $8,250 — —

— — — $584,377 $295,602

Other   Candidates   Ralph Nader for President — $6,724 $6,724

—

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.2. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

championed economic issues of interest to these voters, such as health care and job creation. Most of the Obama commercials that ran in Ohio emphasized the economic crisis and mentioned President Bush’s “failed policies.” Some commercials attacked the loss of jobs due to foreign trade, an argument that appealed to a unionized workforce, and criticized McCain’s plan to cut Medicare benefits, a position that resonated with the state’s large elderly population. However, other ads took a more moderate stance, placing a special emphasis on middle-class voters and how they stood to gain under Obama, especially his plans to cut taxes on incomes of less than $200,000—an upper limit nearly five times the median family income in Ohio. One Obama ad of special note featured Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, who made the case that Obama was a sincere Christian. This ad was important because rumors continued to swirl that Obama was a Muslim—and Obama would need the support of culturally conservative Appalachian whites. The appeal from Strickland, the popular Democrat who formerly represented the state’s Sixth Congressional District in Appalachia and also an ordained Methodist minister, was tailor-made to respond to these concerns.

Table 7.2 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in Ohio, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Obama for America

53

11

1

44

68

14

28

219

5

—

—

—

—

—

—

5

   Ohio Democratic Party:      Campaign for Change

1

45

—

—

—

—

—

46

   Ohio Democratic Party

1

3

—

4

27

—

—

35

  DNC

5

11

—

—

12

—

1

29

  DCCC

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Local Democratic parties

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  AFL-CIO

1

25

—

—

2

3

—

31

  National Education Association

2

13

—

—

2

—

—

17

   United Auto Workers

—

4

—

1

—

2

3

10

  American Federation of Teachers

—

7

—

—

1

1

—

9

   Bring Ohio Back

—

5

—

—

—

—

4

9

   Change to Win

—

9

—

—

—

—

—

9

2

—

—

1

4

—

2

9

—

7

—

—

2

—

—

9

5

3

—

—

—

1

—

9

  Planned Parenthood

—

8

—

—

—

—

—

8

  International Association      of Fire Fighters

—

6

—

—

—

—

—

6

  Sierra Club

—

4

—

—

1

1

—

6

   Teamsters

—

6

—

—

—

—

—

6

  SEIU COPE

—

2

—

—

—

—

3

5

  VoteVets.org

—

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

  AFSCME

—

3

—

—

1

—

—

4

  National Jewish Democratic Council

—

4

—

—

—

—

—

4

2

—

—

2

—

—

—

4

   United Food and Commercial Workers —

2

1

—

—

—

1

4

3

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

  American Hunters and     Shooters Association

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

   Citizens Against the War in Iran

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

2

  EMILY’s List

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Environment Ohio

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

  HillPAC

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

  Progress Ohio

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

   Women’s Voices, Women Vote     Action Fund

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

  America Works

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  American Nurses’ Association PAC

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Better Ballot Cincinnati

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Catholic Democrats

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Hillary Clinton (Obama.com)   Political parties

  Interest groups

  MoveOn.org   NARAL Pro-Choice America    USAction

  Rock the Vote   National Organization for Women

(continued on next page)

Table 7.2 Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb (continued)   Interest groups (continued)    Citizens for Health

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

   ColorOfChange.org

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Democracy for America

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Feminist Majority

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Human Rights Campaign

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Law School Democrats

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  NAACP

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  National Association of Letter      Carriers

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  People for the American Way

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Physicians for Social Responsibility

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Progressive Future

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Race Fans for Change

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   United Steel Workers

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Winning Message Action Fund

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  McCain for President

—

3

—

1

43

2

2

51

  McCain/Palin 2008

26

1

—

—

6

1

16

50

   John McCain 2008

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Communications Workers of America

   Faith Vote Columbus

  League of Conservation Voters   Medina County for Obama

Republican alliesb   Candidates

  Political parties    Ohio Republican Party

—

26

—

2

33

—

1

62

  RNC/McCain/Palin

—

—

—

—

4

3

7

14

  Local Republican Parties

—

1

—

—

2

—

—

3

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

—

12

12

1

—

—

—

—

—

7

8

  Republican Jewish Coalition

—

3

—

—

1

—

4

8

   Judicial Confirmation Network

—

1

—

—

5

—

1

7

  National Right to Life PAC

—

4

—

—

1

1

—

6

  NRA Political Victory Fund

—

3

—

—

2

1

—

6

  Americans for Truth

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

3

   BornAliveTruth.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

3

   Committee for Truth in Politics

—

—

—

—

—

1

2

3

   Ohio Christian Alliance

—

1

—

1

—

—

—

2

  RightChange.com

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

  Susan B Anthony List

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

   Catholics United

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Citizens United

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  NRSC   Interest groups   Let Freedom Ring   National Republican Trust PAC

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  179

Table 7.2 Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb (continued)   Interest groups (continued)    GOP USA

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Just One Judge

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

  Light for Life

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  National Shooting Sports Foundation

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Our Country Deserves Better PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  Priests for Life

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Vets for Freedom

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

2

—

—

—

1

—

3

Nonpartisan   Interest groups   AARP Other   Candidates   Ralph Nader for President

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.1. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Ohio AFL-CIO, and Cleveland AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals; Ohio Federation of Teachers data have been included in the American Federation of Teachers totals; Ohio Education Association data have been included in the National Education Association totals; and Cleveland Right to Life and Ohio Right to Life data have been included in the National Right to Life totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Liberal groups largely emphasized economic themes in their media buys, often complementing the themes of the Obama campaign. The United Auto Workers ran two ads, almost entirely in the Great Lakes region, one attacking McCain’s proposal to tax workers’ health care benefits.17 The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) ran ads featuring Ohio workers who had been laid off, claiming that McCain’s vote for tax breaks for companies that moved jobs overseas was the cause of the layoffs. Bring Ohio Back aired several ads that criticized McCain’s support of banking deregulation and privatizing Social Security. Neither Obama nor his liberal allies made abortion, gay marriage, or the environment a theme in their ads in Ohio. On the Republican side in Ohio, the CMAG data showed $10.4 million dollars in television spending by McCain for President (see Table 7.1). This figure is about one-third the estimated spending by the Bush campaign in the state in 2004. The ORN data showed $9.2 million in spending on radio and ­television

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ads by the McCain campaign, plus nineteen unique television ads and three unique radio ads (see Tables 7.1 and 7.2). According to Table 7.1, the CMAG data also found $4.6 million in television spending by the RNC in Ohio and $3.2 million in spending on joint Republican National Committee (RNC)/ McCain television and radio ads.18 The McCain and Republican committees ran twenty-five television ads and three radio ads in Ohio (see Table 7.2). Conservative interest group allies were also on the airwaves. The CMAG data found some $2.4 million in television spending in Ohio by sixteen groups led by social conservatives. The ORN data found almost $1.4 million in spending on television and radio ads by fourteen groups, with thirty-six television ads and three radio ads aired in the state (see Tables 7.1 and 7.2). These figures sum to slightly more than $17 million for McCain and allied committees. McCain and RNC ads were largely negative and focused on two main areas: taxes/big government and experience. The former ads portrayed Obama as a “tax-and-spend liberal” or a “socialist.” One prominent ad, broadcast across every region of the state in September, just as the economic crisis was becoming most salient, said that “when our economy’s in crisis, a big government casts a big shadow on us all” and claimed that Obama’s response to the economic crisis would be to enact, among other things, “painful income taxes.”19 Another RNC ad mentioned that the government would have to spend a trillion dollars of “our money . . . ​even after” the bailout of Wall Street firms. 20 However, most Republican ads focused on Obama himself, arguing that he lacked the experience to be president during a time of crisis. Perhaps in recognition of Obama’s success, one ad that aired just before Election Day ended with the following line: “Barack Obama’s not ready . . . ​yet”—as if acknowledging that voters might find Obama’s issue positions appealing. 21 McCain’s ads also largely omitted appeals to cultural conservatives, as in his decision not to bring up Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When foreign policy was raised, the focus was on Obama’s lack of experience; in one ad, a voice quoting Joe Biden stated that Obama’s inexperience would cause the “world to test” Obama, while images of terrorists and foreign leaders filled the screen. 22 RNC ads emphasized largely similar themes, such as one ad that listed the elements of the emerging economic crisis and then lamented, “And now our Nation considers elevating one of the least experienced people ever to run for president.”23 A final RNC ad struck a more positive note: Airing in most Ohio markets, it emphasized McCain’s lifelong service in the military and government. In Ohio, conservative interest groups pursued some of the more controversial cultural issues that McCain avoided. Let Freedom Ring aired ads mentioning Obama’s campaign donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and argued that Obama, along with John Kerry, blocked reform of these institutions. Other commercials with very limited buys attacked Obama for his links to Jeremiah Wright; William Ayers, the 1960s anti-war activist and member of the Weather Underground; and Louis Farrakhan, the controversial leader of the Nation of Islam. The Judicial Confirmation Network questioned the types of judges Obama might appoint. The Committee for Truth in Politics and BornAliveTruth.org aired ads on abortion—a hot-button issue for Ohio voters. The National Republican Trust ran the hardest-hitting ads, on illegal immigration, and in an ad that debuted on Election Day and was timed to prevent a

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  181

response from the Democrats, the group replayed parts of Reverend Wright’s controversial sermons. Unlike in 2004, the Democrats did not rely heavily on the media spending of liberal interest groups in Ohio (less than $1 million was spent in 2008 compared with $24 million in 2004). 24 In 2008, the Democratic air game was more unified than in 2004, with more than 90 percent of the spending coming from the Obama campaign itself. In contrast, the Ohio effort by Republicans and their allies was more fragmented: The McCain campaign provided less than threefifths of the media spending. Interestingly, conservative groups’ media spending on the presidential race was also down from 2004 ($2.4 million compared with $7.7 million). 25 The markedly lower media spending in 2008 compared with 2004 may reflect the larger number of competitive states in 2008, especially toward the end of the campaign. However, as discussed in Chapter 3, both standard bearers urged their allied groups not to run ads.

The Presidential Ground Game As in 2004, both campaigns made extensive efforts to register and mobilize voters in Ohio. This “ground game” involved sophisticated grassroots organizations that used a combination of such traditional techniques as telephone banks and direct mail, as well as new techniques such as e-mail and social networking tools—with different kinds of organizations pursuing different kinds of voters. In this regard, the efforts of the Democrats and their allies were more coordinated and integrated than in 2004, while the efforts of the Republicans and their allies were less so. The overall level of grassroots activity was likely larger in 2008 than in 2004 because of both increased Democratic activity and some expansion of Republican activity. On the Democratic side, the Obama campaign sought to coordinate its efforts closely with the Democratic Party, deploying a large volunteer corps. The result was a much more effective version of the traditional Democratic coordinated campaign that had operated in Ohio since the 1980s. Of course, Obama had waged an extensive primary campaign in the state, building support and infrastructure, but an even greater advantage was the revitalization of the Ohio Democratic Party under Chairman Chris Redfern. 26 Redfern pioneered an “88-county strategy” that was successful in 2006, when the Democrats elected Governor Ted Strickland and won control of most statewide offices. Governor Strickland described the 2008 version of his strategy this way: Is Sen. Obama going to win every county and every region? Probably not. . . . But in some heavily Republican counties we can go from 29 percent to perhaps 38 percent, and in some counties we can go from 38 percent to 44 percent. So I’m confident that the strategy here is going to be effective. It’s an attempt to reach every voter in every part of Ohio. 27 The Democratic ground game drew on resources from the Obama campaign and the DNC, including the party’s extensive voter files. However, the effort was organized by the campaign and the Ohio Democratic Party through a special subsidiary, the Campaign for Change. This was a single-purpose organization

182  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

built from both the state party and Obama campaign organizations. As Jon Carson, manager of Obama’s field operations, reported: What we really ended up having was an extra layer of staff out there. In Ohio, we had over 1,400 people who were putting in 20, 30, 40 hours a week, and we empowered them. In a difficult decision, and after a struggle with people who’d done campaigns before, we actually gave volunteers log-ins to our databases, access to all the other volunteers in their area, and told them to get the job done. 28 According to Democratic Chairman Chris Redfern, there was constant communication between the Ohio Obama campaign and the Campaign for Change, which managed candidate activities and the air game in the state, with five to ten telephone conversations per day. The Ohio party worked closely with the Obama campaign because “Obama had wider latitude due to the rejection of public financing.” Redfern also contrasted the integration of resources in the Campaign for Change and the lack of integration in the 2004 Kerry campaign. 29 This operation was not, however, equally effective in all counties. In some cases, the state party had to provide special assistance to weak Democratic county party organizations, and some local parties were less cooperative. 30 The Ohio Campaign for Change field organization included twenty-four regional field directors, seventy-one local offices, and 300 paid staffers. Some of these staffers were “Obama Fellows,” college students who were placed in communities for six-week stretches to do grassroots organization and who often lived in the homes of community members. 31 The core of this integrated effort was some 1,200 neighborhood teams of volunteers, with one canvasser for approximately every forty to fifty voters. The volunteers worked ten to forty hours a week, going door to door to engage voters and collect information for better targeting by the campaign. Many of these volunteers were identified using the Web site my.BarackObama.com, built to match the features of social networking Web sites, and the volunteers were managed via e-mail and text messages. In an improvement over 2004, the Obama campaign had a sophisticated database of its own. It also added volunteer capacity by using inexpensive Cricket cell phones and by asking volunteers to use their own minutes for calling. All of the calls were geared to gather new information on voters in the database. Neighborhood teams worked first at voter registration, as part of the Vote for Change program, and then at early voting or Election Day voting. One of the most talked-about activities was the distribution of 1.5 million large, glossy door hangers to homes throughout Ohio. The door hangers gave details on the exact polling place for each voter, including the street address. The Obama volunteer count for one week in early October was 6,500, generating half a million calls and almost 400,000 home visits. On Election Day, an estimated 24,000 Obama canvassers were active in the state. The campaign was able to provide $3.2 million dollars for per diem expenses for the volunteers involved in these get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, including such activities as canvassing and identifying supporters, contacting supporters on Election Day, offering transportation to polling locations, and providing literature drops. 32 Central to GOTV efforts were the resources provided by the Obama campaign and the party committees. The Obama campaign provided $12.5 mil-

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  183

lion for this effort directly, and the state party provided another $12.7 million, including transfers of some $6.7 million from the DNC, nearly $1.5 million from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and $3 million from the Obama campaign. The ORN data show the results of this effort: The Obama campaign and the Democratic committees were credited with sixtyfive unique e-mails, seventy-four pieces of direct mail, and 107 unique telephone calls. The ORN data also reported forty-eight personal contacts (see Table 7.2). If added to the radio and television ads, the Democratic effort amounted to 336 unique campaign communications. These data indicate the importance of online campaigning for Obama and the Democratic congressional candidates, but clearly, the campaigns did not neglect more traditional tactics, either. Democratic direct mail pieces reinforced the media messages, emphasizing economic issues for middle-class families, including health care and jobs. 33 As Obama campaign manager David Plouffe noted: We thought Ohio would be close no matter what; it was one of the few states where we did not think we could fundamentally alter the electorate, a top strategic goal in all battleground states. Because it had been ground zero in the Bush-Kerry race, turnout and registration levels were already exceedingly high. Even if our enthusiasm levels were higher than McCain’s, and he had some drop-off from Bush’s turnout (a distinct possibility), we would still need to win the persuasion war with swing voters on the economy. 34 Most of the pieces sent by the Campaign for Change highlighted the economic hardship in the state, McCain’s support for Bush’s economic policies— especially policies that outsourced jobs overseas—and Obama’s plan to cut taxes on the middle class. McCain’s opposition to equal pay legislation (the Lilly Led­ better story) was emphasized in some pieces, as if to counter the nomination of Palin, whom the McCain camp had hoped would attract disenchanted Clinton backers. Other pieces were simple GOTV messages that encouraged supporters to vote early. The Democrats also received considerable support from interest group allies. Perhaps the most controversial was the voter registration efforts of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). ACORN claimed to have registered more than 230,000 voters in Ohio, and there were allegations of fraudulent registrations on the part of paid workers. 35 America Votes Ohio coordinated the voter registration and GOTV efforts for a coalition of 72 progressive organizations, including labor unions, registering some 314,000 voters. 36 The group’s “most experienced director” was sent to Ohio at the very beginning of the campaign. 37 As part of America Votes, the Ohio SEIU voter mobilization campaign registered more than 12,000 voters and knocked on well over 300,000 doors. 38 The efforts of the Change to Win campaign, a partnership of seven unions with a combined six million members, included voter outreach, especially toward swing voters, and leaving door hangers about jobs and health care. 39 Other union efforts, such as the Working America program by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), targeted socially conservative union members, while direct mail sent by the AFL-CIO

184  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

and SEIU attacked McCain’s economic and worker-related platform. An important effort by labor was a telephone campaign designed to counter the perception among union members that Obama was a Muslim. The ORN data identified fifty interest group organizations with at least one communication on behalf of the Democratic campaign (see Table 7.2). Unions and progressive groups were important, but so were some faith-based organizations, including Catholic Democrats, the National Democratic Jewish Council, Faith Vote Columbus, and for secular voters, People for the American Way. These contacts included thirty unique e-mails, 129 pieces of direct mail, and seventeen telephone calls (see Table 7.2). When added to radio and television ads, these groups provided 196 unique communications in Ohio. The McCain campaign sought to replicate the success of the Bush campaign in 2004, which at the time was one of the most sophisticated grassroots efforts in Ohio history.40 The hallmarks of this effort were a high level of coordination and integration between the presidential campaign and the state party. The 2008 McCain campaign divided its efforts into two categories: persuasion (Victory Campaign) and mobilization (Victory Plan). The persuasion campaign began after the national conventions, when issue-specific direct mail was sent to targeted voters and followed up with telephone calls.41 In 2008, microtargeting again was a large part of the GOP effort, using the GOP’s Voter Vault database.42 Compared with 2004, the Republican strategy was more focused on targeting moderate or persuadable voters in Ohio’s exurban and rural areas, and less focused on base mobilization.43 These efforts included attempts to attract some of Hillary Clinton’s primary supporters in industrial areas within Southeastern and Northeastern Ohio. As in 2004, the Republican GOTV operation integrated the efforts of national, state, and local party organizations as well as the candidate organizations, culminating in the “72 Hour Taskforce” to get out the vote. In 2008, the Victory Plan evolved into a “96 Hour Effort,” beginning on the Friday before the election, with a special emphasis on absentee ballots. The Victory Plan primarily organized voter registration, voter identification, contact, and telephone banking, while the county parties largely recruited volunteers and selected telephone banking locations.44 There was a close working relationship among McCain’s Ohio manager, the state party executive director, and the Victory Plan director. These officials were in daily contact, and every Saturday, there was an assessment of the Victory Plan by the McCain campaign, the state party, and the RNC. However, without a sitting president running for reelection or a sitting Republican governor, this level of coordination and integration was more difficult to achieve in 2008, especially with regard to party allies.45 McCain’s reputation as a “maverick” created more than the usual tensions between the presidential candidate and the Ohio state and local party organizations. A good example was a proposed state constitutional amendment on gambling, which the state party opposed but the McCain campaign supported.46 This presented a sharp difference from 2004, when a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage was a unifying theme for Bush and the GOP and helped generate turnout.47 In 2008, McCain had forty-six offices and sixty paid staffers in Ohio, supplemented by the county Republican committees. There were fewer than half as many campaign staffers as in 2004, and there appear to have been fewer enthu-

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  185

siastic Republican volunteers as well.48 Perhaps for these reasons, the Republican campaign turned to technology in the form of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which allowed microtargeting of voters with up to 200 pieces of information per voter.49 Campaign staffers could instantly update the Voter Vault database, which in turn generated calls to voters on issues that were important to them. 50 Ohio Republican leaders reported generating more telephone calls in 2008 than in 2004. The calls themselves were also more sophisticated than in the past, allowing callers to press buttons to load information directly into a computer database during the conversation. However, this kind of impersonal contact may have been less effective than the personal contacts that were emphasized in 2004. The 2008 Republican ground game in Ohio was not as well financed as its Democratic counterpart. The Ohio Republican Party spent $10.7 million on the ground game. The bulk of this money ($8.5 million) came from joint fundraising efforts between Republican committees and the McCain campaign51 and also included nearly $2.5 million transferred from the RNC (and just $35,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee [NRCC]) as well as $3 million transferred from the McCain primary campaign. This figure was substantially less than the $25 million spent by the Democratic Party on the ground game in Ohio. One reason for fewer GOP resources at the grassroots was because the McCain campaign decided to focus its funds on persuasion in the final days of the campaign—a choice dictated in large part by the fact that McCain had fallen behind in the polls. 52 The ORN data show a lower level of Republican activity in 2008 compared with the Democrats (see Table 7.2). The McCain campaign and GOP committees produced thirty-six e-mails, thirty-eight pieces of direct mail, and eighty-eight telephone calls. If radio and television ads are included, the Republicans provided 249 unique communications in Ohio (compared with the Democrats’ 336). Interestingly, the ORN data included reports of just three personal contacts on the GOP side, a sharp contrast with the reported forty-eight personal contacts for Democrats. The GOP figures may reflect the use of technology by the GOP campaign as well as fewer enthusiastic volunteers. However, state party officials reported that the Republican effort knocked on more doors in 2008 than in 2004.53 Direct mail sent by the Ohio Republican Party strongly attacked Obama. Some pieces noted his links to convicted businessman Tony Rezko and others involved in various corruption probes. Other pieces attacked Obama for being willing to meet with “tyrants” and claimed that Democrats were going to “abandon America’s troops” by pulling out of Iraq. Obama’s support of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens was mentioned as well. Many pieces attacked Obama’s economic plan, arguing that the Democrats would drive up government spending and produce greater deficits. The Republicans also received support from conservative allies in 2008, with the ORN data finding twenty-one conservative interest groups that had at least one communication (see Table 7.2). These groups provided two e-mails, seventeen pieces of direct mail, and ten telephone calls. When added to radio and television ads, conservative interest groups produced a total of seventy-one political communications in Ohio. In sum, the Democrats and their liberal allies produced a total of 532 unique political contacts, and the Republicans and their conservative allies produced a total of 320.

186  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

Many observers noted a lower level of enthusiasm among GOP allies in 2008 than in 2004, and this level would have been even lower without Sarah Palin. McCain eventually received support from religious conservatives in Ohio after he met with leaders of conservative groups in Cincinnati. The Ohio Christian Alliance (OCA), the former Ohio Christian Coalition, operating on its own in 2008, was particularly active, distributing 1.5 million voter guides in 8,000 to 10,000 churches across Ohio and deploying some 3,000 volunteers. The OCA also reported one million e-mails to social conservatives regarding the voter guides and more than 500,000 visits to its Web site in the last thirtyfour days of the campaign. Along these lines, Citizens for Community Values ran Ohio Elections Central, an online voter registration site. 54 Other conservative religious groups that worked for the Republican ticket in Ohio included the National Right to Life Committee, Priests for Life, Let Freedom Ring, Susan B. Anthony List, BornAliveTruth.org, and Catholics United. 55 Nonreligious conservative groups active in Ohio included the American Issues Project, the Club for Growth, the National Rifle Association (NRA), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Veterans for Freedom.

The Results Unlike in 2004, the news media called Ohio for Obama early on election night, effectively sealing McCain’s defeat long before the full magnitude of the Democratic victory was known. Obama’s Buckeye victory was narrow but solid, with 51.5 percent of the popular vote, for a total of 2.9 million ballots, compared with 46.9 percent of the vote and 2.7 million ballots for McCain. Obama’s popular vote margin was slightly larger than George W. Bush’s 50.8 percent in 2004, with about 80,000 additional ballots. Obama received nearly 200,000 more Ohio ballots than Kerry did in 2004, while McCain trailed Bush’s 2004 ballots by about 180,000. 56 Overall, voter turnout in Ohio was down slightly in 2008, with 69.7 percent of registered voters going to the polls, compared with 71.7 percent in 2004. 57 This slight decline was due in part to a net increase in the number of registered voters, with the Ohio voter rolls swelling by some 315,000 to a total of 8.2 million. However, these numbers were a little lower than the net increase of registered voters in 2004 (441,000). In 2008, the number of registered voters was approaching the maximum, at 97 percent of the eligible electorate, up from 94.6 percent in 2004 and 90.8 percent in 2000. These patterns are reflected in the number of votes cast: In 2008, an additional 52,000 Ohioans went to the polls, a figure dwarfed by the roughly 926,000 additional voters in 2004. 58 Thus, Obama’s victory in Ohio was less about an overall increase in turnout than about securing the support of more voters. Some of these voters were casting a ballot for the first time, and some had voted for Bush in 2004. Indeed, the Democrats’ “88-county strategy” improved the party’s margin over the 2004 results in all regions of the state. Obama won 58 percent of densely populated and liberal Northeastern Ohio (Kerry won 55 percent); continued the Democratic trend in growing Central Ohio, with 54 percent (Kerry obtained 48 percent); held his own in the swing region of Southeastern Ohio, with 48 percent (Kerry received 47 percent); and made a small gain to 45 percent in the conser-

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  187

vative area of Southwest Ohio (Kerry had 42 percent). Interestingly, Obama also made big gains in Republican-leaning Northwestern Ohio, where he received 50 percent of the votes (compared with Kerry’s 44 percent). These changes were more of degree than of kind, expanding on favorable demographic trends in the state. Indeed, Obama’s victory in Hamilton County (Cincinnati) meant that all of the major urban counties were blue in 2008. These results also reflect some decline in turnout among GOP voters.

Ohio’s U.S. Congressional Races, 2008 As in 2006, Ohio was perceived as a competitive environment in congressional elections. With four open seats and a number of potentially vulnerable incumbents, both political parties focused considerable attention on the Ohio congressional races, recruiting high-quality candidates and devoting extensive resources to their campaigns. As noted, the Democrats had a clear advantage in resources, which allowed for sophisticated Democratic campaigns to capitalize on a favorable issue environment. The Democratic candidates presented themselves to voters as moderate or conservative on cultural and fiscal issues, matching the character of the districts. As a consequence, the Democrats were able to win three seats that were held by the GOP going into the election—in the First, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Congressional Districts—and the party did not lose any of its own seats, a pattern illustrated by the lack of a competitive race in the Eighteenth Congressional District.

The Sixteenth Congressional District: Replacing Ralph The Sixteenth Congressional District is located in Northeast Ohio and is demographically diverse. It includes the industrial city of Canton, open farm country to the west, and Amish settlements to the south. The area has been politically competitive in statewide elections and has tilted Democratic in recent elections; however, in congressional elections, the district had voted Republican because of moderate eighteen-term congressman Ralph Regula. 59 Regula’s retirement in 2008 created an open seat and a highly competitive campaign. For the GOP, the Sixteenth District represented a must-save seat on the edge of blue Ohio. For the Democrats, the open seat represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to pick up a previously Republican seat.

The Sixteenth District Candidates The race to succeed Ralph Regula featured two state senators. The Democrats nominated John Boccieri, who had served in the Ohio legislature since 2001 and had represented the Thirty-third State Senate District since 2007. The youthful father of four, Boccieri served in the U.S. Air Force and then the Air Force Reserves for fourteen years, completing four tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Boccieri is a socially conservative Democrat who is pro-life and pro–gun rights—two issue positions that play well in the district.60 “The guy should switch parties,” Brian Walsh of the NRCC said of the Democrats’ nominee.61 The Democrats also saw Boccieri as a culturally conservative candidate

188  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

who fit the district.62 One issue that dogged Boccieri throughout the campaign was charges of carpetbagging because he did not actually live in the Sixteenth District at the outset of the campaign. This issue spurred Canton city councilwoman Mary Cirelli to oppose him in the primary, but Boccieri won the nomination handily.63 The Republicans also had a contested primary. They nominated Kirk Schur­ ing, who had served in the Ohio legislature as both a representative and a senator since 1993. A pro-business and pro-life conservative, Schuring received the endorsement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the support of conservative advocacy groups such as Move America Forward and Right to Life.64 Despite Ralph Regula’s endorsement, Schuring faced Ashland county commissioner Matt Miller and talk show host Paul Schiffer in the primary. Schuring won the three-way race with 47.4 percent of the vote.

Campaign Resources Although both nominees had initial success raising campaign funds, Boccieri out-raised Schuring by about one-third, $1.8 million versus $1.2 million (Table 7.3).65 In part, this disparity reflected political action committee (PAC) contributions, which accounted for almost half of Boccieri’s funds, compared with about one-fifth of Schuring’s funds.66 During the campaign, Boccieri was criticized for raising money from out-of-state sources.67 Boccieri did, in fact, raise more money than Schuring from outside of Ohio ($141,000 vs. $59,000).68 Much of the campaigning took place on the air, and the CMAG and ORN data provided somewhat different estimates of this spending (Table 7.4). 69 According to the CMAG data, television and radio ads totaled nearly $2 million. Here, Boccieri outspent Schuring by more than four to one in terms of the campaign’s own resources. However, there was a striking difference between the two candidates: Boccieri benefited from nearly $1.5 million in independent expenditures from the DCCC. The CMAG data included no spending for Schur­ ing from the NRCC, but the ORN data showed $204,000. In addition, the CMAG data showed support for Boccieri from American Federation of State,

Table 7.3 Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, Ohio Congressional Races, 2007–2008

Steven Driehaus (D)

Steve Chabot (R)

From PACs

$637,095 $1,122,411

From individuals

$834,812

From candidate

Mary Jo Kilroy (D)

Steve Stivers (R)

John Boccieri (D)

Kirk Schuring (R)

Zack Space (D)

Fred Dailey (R)

$704,248 $1,261,136

$830,879

$232,768 $1,162,985

$34,359

$935,061 $1,803,361 $1,086,037

$880,495

$982,161 $1,079,204

$305,393

$1,000

$0

$60,000

$54,735

$4,531

$0

$0

$16,741

$292,273

$25,147

$9,730

$78,205

$10,929

$23,161

$2,374

Total receipts

$1,489,648 $2,349,745 $2,592,756 $2,411,638 $1,794,110 $1,225,858 $2,265,350

$392,126

Total expenditures

$1,447,544 $2,410,292 $2,611,122 $2,244,221 $1,722,377 $1,208,527 $2,041,891

$391,524

Other contributions

Cash on hand    (as of 12/31/08)

$42,101

$6,336

$12,216

$9,095

$71,733

$17,327

$251,165

$50,000

$599

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007–2008 Election,” December 31, 2008, available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H8OH01068 and http://query.nictusa.com/ cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H8OH01043 (accessed May 18, 2009).

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  189

Table 7.4 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio Sixteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    John Boccieri for Congress $485,830 $46,090 $531,920   Political parties   DCCC $1,108,711 $5,620 $1,114,331   Interest groups   AFSCME — — —

CMAG TV

$695,882 $1,477,676 $196,930

alliesa

Republican   Candidates   Schuring for Congress $71,880 $8,270 $80,150   Political parties   NRCC $204,700 — $204,700   Interest groups   American Petroleum Institute $14,400 — $14,400

$157,009 — —

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.5. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the ORN data also showed some support for Schuring from the American Petroleum Institute.70 The ORN data showed that the Boccieri campaign had four television ads, two telephone calls, and three pieces of direct mail, for a total of ten unique communications in the district (Table 7.5). The Ohio Democratic Party and the DCCC combined had twenty-three communications, with ten mail pieces, six reported personal contacts, two telephone calls, and five television ads. Eleven interest groups made at least one communication in this race, for a total of nineteen unique communications, twelve of which were direct mail pieces. Here, labor unions were the most active, especially the Ohio Education Association. The ORN data showed that the Schuring campaign had three television ads, three telephone calls, and three direct mail pieces, for a total of nine unique

Table 7.5 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio Sixteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Democratic alliesb   Candidates    John Boccieri for Congress   Political parties    Ohio Democratic Party   DCCC   Interest groups    Ohio Education Association   AFL-CIO   Patriot Majority   Rock the Vote   AFSCME    Faith Vote Columbus   League of Conservation Voters   MoveOn.org   NAACP   People for the American Way    USAction   VoteVets.org Republican alliesb   Candidates   Schuring for Congress   Political parties    Ohio Republican Party   RNC   Interest groups    U.S. Chamber of Commerce   NRA Political Victory Fund

Total Personal Telephone Unique Contact Call TV Ads

—

3

1

2

4

10

— —

6 4

6 —

2 —

— 5

14 9

— — — — — — — — — 1 1 —

6 2 2 — — — — — 1 — — 1

— — — 2 — — — 1 — — — —

— — — — — 1 1 — — — — —

— — — — 1 — — — — — — —

6 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

—

3

—

3

3

9

— —

5 3

1 —

— —

— —

6 3

— —

3 —

— —

— 1

— —

3 1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organization activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.4. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Ohio AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  191

communications (see Table 7.5). The Ohio Republican Party and the RNC provided another eleven communications, eight of which were direct mail pieces. Among interest groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce used three mail pieces and the NRA used one telephone call. The key issue in the race was the economy. Both campaigns concentrated their ads on their ability to help Ohio’s workers, with Boccieri picking up the “change” theme from the Obama campaign, while Schuring stressed his independence. In addition, each candidate produced positive messages about his own records and character. For example, the Boccieri campaign and the Ohio Democratic Party issued several mail pieces and television ads that highlighted Boccieri as a veteran, family man, and moderate candidate who was dedicated to rebuilding Ohio. A particularly interesting direct mail piece by the Ohio Democratic Party highlighted Boccieri’s support of the right to bear arms. At the same time as they were bolstering Boccieri’s candidacy, DCCC Executive Director Brian Wolff acknowledged the time pressures of Boccieri’s schedule. “At times we were a little bit worried,” Wolff said, “because he was having to still work because of his family and . . . ​he still stayed active in [the National Guard]. . . . ​ He wasn’t campaigning enough.”71 On the opposing team, the Schuring campaign and the Ohio Republican Party issued direct mail pieces and television ads that highlighted Schuring’s dependable record and the fact that he grew up in the Sixteenth District. One mail piece featured a photograph of Schuring with the retiring Ralph Regula. On the negative side of the contest, the DCCC was responsible for most of the attack ads directed at Schuring. Most notably, the DCCC continually associated Schuring with voting for a pay raise for legislators as Ohioans suffered to make ends meet; the committee also linked Schuring to President Bush. Of course, the Ohio GOP and the RNC joined in, issuing attack mail pieces that criticized Boccieri for relocating to the district to run for office and associated him with Ohio politicians who were considered unethical, such as former Attorney General Marc Dann, who had resigned in May after admitting to an extramarital affair. In sum, Boccieri benefited from a total of fifty-three unique communications and Schuring benefited from twenty-two.

The Results By the autumn of 2008, Boccieri was leading comfortably in a number of public opinion polls and was coasting to victory.72 Ultimately, the Democratic resource advantage translated into a surprisingly large victory for Boccieri, who bested Schuring by more than ten percentage points: 55.4 percent to 44.6 percent. Boccieri improved on the Democratic congressional vote all across the district, picking up some 68,000 votes compared with the Democratic challenger in 2004. The number of ballots cast was up slightly from 2004, but turnout as a percentage of registered voters was down slightly. The Obama vote showed a very similar pattern in the district, so it is unlikely that presidential coattails were much of a factor in Boccieri’s victory. Instead, this race appears to have been won in the district, where the Democratic resource advantages allowed a candidate well suited for the area to successfully exploit a favorable political environment.

192  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

The Fifteenth Congressional District: Down to the Wire—Again The Fifteenth Congressional District is located in the heart of Central Ohio, comprising the western half of urban Franklin County (where Columbus is located), plus two largely rural counties. Columbus is the fifteenth largest city in the nation, but ranks thirty-third in terms of metropolitan area population. It is sometimes referred to as the nation’s test market because of its broad representation of races and economic classes.73 The district has become increasingly competitive. “The Fifteenth was always on the national battlefield and will always be on the national battlefield,” according to the NRCC’s Brian Walsh.74 In 2006, Republican incumbent Deborah Pryce won reelection by about 1,000 votes. Pryce retired in 2008, setting up a contest where both parties had good reason to go all out.

The Fifteenth District Candidates In 2008, the Democrats renominated Mary Jo Kilroy, who had lost narrowly to Deborah Pryce in 2006. The bruising 2006 race made Kilroy the odds-on favorite for a rematch in 2008, and Pryce’s retirement made Kilroy an especially viable candidate. Before running for Congress, Kilroy had served on the Columbus School Board and as Franklin County commissioner, becoming president of the commissioners in 2005. She had also run unsuccessfully for the state senate in 1996—coincidentally, the same seat later held by her 2008 opponent, Steve Stivers. Republican Steve Stivers had served as a state senator from the Sixteenth District for five years. Regarded as a rising star in the GOP, he had been appointed to the senate seat in 2003, after serving as a staffer in the Ohio Senate and as finance director for the Franklin County Republican Party. “A telegenic, smart, very well-liked guy,” DCCC’s Brian Wolff said of Stivers.75 Additionally, the Republican candidate had served in the Ohio Army National Guard, earning a Bronze Star, and spent seven years as a registered bank lobbyist—an association that became an issue in the campaign.76 Given the closeness of the race, two additional candidates are worth noting: Independent candidate Don Eckhart and Libertarian candidate Mark Noble. Eckhart, a retired legislative analyst from central Ohio, presented himself as the “true conservative” option among the candidates. Noble, who had chaired the Franklin County Libertarian Party since 2006, developed a platform centered on gun rights, lower taxes, and other traditional Libertarian stances.77

Campaign Resources Because of her established network of donors from 2006, Kilroy had an early fundraising advantage. However, by summer, Stivers’s aggressive fundraising efforts substantially reduced this advantage.78 In the end, the money race was close, with Kilroy besting Stivers $2.6 to $2.4 million. Kilroy did better among individual donors, raising $1.8 million, and obtained another $700,000 from PACs. In contrast, Stivers relied more heavily on contributions from PACs (nearly $1.3 million) and received $1.1 million in individual contributions.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  193

According to the ORN data, both candidates began running television ads in August, with Kilroy beating Stivers to the punch by a single week. Throughout the course of the campaign, the Kilroy campaign spent nearly $800,000 on television ads. Stivers surpassed Kilroy in total ad buy expenditures, according to the ORN data, spending almost $1.3 million (Table 7.6). The CMAG data showed a more equal level of candidate television spending, around $900,000 each. It is worth noting that among the additional candidates, only the Eckhart Table 7.6 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio Fifteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

CMAG TV

alliesa

Democratic   Candidates   Mary Jo Kilroy for Congress $771,940 — $771,940   Political parties   DCCC $1,013,030 — $1,013,030   Interest groups   Patriot Majority — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates   Stivers for Congress $1,286,500 — $1,286,500   Political parties   NRCC $499,950 — $499,950   RNC/Stivers $77,985 — $77,985   Interest groups   National Republican Trust PAC $73,550 — $73,550   National Federation      of Independent Business — — — Other   Candidates   Eckhart for Congress — $10,106 $10,106

$907,769 $1,051,511 $426,076

$942,533 $400,563 — — $81,179

$2,178

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organization spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.7. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

194  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

campaign purchased radio ads ($10,000) and the CMAG data also showed him making a modest television buy (about $2,100). The ORN data showed that each major party congressional campaign committee made significant media buys. These data showed that the DCCC made just over $1 million worth of ad buys in support of Kilroy and the NRCC spent just under $500,000 on ad buys in support of Stivers. He also received modest support from the RNC, which spent just over $78,000 in ad buys in coordination with the Stivers campaign. The CMAG data showed a similar advantage to Kilroy in national party spending, $1 million to Stivers’s $400,000 (see Table 7.6). Federal Election Commission data showed that the Democratic Party committees provided Kilroy with $2 million in support and the Republican Party committees provided Stivers with $900,000. Each candidate also benefited from some interest group media buys. The CMAG data showed $400,000 in independent expenditures from the Patriot Majority to benefit Kilroy. The CMAG data showed expenditures of $81,000 by the National Federation of Independent Business, and the ORN data showed expenditures of $77,000 by the National Republican Trust PAC, both intended to assist Stivers (see Table 7.6). All told, both sides spent less in 2008 than in 2006 (Democrats $2.4 million vs. $3.2 million and Republicans $1.4 million vs. $4.1 million).79 The ORN data provided a summary of the unique forms of communication used by the campaigns and their allies (Table 7.7). Kilroy’s campaign aired five television ads, sent out two mailings, and made three personal contacts, for a total of ten communications. In addition, the Ohio Democratic Party and the DCCC produced a total of twenty-one communications, including fifteen direct mail pieces, two telephone calls, and four television ads. A total of ten interest groups made at least one communication on behalf of Kilroy, for a total of eighteen, the largest number being direct mail pieces. Working America, a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO, sent out five mailings; Ohio Women Vote, sponsored by EMILY’s List, distributed four mailings; and the Patriot Majority aired one television ad. The Kilroy campaign’s communication largely reflected themes that transcended the Fifteenth Congressional District. Kilroy communicated a message of “change” similar to that articulated by the Obama campaign. In fact, most of her television ads ended with the words, “I’m Mary Jo Kilroy. I sponsored this ad to change Washington.” Specifically, Kilroy attempted to establish herself as an efficient manager and a budget cutter. In terms of policy, she emphasized economic themes, such as “working people need help, real tax cuts, and jobs with affordable health care.” Because Kilroy was already well known in the district, she decided to begin the campaign with negative ads against Stivers. The main vehicle for these attacks was Stivers’s previous work as a lobbyist. Both Kilroy and the DCCC ads portrayed Stivers as an out-of-touch bank lobbyist who was opposed to the regulation and oversight of financial institutions. A mailing sent by the group Working America (AFL-CIO) referenced the unfavorable state of the economy, the high cost of health care, and rising unemployment. The communications from other groups had economic themes as well, such as an ad by Patriot Majority attacking Stivers for supporting tax breaks for the wealthy. In terms of GOTV

Table 7.7 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio Fifteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Democratic alliesb   Candidates   Mary Jo Kilroy for Congress   Political parties    Ohio Democratic Party   DCCC   Interest groups   AFL-CIO    Ohio Women Vote   Rock the Vote    Faith Vote Columbus   League of Conservation Voters   MoveOn.org   NAACP   Patriot Majority   People for the American Way    USAction

Total Personal Telephone Unique Contact Call TV Ads

—

2

3

—

5

10

— —

15 —

— —

2 —

— 4

17 4

— — — — — — — — 1 1

5 4 — — — — 1 — — —

— — 2 — — 1 — — — —

— — — — — — 1 — 1 — — — — — 1 — — — —

5 4 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1

—

—

5

7

14 10 — —

— — — —

— — 2 1

1 — — —

15 10 2 1

1 —

— —

1 —

— 1

2 1

Republican alliesb   Candidates   Stivers for Congress 1   Political parties   NRCC —    Ohio Republican Party —    Franklin County Republicans —   RNC/Stivers —   Interest groups   NRA Political Victory Fund —   National Federation of Independent Business —

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.6. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Ohio AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

196  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

efforts, the Ohio Democratic Party produced a brochure urging potential voters to register and to use early balloting to vote for Obama and Kilroy. The ORN data indicated that the Stivers campaign aired five television ads and sent one e-mail and one direct mail piece, for a total of seven unique communications (see Table 7.7). The NRCC, RNC, Ohio Republican Party, and Franklin County GOP committee produced a total of twenty-eight communications, including one television ad, twenty-four mail pieces, and three telephone calls. In addition, the National Federation of Independent Business ran a television ad, while the NRA used a mail piece and a telephone call for Stivers. The aggressive nature of the Kilroy campaign and allied ads, especially with regard to Stivers’s past as a bank lobbyist, put his campaign on the defensive. One response was for the campaign to emphasize Stivers’s positive attributes, including his legislative experience in the Ohio General Assembly and his service in the Ohio Army National Guard. The campaign also took pains to distance Stivers from President Bush. A second response was to question Kilroy’s credentials, based on her lack of legislative experience and the mismanagement of public funds during her service as a school board member and county commissioner. Other negative communications included allegations of Kilroy’s use of Haitian sweatshops for campaign shirts and polling that showed low approval numbers for Kilroy during her terms as commissioner.80 Stivers’s allies reinforced these messages. The NRCC aired an advertisement that questioned Kilroy’s commitment to saving Ohio jobs and keeping taxes low, citing her involvement in giving work on a city ballpark to an out-of-state contractor (“she’s working; she just isn’t working for you”) and the doubling of sales taxes on her watch. The NRA Political Victory Fund mailed a postcard urging votes for McCain and Stivers and supporting their positions on gun rights. A GOTV telephone call specific to Stivers and co-sponsored by the campaign and the RNC was made to prospective voters on the eve of Election Day. In sum, Kilroy benefited from forty-nine unique political communications and Stivers benefited from thirty-eight unique communications (see Table 7.7). All told, in 2008, the Fifteenth Congressional District had about the same number of total campaign communications as in 2006 on the Democratic side (fortyseven in 2006), but fewer on the Republican side (seventy-two in 2006).81

The Results On election night, the Fifteenth Congressional District race was too close to call, and in something of a repeat of 2006, it took five weeks to count all of the provisional and absentee ballots. However, the final tally avoided a recount, showing Kilroy with 45.9 percent of the vote and Stivers with 45.2 percent. The difference between Kilroy and Stivers was 2,312 votes, a margin exceeded by both minor party candidates: Eckhart, with 12,915 votes, and Noble, with 14,061 votes. Together, these conservative candidates’ ballots were almost twelve times as large as the vote margin separating Kilroy and Stivers. The minor party candidates could have cost Stivers crucial conservative votes that might have allowed the Republicans to retain the seat. Important to Kilroy’s victory were her greater experience and resource advantage. Indeed, her margin among provisional and absentee ballots points to the possibility that the voter registration and GOTV work of the Ohio Dem-

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  197

ocratic Party was crucial. The political winds may well have been just enough to push Kilroy ahead: Overall turnout was up in Franklin County, where Obama ran substantially ahead of the 2004 Kerry vote. Under these circumstances, the Stivers campaign performed rather well in taking the race down to the wire.

The First Congressional District: The Battle of the Steves The First Congressional District is in Southwest Ohio, cutting through the city of Cincinnati to include the city’s western and northern suburbs. Although the district has had a conservative reputation, it is fairly diverse demographically. Indeed, it boasted the highest percentage of African American voters with a Republican U.S. House member in the State of Ohio. Although the GOP had managed to win the seat since 1994, the NRCC’s Brian Walsh noted, “The nature of that seat is to be competitive. It is not a Republican seat.”82 In 2008, the race became hypercompetitive when Democrats recruited a strong challenger to run against a seven-term Republican incumbent.

The First Congressional District Candidates The Democratic candidate was Steve Driehaus, a state legislator who had represented the Thirty-first House District since 2000, becoming the Democratic whip in 2005. Driehaus comes from a prominent political family; his father, who passed away in the middle of the campaign, was the former co-chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party. Driehaus was able to effectively market himself to the conservative suburbs, where he portrayed himself as a loyal Cincinnati native as well as fiscally conservative, moderate, and pro-life, 83 while still gaining the support of Democratic voters in the city, especially African Americans who were drawn to the polls in large numbers because of Obama’s candidacy. The Republican candidate in the First Congressional District was incumbent Steve Chabot, who was elected to the U.S. House in 1994, after serving on Cincinnati City Council and as Hamilton County Commissioner. A party loyalist with a solid reputation in his district, Chabot was a pro-life, fiscal conservative, with a reputation for trying to cut waste in Washington. Chabot had a close race in 2006 against John Cranley (who had opposed him in 2000), winning with just 52 percent of the vote. As a consequence, Chabot was seen as vulnerable in 2008, landing the First Congressional District race in the Congressional Quar­ terly “No Clear Favorite” category.84

Campaign Resources The Halloween headline of the Cincinnati Enquirer said it all: “Outsiders pour millions into House races: First, Second districts seen as crucial.”85 The candidates themselves had plenty to spend. Driehaus received nearly one-half of his $1.5 million from individual donations, while Chabot received nearly half of his $2.4 million from PACs. The CMAG ($500,000) and ORN ($800,000) data showed that Driehaus spent substantially less on the air game than did Chabot ($1.2 million and $1 million, respectively) (Table 7.8).

198  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

Table 7.8 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates   Driehaus for Congress $833,754 $45,760 $879,514   Political parties   DCCC $2,728,167 $64,860 $2,793,027   Interest groups   Patriot Majority — — —   Americans United for Change — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates    Chabot for Congress $1,010,915 — $1,010,915   Political parties   NRCC $1,045,746 — $1,045,746   Interest groups   Majority America $25,330 — $25,330

CMAG TV

$519,670 $1,035,215 $236,696 $10,986

$1,190,870 $460,098 $52,449

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.9. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

However, this difference in the candidates’ spending was more than made up by independent expenditures by the major party congressional committees. There is a discrepancy between CMAG and ORN data, with CMAG data showing the DCCC spending $1 million for Driehaus and ORN data showing spending of $2.8 million (see Table 7.8). In contrast, CMAG data showed NRCC spending of just $400,000 for Chabot and ORN data showed spending of $1 million. These differences likely reflect the media outlets covered by the two data sources.86 In addition, the ORN data showed significant radio expenditures by the Driehaus campaign and the DCCC. Communicating by radio allowed Driehaus to target specific voter segments at a low cost.87 In addition, CMAG data found

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  199

that Driehaus benefited from television ads by Patriot Majority ($236,000) and Americans United for Change ($11,000). Meanwhile, Chabot benefited from television spending by Majority America ($25,000 in the ORN data and $52,000 in the CMAG data) (see Table 7.8). The strategy from the Chabot campaign team was to go negative. Of the twelve candidate-sponsored ads in the CMAG database, nine were explicitly negative against Driehaus. One criticism of Driehaus, appearing in both the Chabot and NRCC ads, was that the candidate skipped an important vote in the state legislature on foreclosures to attend a fundraiser in Washington, DC. A second claim against Driehaus used in the Chabot ads was that Driehaus did not support making English the official language and that he supported “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. Driehaus’s ads, in contrast, did not match the openly negative tone of the Chabot ads because the campaign believed that district voters had a positive impression of Chabot.88 The Driehaus strategy was to critique Chabot for sticking with ineffective Bush policies. Four Driehaus ads reinforced his positive tone by ending with the line “Steve Chabot’s not a bad person; he’s just been in Washington too long.” A second approach was to echo the theme of change from the Obama campaign. In his television ads, Driehaus stated that he wanted to “change Washington” and “shake up Congress” by being the “new leader for challenging times.” Finally, Driehaus stressed his own fiscal conservatism, directly challenging one of Chabot’s strengths. The ORN data found that the Driehaus campaign used seven television ads, two direct mail pieces, one e-mail, and one telephone call, for a total of eleven unique communications. The Ohio Democratic Party and the DCCC provided a total of twenty-two additional communications, including eight direct mail pieces, four telephone calls, and three television ads (Table 7.9). The Ohio Democratic Party was recorded as making six personal contacts as well. Eight different interest groups had at least one communication, providing, in the aggregate, a total of sixteen. Together, the AFL-CIO and SEIU sent eight direct mail pieces. Direct mail pieces from the Driehaus campaign complemented his moderate message to suburbanites with a different message designed to appeal directly to African American voters, who make up 27.5 percent of the district.89 Specifically, a number of pieces used in Cincinnati included a photograph of Driehaus with Barack Obama, a photograph of Driehaus with Cincinnati’s African American Mayor Mark Mallory, and other photographs of him with African American adults and children. Driehaus also attended rallies at which Obama would introduce him, and Obama recorded ads for Driehaus that aired on radio stations with large African American audiences. As the DCCC’s Brian Wolff noted, “Barack Obama was telling them to go out and vote for Steve Driehaus.”90 The Democratic field campaign “doubled” its efforts in the First Congressional District to ensure high African American turnout. The ORN data found that the Chabot campaign had six television ads, four direct mail pieces, and three telephone calls, for a total of thirteen unique communications (see Table 7.9). The Ohio Republican Party, NRCC, and Franklin County GOP provided another fifty-eight communications, including forty-six pieces of direct mail, eight telephone calls, one radio ad, and three television ads.

Table 7.9 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Democratic alliesb   Candidates   Driehaus for Congress   Political parties    Ohio Democratic Party   DCCC   Interest groups   AFL-CIO   SEIU COPE   Rock the Vote    Faith Vote Columbus   League of Conservation Voters   MoveOn.org   NAACP   People for the American Way    USAction Republican alliesb   Candidates    Chabot for Congress   Political parties    Ohio Republican Party   NRCC   Interest groups   Majority America   NRA Political Victory Fund   Accountable America   National Right to Life PAC Nonpartisan   Interest groups   AARP

Tele- Total Personal phone Unique Contact Call Radio TV Ads

1

2

—

1

—

7

11

— —

5 3

6 —

3 1

— 1

— 3

14 8

— — — — — — — 1 1

6 2 — — — — 1 — —

— — 2 — — 1 — — —

— 1 — 1 1 — — — —

— — — — — — — — —

— — — — — — — — —

6 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

—

4

—

3

—

6

13

— —

36 10

1 —

8 —

— 1

— 3

45 14

— — — —

— 2 — —

— — — —

2 1 2 1

— — — —

1 — — —

3 3 2 1

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.8. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Ohio AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  201

One personal contact was recorded from the Ohio Republican Party. In addition, four interest groups made at least one communication, totaling nine group communications for Chabot. The bulk of these communications were telephone calls from Majority America, the NRA, Accountable America, and the National Right to Life Committee. In sum, Driehaus benefited from fifty unique political communications and Chabot benefited from eighty-two. The Republican direct mail campaign was intensive and apparently was directed at bringing out the base Republican vote, which many observers saw as disenchanted with the presidential ticket. However, the interest groups’ communications that might have played a larger role, such as those from the NRA, did not seem to make a difference. According to the manager of the Driehaus campaign, the moderate stance taken by Driehaus meant that he was hard to attack on issues such as guns, family, or abortion—particularly abortion, since he is an openly pro-life Catholic.91

The Results On Election Day, Driehaus scored an upset victory for the Democrats, winning 52.5 percent of the vote to Chabot’s 47.5 percent. Driehaus was able to appeal to both a conservative, suburban base that wanted some change but not a lot, and a large African American population strongly motivated to vote for Obama. The African American vote likely had a large effect on the outcome. In Hamilton County, Driehaus captured 53.7 percent of the vote—roughly the same percentage as Obama’s. In 2004, Chabot won 59 percent of the vote in Hamilton County. Although Chabot put up a strong fight, the combination of Democratic resources and Democratic enthusiasm was too much to overcome. In light of the close race, Chabot has already declared his intention to run in 2010, perhaps renewing the “Battle of the Steves.”

The Eighteenth Congressional District: No Contest in Appalachia The Eighteenth Congressional District covers most of Southeastern Ohio, including portions of sixteen counties and more than 6,800 square miles, mostly in Appalachia. The district is largely rural and economically distressed, ranking in the bottom fifth of all congressional districts in terms of median household income.92 The district is also culturally conservative, exhibiting a distinct lack of racial diversity (it is the fifth whitest district in the United States). In 2006, the twelve-year Republican incumbent, Robert Ney, was caught in the scandal surrounding lobbyist Jack Abramoff. As a consequence, Democrats were able to win the seat. The Republicans targeted the race early in 2007, hoping to recoup this “ruby red” district that Bush won by 57 percent in 2004. Meanwhile, the Democrats made the race one of their Frontline contests, with the DCCC helping vulnerable incumbents to raise money early and receive logistical support. The combination of a conservative and popular incumbent, a weak challenger, and the overall Democratic resource advantage allowed the Democrats to easily hold the seat.

202  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

The Eighteenth Congressional District Candidates The Democratic candidate was incumbent Zack Space, who had decisively defeated Joy Padgett, the Republican who took Robert Ney’s place on the ballot in the scandal-dominated 2006 campaign.93 Before running for Congress, Space was Law Director in the city of Dover, Ohio. After being elected, Space was awarded seats on the Agriculture, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Veterans’ Affairs committees.94 Space used his committee assignments during his first term to cement his relationship with the largely rural district. For example, he used his office to convene the RENEW OHIO-18 Economic Summit, directed toward the district’s need for high-paying jobs. He held a series of town hall meetings in his district with Representative Collin Peterson (D-Minnesota), chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, who described Space as a “common sense, conservative Democrat.”95 Indeed, Space took pains to portray himself as a conservative, which plays well in the district. For example, he chose not to attend the 2008 Democratic National Convention, stating that he had “too much work to do” in the district.96 His conservative credentials were cemented by criticism from liberal activists.97 The Republican challenger was Fred Dailey of Mount Vernon, Ohio, a seventeen-year director of the Ohio Department of Agriculture and a cattle rancher. His resume also noted stints as a Federal Sky Marshal, a rodeo cowboy, and a paratrooper for the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. Dailey described himself as “Pro-Family, Pro-Life, Pro-Second Amendment, Pro-Worker, Pro-Business, Pro-Family Farmer, Pro-Defense and Pro-America.”98 Despite his long service in government, the 2008 race was Dailey’s first run for elected office. It began with a contested primary, where he faced three opponents, two attorneys—Jeannette Moll and Paul Phillips—and businessman Beau Bromley. None of these candidates had been recruited by the GOP leadership. Extensive efforts by the NRCC and Minority Leader John Boehner failed to secure a high-quality challenger for the race. Although Dailey won the primary with just 39 percent of the vote, the GOP was hopeful that he would be able to make the race competitive. The NRCC’s Brian Walsh evaluated the situation in this way: “Fred Dailey is a good guy. He’s got a good resume for that seat, but [the Eighteenth Congressional District is] a very difficult seat to run a campaign in because the way the media markets are laid out. So you’ve got to be resourceheavy and he’s not.”99

Campaign Resources Anticipating a tough race, Space raised more than $2.2 million, securing more than one-half of the funds after the March primary with help from the DCCC and other Democratic leaders, including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a former congressman from the region. Space received just under $1 million from individuals and just over $1.1 million from PACs. The Democrats fully expected heavy spending from outside the district. As Space noted, “I expect this to be a difficult campaign and know that shadowy, outside special interests will attack and attempt to distort my record. My campaign is in a position of strength and

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  203

prepared to respond. I’ve worked hard to put the interests of my district over partisan and special interests, and we will make sure we get that message out to the voters of the Eighteenth District.”100 However, Dailey was only able to raise about $400,000, mostly from local individual donors. He proved to be an ineffective fundraiser—for example, he did not work on the campaign full time until late in the race. However, the poverty of the district, the poor political climate, and Space’s conservative image were limiting factors. By the end of the summer, most observers believed that Dailey would not have the minimum funds needed to run a competitive campaign, and the GOP began to focus on other competitive contests in Ohio. One national analyst commented, “This is a stunning turnaround considering the GOP’s determination 18 months ago.”101 As a consequence, Space was able to outspend Dailey by a ratio of five to one, $2 million to $400,000. Sean Bartley, Dailey’s campaign manager, characterized the spending discrepancy as being akin to taking a “knife to a gunfight.”102 Since the Eighteenth Congressional District covers five media markets, blanketing the district with television ads is prohibitively expensive. Zanesville provides a startling example of the financial disparities because it was the only market that both of the candidates targeted for television ads. Space began advertising on the radio in late August; each week leading up to the election, his campaign spent between $3,000 and $14,000 on ads. The CMAG data showed Space spending $160,000 on television ads, and the ORN data showed spending of $78,000 (Table 7.10). Zanesville was the only market in which the Dailey ads aired, and those ads aired only during the final week before the general election (about $5,000). Space ultimately advertised in all five of the district’s media markets. The ORN data showed that Space had five television ads and four direct mail pieces, for a total of nine different political communications. Most of his mailings centered on the issues of jobs and the economy, portraying Space as someone who would fight to keep jobs from going overseas and his opponent as someone who was tied to big business. Democratic Party committees provided another nine communications, including reports of six personal contacts. Eight interest groups made at least one communication on behalf of Space, for a total of ten. Space benefited from the endorsement of a variety of groups, most notably, the NRA and the Veterans for Foreign Wars Political Action Committee,103 but also from labor unions, including SEIU and the AFL-CIO. The ORN data showed the Dailey campaign as having two direct mail pieces, one centered on his fit with the district’s voters, including his assertion that his values were more closely aligned than his opponent’s with voters’ values on issues ranging from abortion to education to energy and the environment (Table 7.11). The other mailing noted that he was “standing up for life” and that, if elected to Congress, he would work to overturn Roe v. Wade. Dailey received help from Republican Party committees, which produced sixteen communications, including two pieces of mail, ten telephone calls, and one reported personal contact. Party committee television spending was virtually nonexistent in the race. There was, however, considerable activity by America Votes to register and turn out voters, probably because of the importance of Appalachian voters in the

204  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

Table 7.10 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Ohio Eighteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Zack Space for Congress $74,785 $3,886 $78,671   Interest groups   Veterans of Foreign Wars — $8,590 $8,590 Republican alliesa   Candidates   Dailey 08 $5,175 — $5,175

CMAG TV

$160,008 —

—

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.11. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

presidential contest. The extensive grassroots activity by the Ohio Republican Party may have reflected the same motive.

The Results Zack Space won reelection with 59.9 percent of the vote, compared with Fred Dailey’s 40.1 percent. Space used the time-honored tools of incumbency to build both support in his district and a large campaign war chest. As is often the case in races with an incumbency advantage, the Republicans were unable to recruit a strong challenger, despite an extensive effort. The Eighteenth Congressional District race shows important features of the 2006 and 2008 campaigns: Space mirrored his district. He was a conservative candidate who fit the conservative nature of the district well. He received support from across the ideological spectrum, from the NRA to SEIU. The race also starkly showed the more general resource advantages of the Democrats in 2008, which deterred the Republicans from committing significant resources to a potentially competitive race.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  205

Table 7.11 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Ohio Eighteenth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Zack Space for Congress   Political parties    Ohio Democratic Party   Athens County Democrats   Interest groups   AFL-CIO   Rock the Vote    Faith Vote Columbus   League of Conservation Voters   MoveOn.org   NAACP   People for the American Way    USAction Republican alliesb   Candidates   Dailey 08   Political parties    Ohio Republican Party    Franklin County Republicans   Interest groups   NRA Political Victory Fund

Total Personal Telephone Unique Contact Call TV Ads

—

4

—

—

5

9

— —

— 1

6 —

2 —

— —

8 1

— — — — — — 1 1

2 — — — — 1 — —

— 2 — — 1 — — —

— — 1 1 — — — —

— — — — — — — —

2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

—

2

—

—

—

2

— —

2 —

1 —

8 2

— —

11 2

—

—

—

1

—

1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 7.10. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Ohio AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

There is little evidence that Obama had any direct effect on the Eighteenth Congressional District. The DCCC’s Brian Wolff observed, “It’s really tough in that part of Ohio. . . . ​If you look at where Obama was able to change the demographic . . . ​it was not as much in those areas.”104 In fact, Space’s campaign effort may have helped the presidential ticket in the district (McCain won the district with 52 percent, down from Bush’s 57 percent in 2004).

206  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan

Conclusion In 2008, Ohio was once again a battleground state at the presidential and congressional levels. Although the election had historic features, at root, the results reflected the presence of open-seat races, where advantages in resources and issues had a major effect. The Democrats were able to exploit these advantages to carry the state for Obama. In addition, these factors contributed to a lack of serious challengers to potentially vulnerable Democratic seats and, in other cases, to Democratic victories against Republican incumbents or seats that had been Republican. The Democratic resource advantage was crucial in the Buckeye State. In all of the races reviewed here, the Democratic candidates had access to more resources than their Republican rivals. The decision of Obama to forgo public financing in the general election and his unprecedented fundraising allowed for extensive and sophisticated air and ground wars. The party’s control of Congress and the Ohio state government contributed as well: The former allowed the DCCC to outpace its Republican counterparts, and the latter was associated with revitalization of the Ohio Democratic Party. The state party ran the ground game to the benefit of the entire ticket. It is important to note that the Republican resources were hardly inconsequential and were often wielded with great skill to produce hard-fought contests. However, it is precisely in such situations that resource and organizational advantages matter most. In 2008, the Democratic effort in Ohio was far better coordinated and integrated than the Democratic effort in 2004. In this sense, the 2008 Democratic campaign was comparable to the 2004 Republican campaign in Ohio that reelected George W. Bush. Both campaigns were a mix of the new and the old: new in the sense of innovative use of technology and old in the sense of a commitment to effective grassroots organization. Each campaign made a unique contribution to the evolution of contemporary campaign operations. Moreover, the 2008 Ohio campaign had voter registration and balloting controversies similar to those of 2004. However, the controversies had little effect on the outcome of the 2008 election or in the debates about it afterward. With 20/20 hindsight, the ballot controversies of the 2004 campaign appear to be dwarfed by the effect of a well-organized Republican campaign. This perspective is supported by the way in which Obama and many Democrats responded to the 2004 Republican campaign—with a comparable emphasis of their own on organization and mobilization. The 2008 campaign in Ohio showcased innovation by Democratic candidates and their allies. There was a parallel innovation in candidate themes, with many successful Democrats running as moderates and conservatives, especially on cultural and fiscal issues. In this regard, Obama’s pragmatism fit well with the pragmatism displayed by John Boccieri, Mary Jo Kilroy, Steve Driehaus, and Zack Space, with each building a winning coalition in often-difficult terrain. All of these candidates joined in the overall theme of “change,” but the change they offered was in some ways as much a shift from their own party’s past as from their Republican rivals. Historically, issue pragmatism has been closely ­associated with operational pragmatism in campaigns and party organizations. It was such pragmatism that won the battle for Ohio in 2008.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  207

Notes 1. Stephen T. Mockabee et al., “The Battle for Ohio: The 2004 Presidential Campaign,” in Dancing without Partners, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 163–172. 2. Stephen Brooks et al., “The Battle for Ohio 2006: The Democrats Strike Back,” in The Battle for Congress: Iraq, Scandals, and Campaign Finance in the 2006 Election, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007), 167–194. 3.  Cleveland Plain Dealer, “The Five Ohios,” December 10, 2004, available at http://www. cleveland.com/fiveohios (accessed March 20, 2009). 4.  Joe Guillen and Jesse Tinsley, “On Campaign’s Final Day, Region Hears Both No. 2s,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 12, 2008, A1. 5. Michael Finnegan, “Upbeat—But Still Cautious; Obama Has a Bounce in His Step at a Rally in Cleveland; He Gets a Musical Lift from Bruce Springsteen,” Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2008, A12. 6. Maeve Reston, “Bringing in the Political Muscle; Gov. Schwarzenegger, Wildly Popular in Ohio, Predicts a Comeback for McCain and Doubts Obama’s Readiness,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2008, A10; Elisabeth Bumiller, “In Ohio, McCain Is Everywhere Even if Joe the Plumber Isn’t,” New York Times October 31, 2008, A19. 7. Marla Ridenour, “Browns’ Crennel Advises Players to Not Let Presidential Politics Affect Team Focus,” Akron Beacon Journal, October 11, 2008. 8.  William Hershey, “Obama Takes Plea to Canton; Democrat Holds Court in Northern Ohio as He Gives His Closing Argument,” Dayton Daily News, October 28, 2008, A6. 9. Mark Naymik and Joseph L. Wagner, “In a Tight State, Candidates Try to Widen Differences: McCain Talks Taxes, Spending in Cleveland; Obama Returns to ‘New Politics’ Theme,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 28, 2008, A1. 10. Lynn Hulsey, “Palin Continues Attack on Taxes: This ‘Is Not the Time to Experiment with Socialism,’ Vice Presidential Candidate Says in Troy,” Dayton Daily News, October 24, 2008, A4. 11.  The Ohio Reconnaissance Network involved more than 200 individuals who volunteered to report campaign contacts (TV and radio spots, telephone calls, direct mail, e-mail, and personal contacts). These data were supplemented by visits to targeted TV and radio stations in the areas under study. 12. Mockabee et al., “Battle for Ohio,” 143–149. 13.  TNS Media Intelligence/Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) with Analysis by the Wisconsin Advertising Project, “Over $15 Million Spent in Presidential Television Advertising Since Conclusion of Conventions,” available at http://wiscadproject.wisc.edu/wiscads_ release_091708.pdf (accessed April 30, 2009). 14.  Tom Feran, “Cleveland Is No. 1 Target for Campaign Ads,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 26, 2008, A1. 15.  TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG and Wisconsin Advertising Project, “Over $15 Million Spent.” 16.  George Packer, “The Hardest Vote: The Disaffection of Ohio’s Working Class,” New Yorker, October 13, 2008, 60. 17.  UAW is the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (better known as “United Auto Workers”), headquartered in Detroit. 18.  A way to stretch campaign dollars further, candidate/committee joint spending exploits a Federal Election Commission (FEC) loophole that was used by the Republicans and the Bush campaign in 2004. 19.  Brian Montopoli, “New McCain Ad Imagines Growing Washington under Obama,” CBS News, September 18, 2008, available at http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/09/18/politics/ horserace/entry4457284.html (accessed April 30, 2009). 20. Ed O’Keefe, “New RNC Ad Dismisses Bailout as McCain Works for It,” Washington Post, September 30, 2008, available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/09/30/new_ rnc_ad_dismisses_bailout_a.html (accessed April 30, 2009). 21.  Ben Pershing, “The Rundown: October 29, 2009,” Washington Post, October 29, 2009, available at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/political-browser/2008/10/rundown_-_102908. html (accessed April 30, 2009).

208  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan 22. Michael Hughes, “Ad Wars: McCain Quotes Biden; Obama Quotes Reagan,” Huffing­ ton Post, October 27, 2008, available at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-hughes/ad-warsmccain-quotes-bid_b_138254.html (accessed April 30, 2009). 23. Susan Davis, “Latest RNC Ad Hits Obama on Executive Experience,” Wall Street Jour­ nal, October 16, 2008, available at http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/10/16/latest-rnc-ad-hitsobama-on-executive-experience/ (accessed April 30, 2009). 24. Mockabee et al., “Battle for Ohio.” 25. Ibid. 26. Mark Naymik, “Democratic Boss Is Life of the Party; Ohio’s Hard-Charging Redfern Stands to Play Key Role in ’08,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 11, 2007, A1. 27.  Associated Press, “Obama Plans to Target Republican Strongholds,” Youngstown Vin­ dicator, August 13, 2008, available at http://www.vindy.com/news/2008/aug/13/obama-plans-totarget-republican-strongholds/ (accessed April 30, 2009). 28.  Jon Carson, “Campaign Management and Field Operations” in Electing the President 2008: An Insider’s View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 44. 29.  Chris Redfern, Ohio Democratic Party chairman, interview by Diana Kingsbury and Erick Rigby, November 7, 2008, Ohio Democratic Party Headquarters, Columbus, Ohio. 30.  David Skolnick, “Antonini: State Party Left Me out,” Youngstown Vindicator, April 14, 2009, A1. 31. Redfern, interview. 32.  Joe Hallett and Mark Niquette, “Presidential Campaigns Getting in Voters’ Heads; Turnout Efforts Relying on Personal Data, Not Old-fashioned Instincts,” Columbus Dispatch, October 19, 2008, A1; Michael Luo and Mike Mcintire, “With Ambitious Campaign, Obama Is Both Big Spender and Penny Pincher,” New York Times, October 31, 2008, A18. 33.  Jon Youngdahl, Service Employees International Union national political director, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 34.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking, 2009), 252. 35.  Joe Guillen, “Registration Fraud Won’t Affect Vote, Officials Say; Cuyahoga Board Is Sifting Remaining Registration Cards,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 12, 2008, A1. 36. Leslie Wayne, “Democratic Groups Turn to Foot Soldiers,” New York Times, September 21, 2008, A24; Scott Nunnery, America Votes state director (Ohio), e-mail message to Diana Kingsbury, March 12, 2009. 37. Martin Frost, America Votes president, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 38. Sabrina Eaton, “Special Interests Zero in on Ohio, but Ad Spending Down This Year,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 24, 2008, A1. 39. Youngdahl, interview. 40. Matt Bai, “The Multilevel Marketing of the President,” New York Times Magazine, April 25, 2004, 43. 41.  Bob Bennett, former Ohio Republican Party chairman, telephone interview by Diana Kingsbury, March 24, 2009; Bo Harmon, McCain/Palin 2008 voter contact director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 42.  Joe Hallett and Mark Niquette, “Presidential Campaigns Getting in Voters’ Heads; Turnout Efforts Relying on Personal Data, Not Old-fashioned Instincts,” Columbus Dispatch, October 19, 2008, A1. 43.  Alex Gage, Target Point Consulting CEO and founder, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008; Michael Myers, Target Point Consulting president, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 44.  Bennett, interview. 45. Peter Wallsten, “McCain’s Ohio Disconnect,” Los Angeles Times, June 9, 2008, available at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/09/nation/na-ohio9 (accessed April 2009). 46. Ralph Z. Hallow, “McCain Campaign Rankles GOP Leaders in Key States,” Washing­ ton Times, October 28, 2008, A1. 47.  David E. Campbell and J. Quin Monson, “The Case of Bush’s Reelection: Did Gay Marriage Do It?” in A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election, ed. David E. Campbell (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007), 120–141.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  209 48. See Bob Drogin and Robin Abcarian, “In Ohio, Obama’s Ground Game Outguns McCain,” November 3, 2008, Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2008, available at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/nov/03/nation/na-ground3 (accessed June 2, 2009); Michael Powell and Larry Rohter, “Across Ohio, Tough Battle Is Fought by Campaign Volunteers for Both Parties,” New York Times, November 4, 2008, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/ politics/05ground.html (accessed June 2, 2009); Sean Quinn, “The Big Empty,” blog entry, October 31, 2008, available at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/10/big-empty.html (accessed June 3, 2009). 49. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks, such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone. 50.  Bob Drogin and Robin Abcarian, “Election 2008: Swing State; Game of Political Upmanship; Both Campaigns Target Ohio, and Both Have Volunteers Mobilized, but Obama’s Team May Have the Advantage,” Los Angeles Times, November 3, 2008, A1. 51.  Bennett, interview. 52. Matthew Mosk, “In Final Stretch, McCain to Pour Money into Television Ads,” Wash­ ington Post, October 31, 2008, A3. 53. It could be that the Ohio Reconnaissance Network (ORN) underestimated personal contacts on the Republican side, according to Bob Bennett, former Ohio Republican Party chairman, telephone interview by Diana Kingsbury, March 24, 2009. 54.  The Ohio Christian Alliance also reported commercials on Christian radio in seven radio markets. Chris Long, Ohio Christian Alliance President, interview by Diana Kingsbury and John Green, November 20, 2008. 55.  Jim Kuhnhenn, “Independent Groups Target Obama, McCain.” Associated Press, September 16, 2008, available at http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/national_world/ stories/2008/09/16/inds.html?sid=101 (accessed June 2, 2009); Sabrina Eaton, “Special Interests Zero.” 56.  Official figures on registration, turnout, and votes for candidates are available at the Web site of the Ohio Secretary of State’s office, available at http://www.sos.state.oh.us/sos (accessed March 6, 2009). 57.  This figure translated into 69.7 percent of voting-eligible population and 66.0 percent of the voting-age population. In 2004, the comparable figure for the eligible population was 66.9 percent, and for the voting-age population it was 65.0 percent. Based on estimates derived from Michael McDonald, “2008 General Election Turnout Rates,” available at http://elections.gmu. edu/Turnout_2008G.html (accessed May 22, 2009). 58.  One could make the case that the increased number of ballots was the result of the roughly 63,000 additional votes cast for minor party candidates in 2008. This may reflect dissatisfaction with the major party candidates, especially McCain, but also a change in state law that allowed minor party labels to be printed next to the candidates’ names on the official state ballot. 59.  For more information on Regula’s legacy, see Stephanie Warsmith, “Regula Leaves Mark on Northeast Ohio,” Akron Beacon Journal, September 21, 2008, A1. 60.  Joe Frolik, “Divvying up the House,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 27, 2008, available at http://blog.cleveland.com/pdopinion/2008/09/strongpickup_lines_democrats_t.html (accessed April 30, 2009). 61.  Brian Walsh, National Republican Congressional Committee political director, interview by David Magleby, September 23, 2008. 62.  Brian Wolff, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) executive director, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 63. Stephanie Warmith, “Canton Democrat Enters Race to Replace Regula in House,” Akron Beacon Journal, January 5, 2008. The Schuring campaign also took up the mantle of criticizing Boccieri’s residency status. See Kirk Schuring for Congress, “Boccieri Registers to Vote in the 16th District . . . Finally,” July 24, 2008, available at http://www.schuringforcongress.com/ articles/4 (accessed March 1, 2009). 64.  Kirk Schuring for Congress, “Pro Troop Organization Supports Schuring,” October 17, 2008, available at http://www.schuringforcongress.com/articles/76 (accessed March 1, 2009).

210  /  Coffey, Cohen, Green, Kingsbury, Schneider, Tadlock, and Carnahan 65.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Total Raised and Spent: 2008 Race Ohio District 16,” OpenSecrets.org, available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id= OH16&cycle=2008 (accessed February 28, 2009). 66. Ibid. 67. Edd Pritchard, “Who Has All the Cash, and Where Is It Coming from in the Race for Ralph Regula’s Seat in Congress?” The Repository, August 10, 2008. 68.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Geography Data: 2008 Race Ohio District 16,” OpenSecrets.org, available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/geog.php?cycle=2008&id=OH16 (accessed February 28, 2009). 69.  The differences reflect the fact that the CMAG and ORN cover different media outlets; see note 12. There are also discrepancies between these figures and FEC records, which show that Democratic party committees provided a total of $1.9 million in support of Boccieri, while Republican party committees provided $59,000 to support Schuring. 70.  FEC data show that the total American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees support was $500,000 for Boccieri and that the National Right to Life Committee spent $10,000 for Schuring. Center for Responsive Politics, “Independent Expenditures: 2008 Race Ohio District 16,” OpenSecrets.org, available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/indexp. php?cycle=2008&id=OH16 (accessed February 28, 2009). 71.  Wolff, interview. 72. SurveyUSA, “Election Poll #14404,” available at http://www.surveyusa.com/client/ PollReport.aspx?g=84831318-7b1c-43e9-9ed7-d2668d77d789 (accessed March 1, 2009). 73.  Don Longo, “Strong Economy Has Columbus Booming,” BNET Business Net­ work, August 10, 1998, available at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0VCW/is_15_24/ ai_53522568 (accessed February 17, 2009). 74.  Walsh, interview. 75.  Wolff, interview. 76.  James Nash, “Kilroy Attacks Stivers’ Work as Bank Lobbyist,” Columbus Dispatch, October 1, 2008, available at http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/ 2008/10/01/copy/BANKLOBBY.ART_ART_10-01-08_B5_C0BFRJM.html?sid=101 (accessed February 17, 2009). 77.  James Nash, “Voters Guide: Fifteenth Congressional District,” Columbus Dispatch, September 25, 2008, available at http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/politics/vg1108/ vgcong15.html?sid=101(accessed February 17, 2009). 78. Rob Nichols, press secretary for Steve Stivers for U.S. Congress, interview by Barry Tadlock and Dustin Carnahan, December 16, 2008. 79.  Brooks et al., “Democrats Strike Back,” 182–183. 80.  Joe Hallett, “Two Solid Candidates Head into a Race that Others Will Turn Sour,” Columbus Dispatch, August 3, 2008, G5. 81.  Brooks et al., “Democrats Strike Back,” 180–187. 82.  Walsh, interview. 83. Indeed, Driehaus’s campaign colors—purple and yellow—were taken from his alma mater, Elder High School, a west side, all-male Catholic high school with a large network of football fans and alumni. This thinly veiled shout-out to Cincinnati west siders, used both by Steve Driehaus and his sister Denise Driehaus, who was running for Steve’s seat in the Ohio house, made it clear to west side voters that the Driehaus siblings had deep roots in the Cincinnati community. 84.  “Election 2008: Midwest: Democrats Have High Hopes,” CQ Weekly, available at http:// library.cqpress.com/cqweekly/document.php?id=weeklyreport110-000002979101&type=hitlist& num=9& (accessed March 20, 2009). 85. Malia Rulon, “Outsiders Pour Millions into House Races: 1st, 2nd Districts Seen as Crucial,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October 31, 2008, A1. 86. In this case, the ORN data may be more accurate: FEC reports show some $2 million in independent expenditure for Driehaus and $1 million for Chabot. See note 12 for differences in the CMAG and ORN data. 87.  TNS Media Intelligence Chief Operating Officer Evan Tracey said that radio advertising is harder for academics to track because “it’s so cheap. It is a niche media.” From a telephone interview by David Magleby, September 24, 2008. 88. Melissa Wideman, Driehaus for Congress campaign manager, telephone interview by Monica Schneider, Michael Burton, and Patty Dillon, December 2, 2008.

The Battle for Ohio in 2008  /  211 89.  Election 2008, “Ohio, District 1, Census Data,” Washington Post, available at http:// projects.washingtonpost.com/2008/elections/oh/census/1/ (accessed March 20, 2009). 90.  Brian Wolff, DCCC executive director, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 91.  Wideman, interview. 92.  Proximity, “Congressional District Analysis and Insights,” January 5, 2009, available at http://www.proximityone.com/cd.htm (accessed February 14, 2009). 93.  Brooks et al., “Democrats Strike Back,” 177–180. 94.  J. Koszczuk and M. Angle, “Space, Zack, D Ohio,” CQ’s Politics in America 2008 (the 110th Congress), available at http://library.cqpress.com/pia/OEpia110_813. Document ID: OEpia110_813 (accessed February 16, 2009). 95.  Brian Gadd, “Agriculture Town Hall Meeting,” Coshocton Tribune, August 20, 2008, A1. 96.  Jack Torry, “Space to Pass Up Party Convention; Democrat Denies He’s Avoiding Obama,” Columbus Dispatch, August 20, 2008, B4. 97. See, for example, http://www.democrats.com/primary-Zack-Space. 98. Sean Bartley, Dailey for Congress campaign manager, interview by Barry Tadlock, November 13, 2008. Also see Catherine Candisky, “Space Takes on Jobs; Dailey Aims for Energy Review,” Columbus Dispatch, September 9, 2009, available at http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/ live/content/local_news/stories/2008/09/09/copy/cong18.ART_ART_09-09-08_B3_CBB99CE. html?sid=101 (accessed May 20, 2009). 99.  Walsh, interview. 100. Lee Morrison, “Money Adding Up for Space,” Times-Reporter, July 16, 2008, available at http://www.timesreporter.com/archive/x390632175/Money-adding-up-for-Space (accessed May 20, 2009). 101.  This comment comes from the June assessment of the 2008 congressional campaigns, in Campaign Diaries, available at http://campaigndiaries.com/reliving-2008/house/ (accessed May 20, 2009). 102. Sean Bartley, Dailey for Congress campaign manager, interview by Barry Tadlock, November 13, 2008. 103.  “News,” Zack Space for Congress, available at http://www.zackspace.org/release. asp?id=0 (accessed February 16, 2009). 104.  Wolff, interview.

8

Colorado Democrats Expand Their Base and Win Unaffiliated Voters Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

P

olitical forecasters were only half right about Colorado in 2008. As predicted, the presidential, U.S. Senate, and Fourth Congressional District races attracted considerable money and attention from the candidates, political parties, interest groups, and media. However, predictions that the races would be closely decided were wrong, as the Democratic candidates won all three races by surprising margins. Barack Obama defeated John McCain 54 percent to 45 percent, doubling George W. Bush’s margin of victory over John Kerry just four years earlier. Mark Udall defeated former congressman Bob Schaffer 53 percent to 43 percent in an open-seat race to succeed retiring Republican Wayne Allard. In what was the biggest surprise, political newcomer Betsy Markey defeated three-term incumbent Marilyn Musgrave by a whopping twelve points, 56 percent to 44 percent. This chapter explores the factors contributing to Democratic success in Colorado in 2008. We argue that a combination of national and local forces explains the decisive results in the presidential, U.S. Senate, and Fourth Congressional District races. Of special importance were the generally toxic political environment facing Republicans in 2008, a pronounced “enthusiasm gap” between the two parties, and a profound shift in the partisan preferences of state voters. The Democrats also benefited from significant financial and organizational advantages and the continued implosion of the state Republican Party.

The Electoral Context Since 1950, Colorado voters have alternated their votes between the two major political parties. The exception to this rule has been in presidential elections, where Coloradoans supported the Republican candidate in nine of the eleven elections held between 1964 and 2004. In elections for other statewide offices, though, Colorado voters have been less predictable.1 From 1948–1998, for example, each party held one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats; Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s switch from the Democrats to the Republicans in 1998 marked the first time that both Senate seats were controlled by the Republicans in fifty years. In 2004, Ken Salazar’s election as a Democrat returned party parity to Colorado’s Senate representation. 2 By the turn of the millennium, however, Colorado appeared to have become reliably Republican. In 2000, George W. Bush won the state easily by nine per-

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  213

centage points. In 2002, Governor Bill Owens, who won a very close contest in 1998, was reelected by almost two-thirds of the voters. That same year, Senator Wayne Allard, after trailing in many polls, won reelection by a fivepoint margin. Republicans also maintained control of the General Assembly, regained a majority in the state senate, and picked up Colorado’s newly created Seventh Congressional District, designed to be competitive for both parties, by 121 votes. 3 In 2004, however, the political pendulum began a quick and powerful swing in the other direction. While George W. Bush carried Colorado by five points against John Kerry in that year’s presidential contest, Ken Salazar won a tight race for the U.S. Senate, and his brother, John, captured the Third Congressional District seat, which comprises the Western Slope, the area west of the Continental Divide. Most surprisingly, the Democrats regained control of both chambers of the state legislature for the first time in forty years. The Democratic comeback continued in 2006, when Democrats won almost every major contest. Bill Ritter won the race for governor handily, and Ed Perlmutter won an easy victory in an open-seat race in the still competitive Seventh Congressional District.4 Democrats capitalized on national political trends that undermined Republicans, such as the plummeting popularity of both President Bush and the war in Iraq. Democrats also won because they chose socially moderate candidates who pledged to govern from the middle, while many of the defeated Republican candidates ran as hard-line conservatives, emphasizing social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. This pattern repeated itself in 2008. Nearly 80 percent of Colorado’s approximately five million inhabitants live in the rapidly growing urban corridor along the Front Range, the area immediately east of the Rocky Mountains, mostly within an hour’s drive of Denver. Denver, the state’s largest city and capital, is traditionally a Democrat stronghold, as are the college towns of Boulder and Fort Collins, parts of southern Colorado, and a few western ski resort counties. Republican support remains strongest in Colorado Springs (home to Dr. James Dobson’s conservative Focus on the Family), Greeley, some Denver suburbs, and rural communities. Colorado’s population has increased 50 percent since 1990, and only 41.1 percent of current residents were born in the state. The state’s residents are wealthy and educated compared with national figures, ranking seventh in per capita income and second in percentage of college graduates. 5 Like most states in the Mountain West, Colorado’s racial composition is predominantly white (at just less than 75 percent of the population), but Hispanics constitute 17.1 percent of the voting-age population. In fact, Colorado has one of the highest proportions of Hispanic citizens of any state.6 Colorado’s religious affiliations are also preponderantly composed of one faith, Christianity, at 65 percent. While a plurality of this group is Protestant, the number of Catholics has recently increased concomitantly with the growing Hispanic share of the population.7 The competitive presidential, Senate, and House races all served to pique Colorado voters’ interest in 2008. Voter registration increased 3.1 percent from 2004 figures, with 100,000 more voters added to the rolls. Unaffiliated voters became the largest bloc of the electorate, at 1,069,294 voters, up 4.3 percent from 2004. The number of registered Republicans dropped 5 percent from 2004

214  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

to 1,063,347, while the number of registered Democrats jumped nearly 12 percent, to 1,051,643.8 To put this in context, in 2004, registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats by nearly 180,000. In four years, Democrats had virtually erased that deficit and the registration figures for the two parties were essentially equal. These trends indicate that Colorado was undergoing a fundamental political shift in a very short period. The Fourth Congressional District of Colorado is a study in contrasts. The district is large and diverse, covering almost one-third of the state, including the rural eastern plains as well as the quickly growing counties north of the Denver metropolitan area. In addition to portions of Boulder County, one of the state’s most liberal areas, the district includes Larimer County, home to Fort Collins, the district’s largest city (population 130,000). In recent years, both the county and the city, which has a large university population and a burgeoning tech economy, with many green jobs, have been trending Democratic. On Larimer County’s eastern border lies Weld County, still mostly rural and more conservative in its politics, but growing rapidly and becoming less politically predictable. The Fourth Congressional District has been reliably Republican for decades, with registered Republicans far outnumbering registered Democrats. George W. Bush carried the district by 21 percent in 2000 and by 17 percent in 2004.9 Despite these GOP advantages, recent demographic and voter registration trends suggested a more complicated picture. Going into the 2008 election, voter registration figures in the Fourth District showed that registered Republicans (168,689) still outnumbered registered Democrats (123,281) by approximately 45,400 voters, but that number was down 15,000 in just two years.10 The second largest bloc of voters in the district (154,516) was unaffiliated and, statewide, those voters have been trending Democratic.11 Some demographic factors continue to favor Republicans in the Fourth Congressional District. For example, this district is only 75 percent urban, with a large (59.8 percent) white-collar workforce, a relatively low poverty rate (10.9 percent), and a large number of military veterans (12.3 percent). Other factors, however, would seem to favor Democrats. The district’s median income of $43,389 is almost $4,000 below the state median. Moreover, while the district is less racially and ethnically diverse than the state as a whole, Latinos constitute a sizable (17 percent) proportion of the population, and the Latino vote has generally favored Democrats. In addition, the district’s population growth has been concentrated in the northwestern counties, areas that are less solidly Republican. Under normal circumstances, then, the District would be seen as solidly Republican.

The Presidential Race Even though it voted Republican in nine of the last eleven presidential elections, Colorado was widely considered a battleground state in 2008. In July 2008, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said that Colorado, along with Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, and Michigan, would determine the election.12 Just two months later, he modified his position and said that there was one state “most likely to determine who will be the next occupant of the White House. And that state

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  215

is Colorado.”13 Obama led in most polls throughout the summer, but somewhat surprisingly—especially since the Democratic Convention had been held in ­Denver—state polls tightened after the Republican Convention. The October collapse of Lehman Brothers, however, proved to be a decisive turning point in Colorado, as Obama pulled ahead for good. The contrast between Obama and McCain during the nomination contest was particularly revealing. Colorado held its caucuses on Super Tuesday—providing Obama with a landslide victory and McCain with one of his few losses. Obama had twelve field offices to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s one, and his superior organization helped him garner 66 percent of the caucus vote. As Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson observed, “In Colorado, Obama had such an energetic base of volunteers that Clinton allies warned Bill Clinton about the problem during one of his visits to the state. Clinton began sending staff to Colorado, but mostly the warnings went unheeded.”14 Obama’s field strength would later prove helpful in the general election as well. McCain, though, lost to Romney 19 percent to 59 percent. While this result reflected Romney’s superior organization, it also indicated significant dissatisfaction with McCain among rank-andfile Republicans.15 In part, the Romney victory could also be attributed to the number of politically active Mormons in the state, which borders Utah and parts of which were colonized by Mormons in the 1800s.16 McCain’s inferior organization and relative lack of popularity with the Republican base created significant problems for him throughout the campaign in Colorado. In an indication of the state’s importance, Obama and McCain visited Colorado often after securing their respective nominations. On July 2, Obama campaigned in El Paso County, the most Republican county in the state and the home of Colorado Springs, the Air Force Academy, several other military installations, and many military retirees. Obama held a rally at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and a fundraiser at the Broadmoor Resort. While he refrained from attacking social conservatives at his rally and announced his volunteer program instead, the visit was nonetheless significant for signaling his intent to contest McCain in Republican areas. On September 15, Obama campaigned in Grand Junction, another Republican stronghold that had last hosted a Democratic presidential candidate in 1948.17 On another one of his visits, this time in October, Obama held large rallies in Denver and Fort Collins, boosting the Democratic candidates in both the Fourth Congressional District race and the Colorado Senate race. Obama made twelve visits to the state during the general election campaign.18 Michelle Obama and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden also made numerous visits to the state. McCain made sixteen stops in the state from May through Election Day.19 Illustrating the strategic importance that his campaign placed on the state, the first joint campaign rally with John McCain and Sarah Palin after the Republican Convention, was held in Colorado Springs and drew more than 10,000 supporters. 20 Given Palin’s popularity with the Republican base, the McCain campaign clearly used her to shore up support among conservatives in Colorado. She visited the state a total of five times after her nomination. Significantly, James Dobson, who had promised never to support John McCain, reneged on that pledge in light of Palin’s selection and even interviewed her for his national radio show. 21

216  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

Spending on the Ground Game Obama and the Democrats had a marked advantage in the ground game in Colorado. Their greater investment of money on the ground and greater coordination with the state and local party committees contributed to victories at the presidential, Senate, and House levels. The Democratic advantage on the ground was most apparent in Obama’s field office edge (at one point, thirty-two to McCain’s eleven). 22 Obama’s caucus offices remained open, and new ones were added throughout the spring and summer, much earlier than McCain’s. In general, Obama’s field offices also had more money, had more paid organizers and volunteers, and were much more active in working the telephones, walking the precincts, and sending e-mail. Obama field offices were invariably crowded and very busy. According to one study, counties in which the Obama campaign had established field offices saw a disproportionate Democratic surge. 23 In contrast, the McCain campaign took pride in staffing their offices with one paid organizer herding a group of veteran full-time volunteers, who often seemed more enthusiastic about supporting other Republican candidates farther down the ticket. Until the final few days of the campaign, it was not uncommon to see empty chairs and unmanned telephones at McCain offices. Although the Republican ground game picked up a bit after Sarah Palin entered the race, it was unable to overcome the Democratic advantage in resources and enthusiasm. 24 The ground efforts on the Democratic side were primarily run through the Campaign for Change, the coordinated efforts of the Obama campaign and the Colorado Democratic Party. Obama staffers worked closely with state and local party leaders to create the best possible coordination of resources, including office space and volunteers. 25 While the Obama for America organization was primarily responsible for the air game, the ground game was largely run through the coordinated campaign. 26 Compared with the seven mailings by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Colorado Democratic Party had twenty-five unique mailings (Table 8.1). The pro-Obama mailings were positive, focusing on “change” and other general economic themes. Though the Democrats had their share of negative mailings, the majority contrasted the two parties on issues rather than being completely negative. For the most part, unique telephone contacts were left to Obama for America. The Obama campaign and the Campaign for Change were the major coordinators of volunteer efforts, and thus Democratic-allied interest groups played a relatively minor role in the presidential ground game. One exception was Change to Win, an effort of major labor unions working for political change. They sent out five unique pieces of mail. Individual unions as well as environmental and other left-leaning issue organizations sent mail to their members, but only NARAL Pro-Choice America (which sent out four) and the National Education Association (which sent out three) sent out more than two unique pieces at the presidential level. Both parties focused on taking advantage of Colorado’s early voting period and one-stop voting and registration, which was available during the early voting period. The various campaigns and state party committees invested tremendous resources in registering new voters and getting these new voters to the polls during the early voting period. The campaigns and parties targeted

Table 8.1 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in Colorado, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Obama for America

3

—

—

   Colorado Democratic Party

—

25

—

  DNC

—

7

—

  DNC/Obama for America

—

—

—

  Larimer County Democratic Party

—

1

—

  Progressive Future

—

2

  AFL-CIO

—

6

   Campaign for Change

—

   Change to Win

3

5

6

37

54

8

6

—

—

39

—

—

—

3

10

—

—

—

2

2

1

—

—

—

2

—

3

—

—

2

7

—

—

—

—

—

6

1

—

—

5

—

—

6

—

5

—

—

—

—

—

5

  MoveOn.org

—

—

—

—

1

4

5

  Planned Parenthood

—

—

—

—

—

—

5

5

  American Hunters and     Shooters Association

—

4

—

—

—

—

—

4

  Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

—

2

—

1

—

—

1

4

  NARAL Pro-Choice America

—

4

—

—

—

—

—

4

  SEIU

—

3

—

1

—

—

—

4

1

3

—

—

—

—

—

4

   Clean Water Action

—

2

—

1

—

—

—

3

  League of Conservation Voters

—

2

—

—

—

—

1

3

  National Education Association

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

   United Brotherhood of Carpenters      and Joiners of America

—

2

1

—

—

—

—

3

   USAction

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

   Women’s Voices, Women     Vote Action Fund

—

2

—

—

—

—

1

3

   Carpenter’s District Council      of Kansas City and Vicinity

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

   United Steel Workers

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

2

   Boulder County Democrats

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Healthcare United

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  New Era Colorado     Political Committee

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Rock the Vote

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  VoteVets.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

1

—

—

9

3

18

31

  Political parties

  Interest groups

  Sierra Club

  Progress Now Action Fund

Republican

alliesb

  Candidates   McCain for President   Political parties    Colorado Republican Committee

—

33

—

2

10

—

—

45

  RNC

—

7

—

—

15

—

6

28

  RNC/McCain

—

—

—

—

6

2

2

10

(continued on next page)

Table 8.1  Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb (continued)   Interest groups   NRA Political Victory Fund

—

2

1

2

1

2

4

12

  Susan B Anthony List

—

3

—

—

3

—

—

6

  National Right to Life PAC

—

1

—

1

1

2

—

5

  Let Freedom Ring

—

—

—

—

—

—

4

4

   Focus on the Family Action

—

—

—

—

—

2

1

3

  MATT.org

—

—

—

—

—

2

1

3

  National Pro-Life Alliance

—

—

—

—

3

—

—

3

1

—

—

—

—

—

3

4

  Vets for Freedom

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

3

   Americans in Contact PAC

—

—

—

—

2

—

—

2

  National Republican Trust PAC

  Associated Builders and Contractors      Free Enterprise Alliance —

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   BornAliveTruth.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Catholic Citizens

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Christian Family Alliance      of Colorado

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

   Colorado Family Institute

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Family Research Council Action

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

   GOP.Trust.com

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  National Shooting Sports      Foundation

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Our Country Deserves Better PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   UNC Connection

—

—

3

—

—

—

—

3

  Latina Initiative

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Peace Impact

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

Nonpartisan   Interest groups

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 8.2. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Colorado AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Stronger Together and SEIU Committee on Political Education data have been included in the SEIU totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  219

both new and periodic voters using proprietary databases combining political and consumer data. The Democrats were more successful, as evidenced by their increased voter registration and the election result. 27 As Balz and Johnson concluded, Obama’s “goal was to bank as many votes as possible before election day. . . . ​With a new, more Democratic electorate, that was good for Obama.”28 Democrats targeted unaffiliated voters in Colorado, particularly in the Fourth Congressional District. The Obama campaign used these databases as well as thorough record keeping to contact and later reinforce their message as strategically as possible—ignoring voters who were certain votes for McCain or Obama. 29 The Republican ground effort was unable to overcome the disparity in paid staff, volunteers, and overall organizational efforts. In what would be a telling statistic during the general election, the Colorado GOP sent out thirty-three mailers, the Republican National Committee sent out seven, and the McCain campaign sent out only one (see Table 8.1). The mail efforts by Republicans were overwhelmingly negative, focusing on the anti-Obama campaign themes that prevailed throughout the race. McCain’s reliance on the national and state parties for mail was a reflection of McCain’s financial disadvantage. Republican interest groups were relatively inactive in Colorado compared with the Democratic allies. The National Pro-Life Alliance and the National Rifle Association (NRA) Political Victory Fund sent out two mailers. These were the only groups sending out more than one piece of mail, all of which were issue-specific attacks against Obama. The timing of mailed messages can be complicated in a state where early voting is prevalent. Bo Harmon of the McCain campaign said that “if you’re able to put together your strategy even just a little bit in advance [and you know your] package of messages, then in Colorado, you just start those a little bit earlier” than in other states. The drawback: Mailing so far ahead “makes it harder to incorporate newer items that may come up . . . ​the weekend before the elections.”30 On the other hand, early voting seems to help with the ground game overall, particularly among certain segments of the voting population. Speaking of her group’s members, Business Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC) senior vice president Bernadette Budde related: “The business vote is one most distracted and otherwise occupied on Election Day. . . . ​It is easier for us to believe that we can have influence in a system that is open . . . ​like Colorado . . . ​where people don’t have to wait for Election Day.”31

Spending on the Air Game Because both presidential campaigns targeted the state, Colorado received more than its share of television ads, even for a battleground state. The study data came from two main sources, the Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG) and the Colorado Reconnaissance Network (CRN). The CRN consisted of more than 200 volunteers reporting campaign contacts as well as visits to television and radio stations in the specific areas targeted by the study. As Table 8.2 indicates, the Obama campaign spent $7.3 million on television ads in Colorado, compared with McCain’s $3.3 million. Spending by the DNC was ­m inimal,

Table 8.2 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in Colorado, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Obama for America $7,337,405 $48,236 $7,385,641   Political parties   DNC — — —   Interest groups   VoteVets.org $41,307 — $41,307   MoveOn.org — — —   Defenders of Wildlife — — —   Planned Parenthood — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates   McCain for President $3,257,314 $16,240 $3,273,554   Political parties $1,049,845 — $1,049,845   RNC   RNC/McCain $725,405 $6,417 $731,822   NRCC $106,100 — $106,100   Interest groups   Employee Freedom Action Committee $63,895 — $63,895   Let Freedom Ring — — —   Vets for Freedom — — —    BornAliveTruth.org — — —   Denver Group — — —   National Republican Trust PAC — — — Nonpartisan   Interest groups   AARP — — —   Strong American Schools — — —   Health Care First — — —    ONE Campaign — — —

CMAG TV

$10,195,951 $3,420 — $68,007 $49,637 $23,139

$8,121,850 $1,123,642 — — $230,789 $182,552 $118,630 $40,325 $1,102 $289

$9,464 $699,580 $17,773 $444

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 8.1. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  221

while the Republican National Committee (RNC) spent $1 million and the RNC/McCain campaign added another $730,000. In the aggregate, the two sides were near parity, a rarity in the contests studied in this volume. McCain aired his first ad of the general election in June, and Obama followed shortly thereafter. Because his campaign had far more money, Obama ultimately ran more ads in the state than McCain, especially during the critical months of September and October. In fact, between September 6 and September 13, the presidential campaigns combined to spend just over $1 million to air 1,360 ads in Denver, more than in any other market in the nation. Indeed, Denver was McCain’s top market that week, but Obama’s deeper pockets allowed him to run even more ads.32 The story was essentially the same between October 6 and October 22, a critical period because it coincided with the start of early voting. In the Denver and Colorado Springs–Pueblo markets, taking in nearly the entire populous Front Range, Obama ran a total of 4,317 television ads compared with McCain’s 2,772. The Obama campaign aired more ads than McCain every day during this period; on some days, Obama ads outnumbered McCain’s two to one. The McCain ads reached a peak October 7–10, while Obama’s ads peaked a week later, to coincide with the start of early voting on October 21. 33 By this time, Obama was pulling ahead in the polls, and the McCain camp sharply reduced its ad buys in Colorado. This came on the heels of decisions by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) to cut their ad buys on behalf of Republican U.S. Senate candidate Bob Schaffer and Colorado Fourth Congressional District Republican incumbent Marilyn Musgrave; the news fueled speculation that Republicans were ceding Colorado and shifting their resources to other states that were still in play. In all, the Obama campaign aired more than thirty different television ads, but none of them focused on issues unique to Colorado. The campaign opted instead to run ads that ran in other states as well, emphasizing themes and issues such as renewable energy, green jobs, and health care that were thought to appeal to Independent voters. The Obama campaign and the DNC did, however, reach out to the state’s sizable Latino population with Spanish language television and radio ads. These ads offered a mix of positive messages detailing Obama’s plans for health care and education as well as negative messages attacking McCain on immigration and health care. The broadcast ads dovetailed nicely with the larger Democratic effort in the state to boost the Latino vote. The McCain campaign released eighteen unique television ads and three radio ads. The ads touched on a variety of issues, depicting McCain as a military veteran and a maverick reformer and Obama as an inexperienced celebrity. Nine of the ads were explicitly negative. The RNC produced eight unique ads, two of which were co-produced by the McCain campaign. The ads echoed many of the same themes as the campaign’s ads, with the notable exception that they focused almost exclusively on Obama’s inexperience, rather than also attacking his issue positions, as many of the McCain campaign ads did. One ad even posed the question “Would you hand your nation over to a man who has never been in charge of anything?” In the aggregate, CMAG estimated that McCain and the RNC spent $1,123,642 on Colorado advertising.

222  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

There was not a lot of interest group television advertising in the presidential race. Seven interest groups or political action committees (PACs) produced ads supporting Obama or opposing McCain, while ten others produced ads supporting John McCain or opposing Barack Obama. Only three groups spent more than $100,000: the Employee Freedom Action Committee, Let Freedom Ring, and Vets for Freedom. Vets for Freedom produced two ads that attacked Obama’s Middle East policy and pointed out his criticism of the troop surge in Iraq.

Colorado Senate Race In the most expensive statewide race in Colorado history, Democrat Mark Udall defeated former congressman Bob Schaffer in an open-seat race to succeed retiring Republican Senator Wayne Allard. In addition to its cost, Udall’s win was notable because of his victory margin of more than ten percentage points, 52.8 percent to 42.5 percent. Although polls had shown Udall leading by five to eight points for much of the year, most observers were surprised by the size of his win, the largest by a Democratic candidate for Senate in the state since Gary Hart’s 1974 Watergate Era victory. 34 Both Udall and Schaffer ran as moderates, increasingly a necessity in Colorado, where unaffiliated voters make up one-third of the electorate. Udall won by mobilizing the Democratic base, carrying Independents by a margin of three to two, and by minimizing his losses in traditionally Republican areas. Udall ran up big margins in core Democratic areas such as Denver and Boulder, and did very well in the populous suburbs outside Denver that have been trending Democratic in recent years. Despite his political experience, Schaffer’s campaign was beset by a host of problems. Individually, none of these problems was especially harmful; however, their cumulative effect seriously undermined Schaffer. He was also hurt by his inability to distance himself from George Bush and the generally toxic political environment facing Republicans in 2008.

The Senate Candidates and the Campaign Mark Udall, son of prominent longtime Arizona Congressman Morris “Mo” Udall, had served in Congress as Colorado’s Second Congressional District representative since 1999. In 2004, he considered seeking the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat eventually won by Ken Salazar. Thus, his announcement in April 2007 that he would seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate was expected. He ran unopposed for the nomination. Aiming to neutralize attacks that he was too liberal, Udall cast himself as a centrist and emphasized his bipartisan work in Congress. Though known as one of Congress’s most committed environmentalists, rising gas prices led Udall to moderate his previous opposition to nuclear energy, offshore drilling, and construction of new refineries. 35 He then called for “smartly” developing the region’s significant energy resources while preserving the environment. 36 Bob Schaffer’s decision to run for the Senate was also expected. From 1997 to 2003, Schaffer represented Colorado’s Fourth Congressional district, stepping down to keep his pledge to serve only three terms. After leaving Congress,

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  223

he worked as vice president for an energy exploration company. In 2004, he lost a bitter primary battle for the Republican nomination for Senate against Pete Coors. Like Udall, Schaffer was unopposed for his party’s nomination. After divisive primaries in the 2004 Senate and 2006 governor’s races, party leaders worked to clear the field for Schaffer.37 Avoiding a difficult primary was supposed to allow Schaffer, one of the state’s most conservative politicians, to cast a more moderate image, 38 but recrafting his image proved more difficult for him than it was for Udall. With gas prices spiking, Schaffer and his allies tried to capitalize on Udall’s opposition to oil exploration, but Schaffer’s work in the energy industry left him vulnerable to counterattacks as “Big Oil Bob.”39 His campaign also appeared to make a strategic mistake by not matching the Udall campaign’s early advertising, which was designed to inoculate Udall from expected Republican attacks.40 In contrast to Udall’s successful campaign rollout, the Schaffer campaign suffered from several errors, such as his first television ad, which mistook Pike’s Peak (a prominent Colorado mountain) for Alaska’s Mt. McKinley—a simple but significant blunder in a state that takes pride in its mountains.41 Over the course of the campaign, Schaffer stressed traditional Republican themes of national security and cutting spending, but his campaign’s most consistent refrain was to attack Udall as a “Boulder liberal” who was out of touch with Colorado voters. Though many expected a tight race, most polls reported a five-point or larger lead for Udall from June until Election Day. After late September, Udall’s lead only fell below five points in one poll.42 Some in Schaffer’s camp thought that he might have had an outside chance of closing the gap until the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15 pushed economic issues to the forefront of the campaign. Michael Britt, executive director of the Colorado Republican Party, said that high gas prices, along with attack ads on Udall, were helping Schaffer, but “once Lehman collapsed, Schaffer fell behind and couldn’t get traction.”43 In mid-October, Dick Wadhams, Schaffer’s campaign manager, contended that, ­absent the economic crisis, Schaffer would have been leading in the polls.44 After the election, Republicans continued to cite the economic crisis as the primary reason for Schaffer’s loss, while the Udall campaign credited the “national mood” for their comfortable win.45 Michael Britt also cited the Republican Party’s poor performance with Hispanic and female voters as reasons for Schaffer’s loss but maintained that Schaffer was a “good candidate in a bad year.”46 Adding to these externally imposed difficulties, the Schaffer campaign’s strategy from mid-September through Election Day was confounding to outsiders. Despite Lehman’s collapse and Udall’s persistent lead in the polls, Schaffer did not adjust his approach. Instead, the campaign intensified attacks on Udall as a “Boulder liberal.” Mike Melanson, Udall’s campaign manager, cited Schaffer’s decision to “go all negative about Udall and never say anything positive about himself or what he wanted to do” as a significant miscalculation.47 Undecided voters were left with little reason to vote for Schaffer. As expected, the Colorado open-seat Senate race was one of the year’s most expensive contests. As noted in Table 8.3, Udall and Schaffer combined to spend $20.2 million, a record for a statewide race in Colorado. In terms of candidate spending, the race ranked sixth nationally.48 Not surprisingly, the contest also generated heavy spending by the parties and a host of Section 501(c)(4) and Section 527 organizations, which collectively spent $27 million.49

224  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

Table 8.3 Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, Colorado Senate and Fourth Congressional District Races, 2007–2008

Betsy Markey (D)

Marilyn Musgrave (R)

Mark Udall (D)

Bob Schaffer (R)

From PACs From individuals From candidate Other contributions Total receipts Total expenditures Cash on hand (as of 12/31/08)

$629,306 $2,229,692 $25,125 $34,621 $2,918,744 $2,897,153 $21,591

$832,131 $1,991,596 $0 $46,230 $2,869,957 $2,876,753 $62,132

$2,186,292 $8,867,507 $0 $733,249 $11,787,048 $12,987,562 $61,857

$1,006,379 $5,437,966 $4,600 $938,898 $7,387,843 $7,205,644 $122,163

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007–2008 Election,” December 31, 2008, available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H8CO04067 and http://query.nictusa.com/ cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H2CO04045 (accessed May 18, 2009).

Candidate Spending According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Mark Udall reported raising $11.78 million, including $1.26 million transferred from his House campaign account, and spending just over $12.98 million, 50 the most money spent by any candidate in Colorado history. The campaign spent approximately $5.4 million on television and radio advertising and also spent heavily on research and polling, according to Udall’s campaign manager, Mike Melanson. 51 Without a primary opponent, Udall was able to devote considerable time to raising money. After a relatively slow start, his fundraising totals increased each quarter, and he consistently outperformed Schaffer. The bulk of Udall’s revenues came from individuals, but PAC contributions accounted for 19 percent of the total. Business PACs contributed approximately 53 percent of the PAC total, with ideological PACs and labor PACs contributing 24 percent and 18 percent, respectively. 52 Udall also received nearly $163,000 from donors directed to the campaign by ActBlue, an online fundraising clearinghouse for progressive candidates. Behind in the polls for much of the race, Bob Schaffer undoubtedly had a harder time fundraising. As a result, Schaffer raised nearly $7.4 million and spent just over $7.2 million, a significant amount, but not enough to compete with Udall. Individual donors contributed 74 percent of Schaffer’s money, and PACs contributed 14 percent. 53 Republican members of Congress contributed more than $375,030 to his campaign, ranking Schaffer seventh among Senate candidates in candidate-to-candidate giving. 54

Party Spending The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) made almost $4.6 million in independent expenditures in this race, primarily on direct mail and television ads attacking Schaffer. These figures do not include the committee’s considerable contributions to the state’s coordinated campaign. Clearly, the DSCC made this race a priority; in fact, the DSCC spent more in only six other Senate contests. 55

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  225

The NRSC spent more than $3.8 million in Colorado, with most of the money going to anti-Udall television ads. 56 Although $3.8 million is not an insignificant amount, it was a far cry from the organization’s initial $4.8 million budget. 57 The decision to spend less was reportedly the result of poor NRSC fundraising. 58 By mid-October, the committee had withdrawn all financial support. 59 Colorado’s Democratic Party was also a significant player in the race, spending more than $500,000 in coordinated expenditures.60 The party’s spending went primarily to direct mail, telephone banks, and polling services on Udall’s behalf. In addition, the national parties contributed to the coordinated campaigns, with Democrats providing more than five times as much cash as Republicans. Forward Colorado, the Democrats’ coordinated campaign, began primarily as an operation designed to help Udall, and was funded with DSCC money. 61 In the end, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) sent approximately $225,000, the DSCC contributed $2.6 million, and the DNC provided $3.5 million.62 The RNC contributed just over $2.5 million to its state party’s coordinated campaign.63

Interest Group Spending As is often the case with competitive races, the Udall–Schaffer race attracted a great deal of interest group spending, the bulk of it for ads criticizing one or the other candidate. In fact, with just about a month to go in the race, groups had spent more in Colorado than in any other Senate contest, with Republican-affiliated organizations outspending Democratic allies almost three to one.64 The level of spending dropped significantly in mid-October, when polls continued to show Udall leading, prompting some groups to pull out and move their money to more competitive races. Groups supporting Schaffer spent $10.4 million, compared with just $3.4 million spent by Udall allies. Based upon estimates from CMAG, two groups supporting Schaffer spent more than $1 million each.65 As Table 8.4 illustrates, the top spenders were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($1.11 million), Freedom’s Watch ($1.16 million), Coloradans for Employee Freedom ($858,204), Coloradans for Economic Growth ($824,281), and American Future Fund ($709,873). Among Democratic-affiliated organizations, the top spenders were the National Education Association ($706,508), America’s Agenda: Healthcare for Kids ($484,460), the League of Conservation Voters ($410,659), and Colorado First Project ($329,957).66 The latter group, a Section 527 organization established in May 2008, drew most of its funding from labor unions such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), as well as from Pat Stryker, a Colorado resident with a record of supporting progressive Section 527 groups.67

The Ground Game for the Senate The Udall campaign’s goal was to compete statewide. Therefore, in addition to turning out the Democratic base, Udall needed to win Colorado’s large pool of unaffiliated voters. Other target groups included suburban voters and ­Republican

226  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

Table 8.4 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Colorado Senate Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Udall for Senate $1,450,261 — $1,450,261   Political parties   DSCC $1,814,118 — $1,814,118   DCCC $11,260 — $11,260   Interest groups   National Education Association — — —   America’s Agenda: Healthcare for Kids — — —   League of Conservation Voters — — —    Campaign Money Watch — — —    Colorado First Project — — —   Environment Colorado — — —   Patriot Majority Fund — — —   VoteVets.org — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates    Bob Schaffer for Senate $685,821 $28,082 $713,903   Political parties   NRSC $1,138,150 — $1,138,150   RNC $120,230 — $120,230

CMAG TV

$4,237,176 $3,024,879 — $706,508 $484,460 $410,659 $362,608 $329,957 $311,673 $217,176 $181,493

$2,216,337 $2,056,772 —

(continued on next page)

women, who were showing a willingness to vote Democratic because of the continuing war in Iraq. Udall hoped to match or exceed the 13 percent of Republican voters Ken Salazar won in 2004.68 The Udall campaign also wanted to expand the size of the Latino vote to approximately 9 percent of the total electorate; the resulting outreach effort included Latino staffers, campaign events, and a postcard campaign urging Latinos to contact their friends on Udall’s behalf.69 The Colorado Democratic Party began a voter registration push in the summer of 2007, well in advance of the presidential caucuses. In the last four months of the year, the party registered 18,500 new Democrats and 10,000 converts. After the caucus, the party’s registration and mobilization effort relied heavily on Campaign for Change, Barack Obama’s Colorado campaign entity. Campaign for Change did outreach for Latino and black voters, holding numerous early vote rallies, often adjacent to early vote centers.70 Their efforts helped transform a Republican edge in early voting in 2006 into a Democratic edge in 2008. The Obama campaign also pushed early voting, setting a 70 percent early vote target; about 60 percent of Colorado voters took advantage of early or absentee voting.71 The Democrats’ cash advantage allowed Forward Colorado, the party’s coordinated campaign, to do much more over a much longer period than the Republican coordinated campaign, which only began fully functioning in the campaign’s final weeks. Forward Colorado had twelve offices statewide and approximately 100 employees. In describing the division of labor, Pat Waak, the

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  227

Table 8.4 Continued Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

CMAG TV

alliesa

Republican (continued)   Interest groups   Employee Freedom Action Committee    Freedom’s Watch    U.S. Chamber of Commerce    Coloradans for Employee Freedom    Coloradans for Economic Growth   American Future Fund   Associated Builders and Contractors Alliance    Club for Growth

$63,895 — — — — — — —

— — — — — — — —

$63,895 — — — — — — —

— $1,162,922 $1,107,113 $858,204 $824,281 $709,873 $557,990 $534,367

Nonpartisan   Interest groups    US Term Limits — — —

$528,978

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 8.5. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

state party chair, said that the Obama campaign took care of the base vote and Forward Colorado focused on persuading unaffiliated voters to vote for Udall. These efforts were assisted by the Voter Activation Network (VAN), the party’s voter file, which Waak called “the most valuable asset we have.”72 The DNC had bought into VAN in 2006, and the file had been updated regularly, a major improvement from earlier years. While the Udall campaign only sent one piece of mail (an introductory letter), the Colorado Democratic Party put out twelve pieces of mail in the race. Two contrasted the candidates, five criticized Schaffer, and five supported Udall. One of the contrast ads featured a black-and-white Depression Era picture of a food line and the words “The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, fueled by economic policies that encouraged greed and recklessness.” In addition to their get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts and financial contributions to the Democratic coordinated campaign, labor unions, women’s groups, environmental groups, and other progressive organizations also sent a ­significant

228  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

amount of direct mail. The broad number of groups supporting Udall allowed his campaign to present a mixed message that both attacked Schaffer and supported Udall. For example, one Working America mailer showed a black-andwhite photograph of Bush and a caption reading, “We can’t afford any more Bush–Schaffer economics.” By contrast, a piece from the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund endorsed Udall as “a champion for protecting public lands and supporting clean renewable energy.” As in past elections, the Colorado GOP was responsible for coordinating the Republican ground game in the Senate and presidential races. According to the executive director of the Colorado Republican Committee (CRC), Michael Britt, the party spent approximately $10 million, including $4 million on direct mail, mostly to independent voters.73 The party’s coordinated campaign, known as the Victory Program, exceeded most of its voter contact goals and was later recognized by the RNC as one of the top-performing programs nationally. The Victory Program had more than 20,000 volunteers, who recorded more than 2.4 million voter contacts between June 1 and Election Day, nearly doubling their total from 2004. Noticeably absent from the Republican ground game was any meaningful outreach to Latino voters. Early on, Schaffer met with a group of Republican Latinos, who advised him to hire Latino staffers and attend political events in the Latino community. Gil Cisneros, who worked on Latino outreach for the McCain campaign, told the Denver Post that Schaffer said, “Well, I’ve never campaigned like that. I consider myself an American first.” Cisneros interpreted those remarks to mean that Schaffer did not like to think about voters in racial or ethnic categories. The Schaffer campaign issued two informational mailers and one specifically designed for campaign contributions. The campaign also sent out a series of twenty-four e-mail updates and regular appeals for contributions to a database of Republican voters and contacts (Table 8.5). The Schaffer campaign’s GOTV efforts focused primarily on undecided voters who were likely to wait to vote until Election Day. According to Wadhams, the voters who would decide the election were in the Denver suburbs, areas “that swing back and forth. They’re the voters who went for Allard and Owens in 2002 but went for Salazar and Ritter in 2004 and 2006.”74 The Colorado GOP produced two unique mailers. The first opened with the following tagline: “The Best Choice for Colorado. Main Street, or Boulder Liberal?” The second mailer compared Schaffer’s and Udall’s NRA ratings, contrasting Schaffer’s “A” rating and the “F” rating assigned to Udall, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer. Conservative-leaning interest groups were quite active in 2008. Schaffer received support from religious conservatives, anti-abortion groups, business organizations, anti-tax activists, and a variety of other conservative groups. Focus on the Family Action, the National Right to Life PAC, Catholic Citizens, and the Susan B. Anthony List all provided financial support and helped mobilize supporters for Schaffer. Such groups historically have been quite active at conservative evangelical churches the Sunday before Election Day, but their activity was muted because many large churches limited access to their parking lots in response to a 2007 shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs. A wide array of business and conservative-leaning organizations also attacked Udall through direct mail, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,

Table 8.5 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Colorado Senate Race, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa E-mail Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Udall for Senate

54

1

—

1

1

1

15

73

  Political parties    Colorado Democratic Party

—

17

—

7

1

—

—

25

  DSCC

—

—

—

—

—

—

7

7

  DNC

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Larimer County Democratic Party

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Interest groups   AFL-CIO

—

10

—

—

—

—

—

10

  National Education Association

—

3

—

—

—

—

3

6

  SEIU COPE

—

6

—

—

—

—

—

6

  America’s Agenda:     Health Care for Kids

—

3

—

—

—

—

2

5

  League of Conservation Voters

—

2

—

—

—

—

3

5

   Campaign Money Watch

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

3

   Clean Water Action

—

1

—

2

—

—

—

3

  Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

—

2

—

1

—

—

—

3

1

2

—

—

—

—

—

3

  Progressive Future

—

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

   United Brotherhood of Carpenters      and Joiners of America

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

2

  American Association      of Neurological Surgeons PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  American Hunters and Shooters     Association

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Boulder County Democrats

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Campaign for Change

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Carpenter’s District Council      of Kansas City and Vicinity

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

   Colorado First Project

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  National Wildlife Federation     Action Fund

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  New Era Colorado Political      Committee

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

   OB-GYNs for Women’s Health PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Patriot Majority

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Rock the Vote

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

   The National Emergency     Medicine PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  VoteVets.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Women’s Voices, Women Vote     Action Fund

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  Sierra Club

  Progress Now Action Fund

(continued on next page)

Table 8.5 Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Type and Organizationa E-mail Republican alliesb   Candidates    Bob Schaffer for Senate

24

3

—

1

4

1

8

41

  Political parties    Colorado Republican Committee

—

19

—

2

8

—

—

29

  NRSC

—

2

—

—

—

—

9

11

  RNC

—

1

—

—

6

—

1

8

  Associated Builders and Contractors      Free Enterprise Alliance

—

7

—

—

—

—

2

9

   Freedom’s Watch

—

3

—

—

2

—

4

9

   U. S. Chamber of Commerce

—

2

—

—

—

—

4

6

  NRA Political Victory Fund

—

1

—

3

—

1

—

5

  National Right to Life PAC

—

1

—

1

1

1

—

4

  American Future Fund

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

3

  Americans for Job Security

—

1

—

—

2

—

—

3

   Club For Growth

—

—

—

—

—

—

3

3

   Coloradoans for Employee Freedom

—

1

—

—

—

—

2

3

  Senate Conservatives Fund

—

—

—

—

3

—

—

3

  Susan B Anthony List

—

3

—

—

—

—

—

3

   Coalition for a Democratic Workplace —

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

   Colorado Family Institute

—

1

—

—

1

—

—

2

   Coloradoans for Economic Growth

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

   Christian Family Alliance of CO

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

   CommonSenseIssues.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Focus on the Family Action

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  National Republican Trust PAC

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

  Patriotic Veterans

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

  Safari Club International PAC

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Vets for Freedom

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

  Interest groups

Nonpartisan   Interest groups   Latina Initiative

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitor­ ing Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 8.4. Key: The designation “—” only reflects the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Colorado AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals, and Colorado Education Association data have been included in the National Education Association totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  231

Freedom’s Watch, Patriot Majority, American Future Fund, and the Associated Builders and Contractor’s Free Enterprise Alliance. This last group was the most active in the ground game, releasing five unique mailers. Freedom’s Watch put out three mailers, reflecting the themes of their television ads, with the exception of one ad that focused on immigration. The U.S. Chamber produced two mail pieces that both endorsed Bob Schaffer.

The Air Game for the Senate The Udall campaign spent a total of $6.3 million on paid media, airing fourteen unique ads on television and one on radio. In a preemptive move, the campaign made a $1 million ad buy in mid-May, months earlier than many expected. Udall’s campaign manager, Mike Melanson, said of the early ads, “It was important to define Mark early before the attacks we knew were coming.”75 Three ads were designed to introduce Udall to the state’s voters. Like the overall media campaign, the ads depicted him as pragmatic and nonideological. Udall appeared in all but one of his ads, usually wearing a denim shirt, and he often spoke for himself in a folksy, genial manner. Images of Udall with children, with veterans, or in the Colorado outdoors were commonplace, all conveying the sense that the candidate was a “regular guy.” Many of Udall’s ads emphasized his commitment to renewable energy, green jobs, and Colorado’s “new energy economy.” However, as gas prices soared during the summer and Republicans began hammering Democrats on the need to develop domestic energy supplies, Udall’s ads began to include references to “responsible drilling,” the need “to produce our own oil and gas, here in our country,” and tax relief for middleclass families. Fully two-thirds of Udall’s television ads offered an exclusively positive message about either his record or his plans for the future. The DSCC spent approximately $4.6 million in the race, most of which went to television ads attacking Schaffer. In a sign of how important the race was to the party, the DSCC spent more in only six other Senate contests.76 Five of the DSCC ads emphasized Schaffer’s ties to the oil industry, with four specifically referring to him as “Big Oil Bob,” a moniker repeated in about half of the ads aired by interest groups. Six different groups aired a total of thirteen television ads supporting Udall or attacking Schaffer. Nine of the ads were critical of Schaffer; of these, two focused on Schaffer’s ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and one highlighted Schaffer’s earlier support for a proposal to divert water from the Western Slope to developers on the Front Range. The biggest spender was the League of Conservation Voters, which had named Schaffer to its “Dirty Dozen” list early in the year. The $1 million campaign, which tried to brand Schaffer as “Fingerprint Bob,” was an effort to replicate the group’s 2004 “Polluter Pete” campaign against Republican Senate candidate Pete Coors.77 In both cases, the television ads directed viewers to Web sites dedicated to detailing the candidate’s poor environmental records. Udall’s advertising was primarily positive, emphasizing his personal likability and his stance on key issues. Ads by the DSCC and many allied groups, on the other hand, attacked Schaffer for both his positions and his personal flaws. This division of labor allowed Udall, for the most part, to avoid attacks and stick to the high road.

232  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

The Schaffer campaign and the NRSC led the Republican air game in the race, spending a combined $1,852,053. Eight additional organizations each spent between $534,000 and $1.162 million on television ads. The Schaffer campaign used eight unique television ads, one radio ad, and three automated telephone calls. Of the eight television ads, four could be classified as attacks, while three featured positive messages about Bob Schaffer. Only one ad compared the two candidates side by side. The Schaffer campaign’s first ad, “Moving Forward,” began airing on May 14 and was the campaign’s only ad until September 9, making the campaign largely invisible throughout much of the summer. Schaffer’s second and third ads were also positive and emphasized his experience as a conservative congressman and businessman who kept his word on term limits and maintained a record as a tax cutter. In late September, the campaign shifted and issued a series of four “Boulder Liberal” ads criticizing Udall for being a tax-and-spend politician who would cut military spending while increasing government spending and taxes. Eight Republican-affiliated groups ran ads during the campaign. All twenty-three of their ads attacked Udall, but none praised Schaffer. Freedom’s Watch spent $1.162 million and produced four unique ads. The most memorable, “Department of Peace,” featured an aging hippie in front of a 1960s-era Volkswagen van discussing Udall’s vote for a Department of Peace. As the ad concluded, the hippie opened the van door, only to be engulfed in—presumably—marijuana smoke. Udall, who had been arrested for marijuana possession in the early 1970s, complained that the ad associated him with drug use. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the second most active group on the Republican side, spending $1.1 million on three unique television ads. Two of the U.S. Chamber ads attacked Udall’s energy policy. These ads, “Udall and Energy” and “Why Isn’t Mark Udall Listening,” both asserted that Udall put the interests of Iran and Venezuela above those of the United States by voting nineteen times against American energy exploration. The Chamber also produced an ad attacking Udall’s support of “card check” legislation (see Chapter 3) and emphasizing that American workers considering a union should have a mandatory secret ballot vote. Mike Podhorzer of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the major union conglomerate opposed to the Chamber, interpreted some of this advertising as having a double motive: I’m not even really sure that the Chamber was [advertising] as much because of . . . the public votes that they were going to change as to put down the marker for 2009 that [card check] was a really important issue for them. So that just raised the stakes for us [in] electing as many Employee Free Choice Act senators as possible.78 According to one of the Chamber’s vice presidents, however, the rationale was somewhat simpler: “Schaffer had been a strong ally of ours . . . ​a strong ally of the business community. . . . ​So we hit Udall very hard with, we believe to be, an out-of-step position in [Colorado] in particular on energy issues, and we spent a significant amount of resources to be able to point that out.”79

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  233

Colorado Fourth Congressional District Race Entering the 2008 cycle, Republicans had represented Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District for nearly four decades. Although the District’s lines had changed over the years, some things remained constant, most notably, a significant Republican advantage in voter registration. Nevertheless, Marilyn Musgrave, the three-term incumbent who now held the seat, had ample reason to worry. Her margin of victory had declined in each of her subsequent campaigns, and her three-point win in 2006 was the smallest of any successful House incumbent. Musgrave was also saddled with an unpopular president, a faltering economy, and abysmal fundraising by the NRCC. Finally, there were indications that liberal donors, who had targeted Musgrave in 2004 and 2006 because of her stands on gay rights, abortion, and other social issues, were again planning to funnel millions to outside groups in an effort to unseat her.80 Still, it was a bit of shock when Democratic newcomer Betsy Markey won by twelve points. To be sure, Markey ran an effective campaign in which she made few mistakes and proved to be a match for Musgrave’s prodigious fundraising skills. Markey also benefited from a considerable edge in independent spending by outside groups. However, the magnitude of her victory can also be seen as a repudiation of Musgrave, who ran well behind John McCain and other Republicans in her district. The fact that so many Republicans apparently split their tickets and voted for Markey indicated that voters had grown tired of Musgrave’s rough-and-tumble political style and the hardball campaign tactics that had worked in her previous reelection battles. Although her campaign may have thought that it was her best and perhaps only option, Musgrave’s biggest mistake was in thinking that a reprise of those tactics would work again in 2008, when the political environment in the district was very different.

The Fourth District Candidates and the Campaign Musgrave initially ran for Congress in 2002, when Bob Schaffer, the incumbent, retired after three terms. With a record very similar to Schaffer’s, Musgrave won an easy thirteen-point victory over former state senate president Stan Matsunaka. Musgrave’s record in the House reinforced her conservative credentials and also raised her public profile. The American Conservative Union, for example, ranked her as one of the most conservative members of the House, with a 99.2 lifetime rating.81 Musgrave earned the ranking for her consistent votes against abortion, stem cell research, gun control, taxes, and more. Musgrave became best known, however, for sponsoring the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have amended the Constitution by prohibiting same-sex marriage. In remarks that would later be used against her, Musgrave told an audience at the Family Research Council, “As we face the issues that we are facing today, I don’t think there’s anything more important out there than the marriage issue.”82 As a result of her uncompromising positions on controversial social issues, Musgrave became a lightning rod for critics. Her 2004 race was notable because of a controversial ad campaign by Coloradans for Plain Talk, a Section 527 group funded by wealthy Coloradans Pat Stryker, Jared Polis, and Tim Gill.83 One of the group’s ads showed a Musgrave look-alike in a bright pink dress

234  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

stealing a watch from a body in a funeral parlor, while the announcer recited her votes to allow nursing homes to charge families after a patient’s death. Musgrave was involved in another bitter campaign in 2006, a three-way race against Democrat Angie Paccione and Reform Party candidate Eric Eidsness. Stryker and Gill helped fund another Section 527 group, ironically called Coloradans for Life, which spent $1.5 million on television and radio ads against Musgrave. Musgrave and the NRCC pummeled Paccione with ads arguing that Paccione’s personal bankruptcy years earlier meant that she could not be trusted with taxpayer money. In the end, Musgrave defeated Paccione by just three points, drawing 46 percent of the vote. After the election, perhaps sensing her vulnerability, Musgrave launched an effort to moderate her image, and for a while, it seemed to be working. Musgrave made an effort to find issues on which she could reach across the aisle. She worked with Democratic Congressman Mark Udall on crafting legislation protecting Rocky Mountain National Park and broke with President Bush on a number of issues, including the farm bill that was so important to many of her constituents. In the end, however, her fundraising lagged, and she was unable to distance herself from President Bush, whose approval rating in the district in early 2008 was a dismal 37 percent. More importantly, 51 percent of voters in the district had an unfavorable impression of Musgrave. Among self-identified Independents, the number of voters with an unfavorable impression was even higher, at 62 percent. With Independents accounting for more than one-third of the district’s voters, these were troubling signs for Musgrave.84 Democrat Betsy Markey won her party’s nomination without challenge after Angie Paccione stepped aside. Before her political work, Markey co-founded a successful software firm, Syscom Services, which gained recognition as one of America’s fastest-growing private companies.85 Markey’s involvement with Syscom became the central issue in Musgrave’s campaign strategy, as Musgrave and allies attacked Markey for using her position with then-Senator Ken Salazar to secure government contracts for the firm. Starting in 2007, Markey crisscrossed the district, visiting numerous county fairs and barbecues. She traveled often to Weld County, the Eastern Plains, and other Republican areas of the district to listen to voters and show that she wanted to understand their concerns.86 Markey positioned herself not as a partisan Democrat, but as pragmatic and moderate on just about every issue, from spending, taxes, and energy policy to the social issues that defined her opponent. Accordingly, the campaign emphasized her business background and her staff work with Salazar on behalf of veterans and senior citizens. Public and private polls showed Markey ahead throughout the race.87 As a result, the Musgrave campaign tried to create a controversy by arguing that Markey had used her staff position with Senator Salazar to help her family business and that, after she relinquished her ownership stake, she improperly continued to claim that the business was eligible for contracts set aside for businesses owned by women. As a result, the last two months of the campaign devolved into an increasingly nasty brawl, with Markey defending herself from the Musgrave campaign’s escalating claims of wrongdoing. At one point, the Markey campaign filed a lawsuit alleging that Musgrave had violated a Colorado law prohibiting candidates from making false claims.

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  235

The candidates did, of course, discuss other issues during the campaign. Early in the spring, after years of opposing most renewable energy programs, Musgrave began to tout her support of alternative energy. As the summer wore on, though, and as prices climbed higher and higher, Musgrave sensed an opening and criticized Markey and congressional Democrats for not doing enough to increase domestic energy supplies. In their debates, Musgrave said that she supported an “all of the above” energy policy, and she criticized Markey for refusing to support nuclear power and increased domestic drilling. The economic crisis in mid-September thrust the issue to the forefront for a time, but with both candidates casting themselves as agents of fiscal responsibility, it was difficult for Musgrave to gain traction. Musgrave voted against the Wall Street bailout, but could not escape being tarnished by the economic collapse, which many voters blamed on President Bush and congressional Republicans. Markey, on the other hand, was in the enviable position of not having to vote on the bill. In fact, Musgrave’s “no” vote freed Markey to oppose the bailout as well, thereby taking the issue off the table. With Musgrave’s narrow win in 2006, both political parties and many interest groups immediately targeted the Fourth Congressional District as a possible 2008 takeover opportunity for Democrats. Accordingly, most observers expected that the race would be expensive, and they were right. The candidates spent a combined $5.7 million, the two party committees contributed another $2 million, and a handful of Section 501(c)(4) and Section 527 organizations accounted for more than $2.3 million in independent expenditures and issue advocacy. In the end, independent expenditures in the Fourth Congressional District totaled $4,375,106—the fourth highest in the nation. Only three hotly contested special elections held earlier in the year ranked higher.88

Candidate Spending The $5.7 million spent by the two candidates was a record for the seat, surpassing the $5.1 million spent by Musgrave and Paccione in 2006. Despite trailing in the money chase for much of the race, Betsy Markey actually raised and spent as much as her opponent. As indicated in Table 8.3, Markey raised $2.89 million and spent $2.87 million, both records for a Democrat in the Fourth Congressional District. Of this amount, 76 percent came from individual contributions and 21 percent came from PACs.89 According to FEC data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, ideological and single-issue PACs accounted for about half of total PAC receipts, with labor PACs contributing most of the rest.90 Markey was the beneficiary of bundling efforts by EMILY’s List, which collected nearly $105,000, and by ActBlue, which collected nearly $105,000.91 Markey began raising money in 2007, and her fundraising totals increased each quarter as her chances of winning improved. During the crucial month of October, Markey raised more than $1 million, with most of it coming in the final two weeks.92 This windfall came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, EMILY’s List, and others issued an urgent call for contributions to allow Markey to remain on the air in the campaign’s final weeks.93 Pelosi also hosted an October fundraiser for Markey in Denver. Musgrave’s fundraising, on the other hand, lagged behind previous cycles. In 2007, the first year of the two-year election cycle, Musgrave raised $1 million

236  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

for her reelection bid, compared with $1.7 million in 2005 and $1.25 million in 2003.94 A number of donors who had previously contributed to Musgrave sat out the race, turned off by her polarizing positions and negative campaigning. Vice President Dick Cheney helped with an August fundraiser outside of the district. In the end, Musgrave raised $2.87 million and spent $2.88 million. Although this was a significant sum, it was less than the $3.2 million she spent in 2006 and the $3.3 million she spent in 2004.95 Musgrave raised more than $800,000 from PACs in 2008, with business PACs contributing more than half of that total.96 Conservative PACs, including a variety of pro-life groups, were also an important source of campaign cash.

Party Spending According to FEC records, the DCCC made $1.1 million in independent expenditures in the contest, its first major foray into the Fourth Congressional District. In previous years, the organization offered little financial support to Musgrave’s opponents. However, according to Anne Caprara, Markey’s campaign manager, the DCCC became excited about the race in May, when polling showed Markey leading Musgrave by five points. To help with fundraising, the DCCC featured Markey in its Red to Blue program, which offered candidates in competitive races financial, staffing, communications, and strategic support, including an online link for potential Democratic donors. In addition to these tangible resources, Caprara also cited the emotional support provided by DCCC staffers as “invaluable.”97 The DCCC also contributed about $225,000 to the coordinated campaign in Colorado.98 The NRCC ended up spending just over $893,000 in the race, less than the $1.2 million it had originally planned, and significantly less than the $1.8 million it spent in 2006. Virtually all of the NRCC’s spending was for television ads and direct mail attacking Markey. The NRCC’s first ad began running on October 14, but on October 22, it sent letters to Denver television stations, canceling a $400,000 ad buy for the last week of the campaign. The NRCC’s action, which came just two days after early voting began, was a reflection of Musgrave’s poor standing in the polls as well as the NRCC’s own severe cash shortage.99 It also came shortly after the leak of an internal GOP “death list” of endangered House incumbents, which characterized Musgrave as exceptionally vulnerable and trending down in the polls. Still, the Musgrave race ranked seventh in the total level of NRCC spending in 2008.100 The RNC helped with the ground game effort, providing field directors and staffers. The RNC also contributed just over $2.5 million to the state party’s coordinated campaign.101

Interest Group Spending As in the previous two cycles, the Fourth District attracted a considerable amount of independent spending by organized groups, virtually all of it directed against Musgrave (Table 8.6). A number of organizations were involved on the ground, sending mail, communicating with members, and getting out the vote, but only three groups ran television ads. The biggest spender was Defenders of Wildlife, whose Section 501(c)(4) groups and Section 527 entities spent a combined $1.6 million. Fort Collins resident Pat Stryker, a major donor to Section

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  237

Table 8.6 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Colorado Fourth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates   Markey for Congress $523,495 — $523,495   Political parties   DCCC $513,375 — $513,375   Interest groups   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund $48,625 — $48,625   VoteVets.org — — —   Majority Action — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates   Marilyn Musgrave for Congress $685,246 $164,208 $849,454   Political parties   NRCC $432,760 — $432,760   NRCC/Musgrave — — —

CMAG TV

$1,108,899 — $532,648 $437,080 $387,467

$1,198,786 $333,584 $214,974

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 8.7. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

527 groups in past races, made a $175,000 donation to the Defenders on July 25, three days before the group made a television ad buy for the same amount. Stryker also gave $225,000 to Majority Action, a Section 527 organization that was largely funded by organized labor, on October 1, one day before the group spent $220,000 on television ad buys against Musgrave.102 None of the groups supporting Musgrave spent more than $10,000.

The Fourth Congressional District Air Game The first efforts in the air game began in the spring, when the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund aired the first of four television ads attacking Musgrave. The first two television ads focused on Musgrave’s ethics, repeating a largely

238  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

­ iscredited charge from the 2006 campaign that she had been named “one of the d most corrupt members of Congress.” Both ads noted that she had “taken over $165,000 in campaign cash from big oil.” At the end of both ads, the announcer said, “Marilyn Musgrave—the wrong priorities for Colorado.” The purpose of the ads, according to Ed Yoon, the organization’s campaign manager in Colorado, was to define Musgrave as unacceptable early on and to drive her already high unfavorable ratings even higher.103 Although it is impossible to determine the efficacy of any one ad campaign, Yoon said that the group’s polling suggested that the ads had succeeded in raising Musgrave’s unfavorable rating, which had been just below 50 percent in June, by ten percentage points.104 Musgrave denounced the Defenders ads in a conversation with reporters after her first debate with Markey, saying that the group “hates our way of life”105 and claiming the race was close “because of 527s and 501c4s that have thrown $10 million in garbage against me. I have to break through that when I run again and do the best I can to present my case to the citizens of the 4th District.”106 However, in her first public comments after the election (a full month after the election), Musgrave spread the blame a bit more widely, citing “vicious attacks and lies” by wealthy “leftist special interests,” notably “pro-abortion radicals and liberal activists.”107 As is often the case, the candidates’ first ads were positive and almost entirely biographical. Markey’s first ad began running on cable in late August, with the campaign emphasizing Weld County and Longmont, parts of the district where Musgrave had traditionally done well, and where many thought the campaign would be decided.108 The Musgrave campaign went on the air on September 8, with a biographical spot designed to recast her public image by detailing her challenging childhood and her work on behalf of the disadvantaged. The ad began with a picture of a little girl crying, as the narrator said, “Second-hand clothes, and meals from the Salvation Army. A childhood devastated by a father’s alcoholism. Marilyn Musgrave knows about hard times because she’s lived them. Today, you’ll find Marilyn Musgrave helping the homeless, the hungry, the broken and battered.” The Musgrave campaign ran six more ads in the campaign; all of them attacked Markey for using her staff position with Senator Salazar to boost her family business. All but one of the ads focused exclusively on the charges against Markey, and another from the NRCC raised the same themes. Musgrave’s final ads were especially hard-hitting, even for a candidate known for running tough campaigns. One of the ads opened with a picture of Musgrave smiling, and her voice saying, “I’m Marilyn Musgrave, and I authorized this message.” The next image was of a woman, who was supposed to be Betsy Markey, strapped to a lie detector, under an overhead light. The announcer said, “We’ve attached a lie detector to Betsy Markey.” Throughout the ad, the Markey look-alike was asked a series of questions about her family business, and her answers were followed by loud beeping sounds and red letters flashing the words “False detection.” The ad concluded with the statement “Millionaire Markey—she can’t be trusted.” Ultimately, the string of ads by Musgrave and the NRCC seemed to do little damage to Markey—a phenomenon that Brian Wolff of the DCCC attributed to early planning:

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  239

We had a ten-week plan. The NRCC had a two-week plan. . . . We were going in like this for ten weeks . . . [inoculating Betsy] and softening things up. While the NRCC just comes in . . . with a silver bullet and hope[s] it resonates. But see by that time, [when] Marilyn Musgrave is throwing anything at Betsy Markey, the people in the community know Betsy Markey.109 Once Musgrave went on the attack in September, the Markey campaign immediately responded with its own attack ads. All four of their remaining ads contained criticisms of Musgrave, although two also mentioned Markey’s business experience and offered a sense of what she would do if elected. One of Markey’s spots opened with images of a cemetery, while the announcer said, “They say the only things you can count on are death and taxes. Add Marilyn Musgrave’s lies.” The words “Musgrave’s Lies” appeared on screen, and the ad then hit back at Musgrave by citing a news report that said, “She has absolutely no evidence for her highly misleading charges.” The ad concluded with the announcer saying, “Marilyn Musgrave—the only thing we can count on is more lies.” The DCCC spent heavily in the Fourth Congressional District race, with virtually all of the money going to television advertising. In all, the DCCC aired two different ads in heavy rotation over the last month of the campaign questioning Musgrave’s ethics and ties to special interest groups. The first ad began with a picture of Musgrave, with a voice saying, “I never saw a campaign contribution I didn’t like,” and suggested that the “special interests love Musgrave.”

The Fourth Congressional District Ground Game Although the vast majority of the Markey campaign’s spending was for broadcast media, the campaign produced four mailers that combined fundraising appeals with calls for change and broad contrasts with Musgrave on a range of issues. In a clear indication of the race’s national importance, the DCCC put out nine pieces of mail for Markey (Table 8.7). Most of these pieces suggested that Musgrave was out of step with the district on critical social and fiscal issues and that she was beholden to conservative special interests. Markey campaign manager Anne Caprara said that the campaign recruited approximately 600 volunteers after the caucuses from a list generated by the Obama campaign. Most of the volunteers worked across campaigns, which allowed an all-volunteer effort for the campaign to help increase Markey’s name recognition cheaply and efficiently.110 Forward Colorado had three offices in the Fourth Congressional District. While Forward Colorado did some telephone work and coordination, the Obama campaign provided most of the GOTV effort. Forward Colorado used Houdini, a voter database that allowed staff to take people off of the contact list once they voted, which Forward Colorado claimed was a huge advance over previous years.111 The Markey campaign targeted moderate McCain voters, moderate Republicans, women younger than fifty years old, and unaffiliated voters in Weld and Larimer Counties, using a five-point ranking system for “persuadability.” In mid-August, the campaign did a paid canvass. The early canvassing was devoted

Table 8.7 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Colorado Fourth Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Tele- Total Bill- Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa board E-mail Mail Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates   Markey for Congress

—

28

4

   Colorado Democratic Party

—

—

11

  DCCC

—

—

9

  DNC

—

—

3

  Larimer County Democratic Party

—

—

1

5

4

—

6

47

5

1

—

—

17

—

—

—

2

11

—

—

—

1

4

—

—

—

—

1

  Political parties

  Interest groups   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund

1

—

3

3

—

2

4

13

  AFL-CIO

—

—

7

—

—

—

—

7

   Colorado WOMEN VOTE!

—

—

6

—

—

—

—

6

   Colorado Education Association

—

—

4

—

—

—

—

4

2

1

—

—

—

—

—

3

   Clean Water Action

—

—

—

2

—

—

—

2

  Majority Action

—

—

—

—

—

—

2

2

  Progressive Future

—

—

2

—

—

—

—

2

  Sierra Club

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

2

   Boulder County Democrats

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

   Campaign for Change

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

   Carpenter’s District Council      of Kansas City and Vicinity

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Environment Colorado

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  New Era Colorado     Political Committee

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  SEIU COPE

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  VoteVets.org

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Women’s Voices, Women Vote     Action Fund

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

2

1

7

10

   Colorado Republican Committee

—

—

22

2

8

—

—

32

  NRCC

—

—

4

—

—

—

1

5

  RNC

—

—

1

—

3

—

4

  NRCC/Musgrave

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

   Christian Family Alliance of Colorado —

—

—

2

—

—

—

2

  NRA Political Victory Fund

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

2

  Associated Builders and Contractors      Free Enterprise Alliance

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

   Colorado Family Institute

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

1

   Focus on the Family Action

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

1

  National Right to Life PAC

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

1

  Susan B. Anthony List

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Progress Now Action Fund

Republican

alliesb

  Candidates   Marilyn Musgrave for Congress   Political parties

  Interest groups

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  241

Table 8.7  Continued Tele- Total Bill- Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa board E-mail Mail Contact Call Radio TV Ads Nonpartisan   Interest groups   AARP

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

  Latina Initiative

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 8.6. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render the picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America: Community Affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and Colorado AFL-CIO data have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

to voter identification, and the focus shifted to persuasion for all Democratic candidates as the campaign progressed.112 While the Musgrave campaign did not send out mail in the 2008 campaign, the NRCC used four mailers echoing Musgrave’s attacks on Markey’s alleged ethical lapses related to Syscom Services. The Colorado Republican Party sent five pieces of mail as part of its coordinated campaign. Four of those pieces were straight negative pieces that repeated the “Millionaire Markey” theme that characterized all of the Republican television ads and mail in this race. A number of Democratic-leaning groups were active on the ground, including the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, Environment Colorado, Colorado WOMEN VOTE!, the Colorado Education Association, and the Colorado AFLCIO. The most significant group by far was the Defenders, whose ground game targeted unaffiliated and female voters identified using the Catalist voter file and other targeting tools. In sharp contrast, there was far less group activity on the Republican side, with the only mail being sent by the Susan B. Anthony List, touting Musgrave’s pro-life record, a common theme for the group.

Conclusion The 2008 elections in Colorado were characterized by a well-organized, amply funded air and ground campaign by the Democrats and their allies. Republicans not only faced long odds because of the public mood but also had far less party and group support. Barack Obama won a decisive victory, easily carrying the traditional Democratic voting blocs along with some groups that normally voted Republican. Obama ran up big margins among women (56 percent voted for him, compared with 41 percent who chose McCain), Latinos (61 percent vs.

242  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn

38 percent), and Democrats (92 percent vs. 7 percent), and even eked out a small win (50 percent vs. 48 percent) among white voters. Most important, though, Obama won unaffiliated voters by a decisive ten-point margin (54 percent vs. 44 percent), and he carried moderates, who accounted for just under half of the state’s voters, by an even larger margin (63 percent to McCain’s 35 percent). According to a postelection analysis by Project Vote, Latino voters were also critical to Obama’s victory. Latinos cast approximately 123,000 more votes in 2008 than they did in 2004, an increase of more than 70 percent. Latinos made up 13 percent of the total vote in 2008, compared with just 8 percent four years earlier. Clearly, the efforts made by Obama and other Democrats to mobilize Latinos yielded ample dividends. As McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt stated, “One of the great ironies of this whole race is [evident when] you look at the Southwestern states, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, where I think that the Republican party is deservedly punished by Hispanic and Latino voters. But, the one guy who doesn’t deserve to be punished by Latino voters and Hispanic voters was John McCain. Yet he was.”113 It is clear that President Bush’s job performance and economic factors were critical in Obama’s Colorado win. Exit polls showed that fewer than 70 percent of Colorado voters approved of how President Bush was handling his job—and Obama won 73 percent of their votes. There can be no question that McCain was hurt by Bush. In addition, the exit polls showed that the economy (at 54 percent) was the most important issue for Coloradans. Obama won 56 percent of the votes of those who said that the economy was the most important issue. Mark Udall won a decisive victory, easily carrying the expected voting blocs as well as some normally reliable Republican groups. Udall ran up big margins among women (56 percent vs. 41 percent), but he also won among men (50 percent vs. 46 percent). Similarly, Udall captured almost two-thirds of the Latino vote (63 percent vs. 30 percent), while also narrowly winning among white voters (50 percent vs. 47 percent).114 Udall carried unaffiliated voters by a decisive 55 percent to Schaffer’s 40 percent, and he carried self-described moderates by an even larger margin, 63 percent to 32 percent. Udall, like Obama, won the critical battle for unaffiliated voters. The same concern with the economy and President Bush’s job performance that helped Obama helped Udall and hurt Schaffer. Schaffer was unable to distance himself from George Bush and his own record of social conservatism, and he seemed out of touch with the hard economic times. Schaffer’s failure to offer voters—especially unaffiliated voters—a positive message that addressed their core concerns was a critical mistake. Until recently, the Republican recipe for success in Colorado was fairly straightforward: Mobilize the base and compete for a respectable share of Independents. However, as Democratic gains reduced and then eliminated the Republican edge in voter registration, the formula has changed. Since 2004, unaffiliated voters have broken disproportionately for Democratic candidates in three statewide races and turned three House seats, formerly held by Republicans, Democratic. If Republican candidates are to succeed in Colorado, they will need to find new ways to appeal to unaffiliated voters. Betsy Markey ran away with the Fourth Congressional District seat, despite the Republican advantage in voter registration in her district and the handicap

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  243

of being virtually unknown when the race began. Like Obama and Udall, she benefited from voter discontent with Republicans in general, and George Bush in particular, and from a bad economy that kept getting worse. However, the size of her victory and the fact that she ran significantly ahead of Obama in the district suggested that there were other factors involved as well. Markey benefited greatly from not having to run in a contested primary, which meant that she could conserve her resources for November and focus on raising money and introducing herself to voters. Markey ran a disciplined campaign that, with the exception of her initial mishandling of questions about her family business, made few mistakes. She stuck to issues that resonated with voters, and she conveyed a moderate approach on the issues and a straightforward political style. Markey was also helped by a huge infusion of resources from outside groups and the DCCC, which outspent their Republican counterparts by more than $2 million. Finally, it appeared that Musgrave hurt herself by going too far in attacking Markey, especially in her last two television ads. Both parties conducted extensive voter mobilization efforts aimed at unaffiliated voters. These voters broke decidedly for the Democrat Markey, explaining much of her victory margin. As important, though, were the defections of large numbers of Republicans to Markey: Voting results in the district showed a significant number of McCain voters who opted to vote for Markey rather than Musgrave. The fact that Musgrave significantly underperformed McCain was a clear indication that she had some problems that were unique and traceable only to herself and her campaign. In a year when Republicans were unpopular, she was even more so. The campaign environment in 2008 had changed in ways that benefited Markey and hurt Musgrave. Her “attack” style from past cycles did not work against a more capable candidate who had raised enough money to compete. The electoral ground had also shifted under her feet—President Bush was even more unpopular than in 2006, the economy was in a free fall, and her attacks on Markey were out of sync with the electorate’s desire for change.

Notes 1.  For example, Colorado elected 17 Democrats and 12 Republicans to the governorship over the last 100 years. Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics (Washington, DC: National Journal Group, 2008), available at http://www.nationaljournal.com/ almanac/2008/states/co (accessed December 2, 2008). See also Cable News Network, “Colorado: Presidential Voting History,” available at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION /2004/pages/pre/CO/ history.html (accessed December 2, 2008). 2.  Kyle Saunders and Robert Duffy, “The Colorado U.S. Senate Race,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties and Interest Groups Interact in the New Campaign Environ­ ment, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2005), 178. 3.  Barone and Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics. See also Daniel A. Smith, “Strings Attached: Outside Money in Colorado’s Seventh District,” in The Last Hurrah? ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), 180. 4.  Kyle L. Saunders and Robert J. Duffy, “Volatility and Volition: The Pendulum Swings High and Hard in Colorado’s 7th District,” in War Games: Issues and Resources in the Battle for Control of Congress, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly J. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2008). 5.  Barone and Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics. 6. Ibid.

244  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn 7.  The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, “US Religious Landscape Survey,” available at http://religions.pewforum.org/reports (accessed December 12, 2008); The Association of Religion Data Archives, “State Membership Report, Colorado (2000),” available at http://www. thearda.com/mapsReports/reports/state/08_2000.asp (accessed December 12, 2008). 8.  Colorado Secretary of State, “Elections Center,” available at http://www.elections.colorado. gov/DDefault.aspx?tid=719 (accessed June 2, 2009). 9.  According to political analyst Charlie Cook, the Fourth District’s Partisan Voting Index (PVI), which measures a district’s partisan leanings, was an R+9, indicative of a strong Republican tilt. See also Barone and Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics. 10.  Colorado Secretary of State, “Elections Center.” 11. Ibid. 12. Stuart Rothenberg, “The Big Five: Picking the States that Will Pick the President,” Real Clear Politics, available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/07/the_big_5_picking_ the_states_t.html (accessed March 28, 2009). 13. Stuart Rothenberg, “What’s the Top Electoral College State this Year?” Real Clear Politics, available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/whats_the_top_electoral_colleg. html (accessed March 28, 2009). 14.  Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, The Battle for America 2008 (New York: Viking, 2009), 356. 15.  A week before the caucuses, a Denver Post poll showed Romney with a 43 to 24 advantage over McCain among likely Republican caucus participants. Michael Booth and Michael Riley, “Obama, Clinton split Colo. Voters: Romney leads GOP,” Denver Post, January 27, 2008, available at http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_8089114 (accessed May 20, 2009). 16. Richard L. Jensen, “Colorado, Pioneer Settlements,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, volume 1., ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 294. 17.  David Montero, “Obama Wows Crowd in Grand Junction,” Rocky Mountain News, September 15, 2008, available at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/sep/15/obamasappearance-grand-junction-first-presdential/ (accessed March 28, 2009). 18.  “Campaign Tracker,” The Washington Post, available at http://projects.washingtonpost. com/2008-presidential-candidates/tracker/states/co/ (accessed March 28, 2009). 19. Ibid. 20.  John Ingold and Christopher N. Osher, “Springs Crowd Cheers McCain, Palin,” Denver Post, September 6, 2008, available at http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10398419 (accessed March 28, 2009). 21. Peter Hamby, “Palin: God will do the right thing on election day,” CNN Political Ticker, October 22, 2008, available at http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/22/palin-god-willdo-the-right-thing-on-election-day/ (accessed March 28, 2009). 22. Sean Quinn, “On the Road: Boulder, CO,” FiveThirtyEight, available at http://www. fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/on-road-boulder-colorado.html (accessed March 13, 2009). 23. Seth Masket, “The Influence of Campaign Field Offices During the 2008 Presidential Election,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April 4, 2009. 24. Sean Quinn, “On the Road: Boulder, CO”; Sean Quinn, “On the Road: Colorado Springs, CO,” FiveThirtyEight, available at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/09/on-roadcolorado-springs-colorado.html (accessed March 14, 2009). 25.  For more information on the Democratic structure, see Eric M. Appleman, “Obama General Election Campaign Organization, Colorado,” available at http://www.gwu.edu/~action/2008/ obama/obamagenco.html (accessed March 20, 2009). 26. Pat Waak, Colorado Democratic Party chair, interview by Robert Duffy, November 14, 2008. 27.  Bernadette Budde, senior vice president of Business Industry Political Action Committee, interview by David Magleby, November 10, 2008. 28.  Balz and Johnson, The Battle for America 2008, 365. 29.  Ken Strasma, director of Strategic Telemetry, Inc., interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 30.  Bo Harmon, McCain campaign national political director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 31.  Budde, interview.

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  245 32.  Jeremy Pelzer, “Colorado Tops in Presidential TV Ad Buys,” PolitickerCO.com, available at http://www.politickerco.com/jeremypelzer/2350/colorado-tops-presidential-tv-ad-buys (accessed September 19, 2008). 33. Ibid. 34. Lynn Bartels, “Udall Beat Schaffer in Senate Race by 10.31 Percentage Points,” Rocky Mountain News, December 6, 2008, available at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ news/20008/dec/06/udall-beatschaffer-in-senate-race.html (accessed December 19, 2008). 35. Michael Riley, “Centrism in Senate Race Doesn’t Faze the Base,” Denver Post, October 10, 2008, A1. 36. Michael Riley, “Udall Whittles Away at Colo. GOP Strongholds,” Denver Post, October 26, 2008, B1. 37. Michael Riley, “With Stakes Sky-high, Schaffer Mellows Out,” Denver Post, May 11, 2008, A1. 38. Ibid. 39. Progress Now Action, “Big Oil,” available at http://bigoilbob.com/ (accessed January 10, 2009). 40. Mike Melanson, Udall for Senate campaign manager, interview by Robert Duffy, December 1, 2008. 41. Michael Riley, “Oops, Wrong State,” Denver Post, May 15, 2008, A1. 42.  “2008 Colorado Senate General Election,” Pollster.com, available at http://www.pollster. com/polls/co/08-co-sen-ge-svu.php (accessed January 14, 2009). Udall’s internal polls showed him with a consistent 8 to 14 point lead throughout the race; Melanson, interview. Michael Britt, executive director of Colorado Republican Party, interview by Joshua Dunn, December 17, 2008. 43. Ibid. 44.  Dick Wadhams, Schaffer for Senate campaign manager and Colorado Republican Party chair, interview by Joshua Dunn, October 21, 2008. 45. Melanson, interview. 46.  Britt, interview. 47. Melanson, interview. 48.  Center for Responsive Politics, “2008 Overview: Most Expensive Races,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/topraces.php (accessed December 17, 2008). 49. Lynn Bartels, “Udall, Schaffer Set Senate Fundraising Record,” Rocky Mountain News, December 9, 2008, available at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/dec/09/udallschaffer-set-senate-fundraising-record (accessed December 11, 2008). 50.  Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports,” December 31, 2008, available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+S8CO00172 (accessed May 16, 2009). 51. Melanson, interview. 52.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Congressional Elections: Colorado Senate Race: 2008 Cycle,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/pacs.php?cycle=2008&id=COS2 (accessed December 17, 2008). 53.  Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007–2008 Election,” May 18, 2009, available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+S4CO00171 (accessed June 8, 2009). 54.  Center for Responsive Politics, “2008 Overview: Candidate to Candidate Giving,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/cand2cand.php (accessed May 17, 2009). 55.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: Independent Expenditures,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/indexp.php?cycle=2008&cmte= DSCC&cycle=2008 (accessed May 18, 2009). 56.  Center for Responsive Politics, “National Republican Senatorial Committee: Independent Expenditures,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/indexp.php?cmte=NRSC& cycle=2008 (accessed May 18, 2009). 57. Lynn Bartels, “GOP Committee Pulls Schaffer TV Ads,” Rocky Mountain News, October 24, 2008, available at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/24/gopcommittee-pulls-schaffer-tv-ads/ (accessed October 24, 2008). 58. Michael Riley, “GOP Cuts Funding for Races,” Denver Post, August 24, 2008, available at http://www.denverpost.com/senate08/ci_10286474 (accessed August 24, 2008). 59. Lynn Bartels, “GOP Committee.”

246  /  Robert J. Duffy, Kyle L. Saunders, and Joshua Dunn 60.  Federal Election Commission, “Schedule F (FEC Form 3X),” available at http://images. nictusa.com/cgi-bin/fecimg/?28993698026 (accessed June 2, 2009). 61.  Waak, interview. 62. Pat Waak, Colorado Democratic Party chair, e-mail communication to Robert Duffy, January 7, 2009. 63.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Colorado: Party Transfers,” available at http://www. opensecrets.org/states/other.php?cycle=2008&state=CO (accessed January 6, 2009). 64. Michael Riley, “Attack Ads Inundate State Race for Senate,” Denver Post, September 25, 2008, available at http://www.denverpost.com/senate08/ci_10550738 (accessed September 25, 2008). 65. Media Strategies and Research and the Denver Post estimate that five groups supporting Schaffer spent more than one million dollars each. See Michael Riley, “Attack Ads Inundate State Race for Senate,” Denver Post, September 25, 2008, available at http://www.denverpost. com/senate08/ci_10550738 (accessed July 7, 2010). 66. Ibid. 67. National Public Radio, “Secret Money Project: August 15, 2008,” available at http:// www.npr.org (accessed December 1, 2008). 68. Melanson, interview. 69. Ibid. 70.  Waak, interview. 71.  Anne Caprara, Markey for Congress campaign manager, interview by Robert Duffy and Kyle Saunders, November 11, 2008. 72.  Waak, interview. 73.  Britt, interview. 74.  Dick Wadhams, Schaffer for Senate campaign manager, interview by David Magleby, October 22, 2008. 75. Melanson, interview. 76.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Democratic Senatorial Campaign Cmte: Independent Expenditures.” 77.  Kyle Saunders and Robert Duffy, “Money, Moderation, and Mobilization in the 2004 Colorado Senate Race: A Blueprint for Democratic Success in Red States,” in Electing Congress: New Rules for an Old Game, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006), 26–43. 78. Mike Podhorzer, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations deputy director, interview by David Magleby, November 14, 2008. 79. Rob Engstrom, Vice President of Political Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, interview by David Magleby, November 12, 2008. 80.  Jason Kosena, “E-mailed Plans Aim to Unseat Musgrave,” Fort Collins Coloradoan, February 3, 2008, A1. 81.  American Conservative Union, “Ratings of Congress,” available at http://www.acuratings. org/ (accessed January 6, 2009). 82.  Greg Giroux, “Musgrave’s Priorities at Issue in Increasingly Close Colo. 4 Race,” available at http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2006/09/28/cq_1520.html (accessed January 4, 2009). 83.  Kosena, “E-mailed Plans”; Charlie Brennan and M. E. Sprengelmeyer, “Stryker Boosts Pro-Paccione 527,” Rocky Mountain News, October 17, 2006, available at http://www. rockymountainnews.com/drmn/elections/article/0,2808,DRMN_24736_5072019,00.html (accessed January 17, 2009). 84. SurveyUSA, “Results of SurveyUSA Election Poll #14270,” available at http://www. surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=1ccadc3d-8b8d-43b3-a671-939370c87ca3 (accessed January 3, 2009). 85.  Betsy Markey for Congress, “About Betsy,” available at http://www.markeyforcongress. com/about_betsy (accessed November 20, 2008). 86.  Jason Kosena, “A Stunning Markey Win Marks a Blue Era in Colorado’s 4th CD,” The Colorado Independent, November 5, 2008, available at http://coloradoindependent.com/14277/ a-blue-era-begins-anew-in-colorados-4th-cd (accessed November 6, 2008). 87.  Caprara, interview. 88.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Congressional Elections: 2008 Overview: Independent Expenditures,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/indexp.php?Display=R&filter=A (accessed May 17, 2009).

Colorado: Democrats Expand Their Base  /  247 89.  Center for Responsive Politics, “2008 Race: Colorado 04; Total Raised and Spent,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id=CO04&cycle=2008 (accessed May 17, 2009). 90.  Center for Responsive Politics, “PACS: Congressman Betsy Markey 2007–2008,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00029128&newMem=Y (accessed January 5, 2009). 91.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Representative Betsy Markey: Summary,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org /politicians/summary.php?newMem=Y&cid=N00029128 (accessed May 17, 2009). 92.  Caprara, interview. 93. Robert Moore, “Cash Flow Tightens Up for Markey,” Fort Collins Coloradoan, October 14, 2008, A1. 94.  Jason Kosena, “E-mailed Plans.” 95.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Congressional Elections: 2006 Race; Colorado District 04, Total Raised and Spent,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/summary. php?id=CO04&cycle=2006 (accessed May 17, 2009); Center for Responsive Politics, “Congressional Elections: 2004 Race: Colorado District 04, Total Raised and Spent,” available at http:// www.opensecrets.org/races/summary.php?id=CO04&cycle=2004 (accessed May 17, 2009). 96.  Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007–2008 Election,” available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H2CO04045 (accessed May 18, 2009). 97.  Caprara, interview. 98.  Waak, e-mail. 99.  Daniel Chacon, “Committee Cuts Ad Buys for Musgrave,” Rocky Mountain News, October 23, 2008, available at http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/22/partypulling-tv-ad-backing-musgrave/ (accessed October 24, 2008). 100.  Campaign Finance Institute, “A First Look at Money in the House and Senate Elections,” November 6, 2008, available at http://www.cfinst.org/pr/prRelease.aspx?ReleaseID=215 (accessed January 7, 2009). 101.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Colorado: Party Transfers,” available at http://www. opensecrets.org/states/other.php?cycle=2008&state=CO (accessed May 18, 2009). 102. Robert Moore, “Report: Markey, Allies Reversed GOP’s Historic Money Advantage,” Fort Collins Coloradoan, December 5, 2008, A1. 103. Ed Yoon, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund campaign manager, interview by Robert Duffy, November 10, 2008. 104. Ibid. 105. Robert Moore, “Group Meets Objective of Unseating Musgrave,” Fort Collins Colora­ doan, November 10, 2008, A1. 106.  Jason Kosena, “Environmental Group Rejoices over Musgrave Loss,” The Colo­ rado Independent, November 6, 2008, available at http://coloradoindependent.com/14396/ environmental-group-rejoices-over-musgrave-loss (accessed November 7, 2008). 107. Robert Moore, “Marilyn Musgrave Blames Election Loss on ‘Leftist Special Interests,’” Fort Collins Coloradoan, December 2, 2008, A1. 108.  David Drucker, “Markey to Hit Airwaves in Colorado Race,” Roll Call, August 11, 2008, available at http://www.rollcall.com/news/27467-1.html (accessed August 25, 2008). 109.  Brian Wolff, DCCC executive director, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 110.  Caprara, interview. 111.  Waak, interview. 112.  Caprara, interview. 113. Steve Schmidt, quoted in Electing the President 2008: The Insiders’ View, ed. Kathleen Hall Jamieson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 65. 114.  Cable News Network, “U.S. Senate/Colorado/Exit Polls,” available at http://www. cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/ pages/results/states/CO/S/01/epolls.0.html (accessed November 19, 2004).

9

Moving from Red to Blue The 2008 New Mexico Presidential, Senate, and First Congressional District Races Michael S. Rocca, Lonna Rae Atkeson, Yann Kerevel, and Lisa A. Bryant

A

s one of only a handful of battleground states in the 2008 presidential election, New Mexico naturally saw presidential politics take center stage. Nevertheless, the state’s electoral season effectively began on October 4, 2007, when six-term Senator Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) announced his retirement after thirty-six years in the United States Senate. The retirement of “Saint Pete” initiated an earthquake in New Mexico politics. All three of the state’s sitting U.S. House members ran for Senator Domenici’s seat, opening not only their congressional seats to new blood, but also the seats of the local and state officials looking to move into the U.S. House, and so on down the ticket—a statewide avalanche of progressive ambition.1 In a typical election year, the political, social, and economic heterogeneity of New Mexico, coupled with the presence of quality candidates in the presidential and congressional races, likely would have resulted in competitive elections. However, 2008 proved quite different. For the first time in the history of New Mexico, the Democrats swept the state’s federal contests and perhaps most surprisingly, turned normally competitive elections into landslides. This chapter examines how and why the Democrats were able to win so handily in New Mexico. We review three of the state’s five federal races: the Senate race between Representatives Tom Udall and Steve Pearce; the First Congressional District race between City Councilman Martin Heinrich and Sheriff Darren White; and New Mexico’s part in the presidential race between Senators Barack Obama and John McCain.

The New Mexico Backdrop Besides its role as a presidential battleground, New Mexico is important for other reasons. Historically, it is a bellwether state, swinging back and forth with the nation’s winning party. 2 Additionally, New Mexico’s congressional delegation had long been split between members of both parties. Heading into the 2008 election cycle, the delegation was composed of one GOP Senator and one Democratic Senator and one Democratic House member and two GOP House members. By contrast, at that time, New Mexico had a predominance of Democrats in the state legislature, a strong Democratic hold on down-ballot statewide

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  249

offices, and a majority of registered Democratic voters. New Mexico’s 2008 registration numbers showed that 50 percent of voters identified themselves as Democrats, 31 percent identified as Republicans, and 15 percent declined to state their party. 3 Thus, New Mexico represents a state torn between its generally conservative ideology and a tradition of Democratic dominance at the state level. New Mexico is also interesting because of its colonization history that reaches not to the United Kingdom, but to Spain. As a result, Hispanics have always been a rich and important part of the sociocultural and political fabric of New Mexico. As such, New Mexico is a majority–minority state, with about equal percentages (43 percent) of Hispanics and whites, and a politically important minority of Native Americans (10 percent). Of Hispanic voters, approximately 66 percent are registered Democratic.4 This is consistent with national trends that suggest that Hispanics tend to affiliate with the Democratic Party. However, unlike the Hispanic populations of other states, which include many first-generation immigrant families, the Hispanic population of New Mexico, in the words of one political activist, is well established and “pretty anomalous”— “not the same kind of booming immigrant-driven population” that might be easier to target with ads. 5 Given the state’s importance in past presidential and congressional elections, New Mexico was identified early in 2007 as an electoral battleground. This status, along with the fact that all of the other federal races in the state were open contests, resulted in an aggressive campaign by the candidates, parties, and interest groups. New Mexicans were subject to intense mobilization efforts, many television ads, endless personal and telephone contacts, mail pieces, robocalls, and candidate visits. In fact, spending in New Mexico for the 2008 general election was the highest in the state’s history, with media market experts claiming that spending from the presidential race was well over $8 million just in the Albuquerque metro area, and spending statewide for all races may have topped $30 million.6 In the end, the state turned a deep blue, with Democrats sweeping all of the races in the state with surprisingly comfortable margins.

The Senate Race The candidates vying to succeed Pete Domenici were Representatives Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico, First Congressional District), Steve Pearce (R-New Mexico, Second Congressional District), and an initially reluctant Tom Udall (D-New Mexico, Third Congressional District).

The Republican Primary Representative Heather Wilson announced her candidacy first, on October 4, 2007, the day after Senator Domenici announced his retirement. First elected by special election in 1998, she served New Mexico’s First Congressional District for ten years, and she had one of the most moderate voting records in the House. Her moderate voting record reflected the ideological heterogeneity and predominantly Democratic nature of the district she represented. With the First

250  /  Rocca, Atkeson, Kerevel, and Bryant

­ ongressional District’s status as one of the most competitive in the nation, C Wilson consistently faced tough reelection battles.7 Since 2000, she averaged a winning margin of only six percentage points, significantly lower than the fortypoint incumbent national average over the same period.8 Pearce announced his candidacy for Senator Domenici’s seat on October 16, 2007. He served New Mexico’s Second Congressional District for six years, establishing a voting record more conservative than that of 78 percent of the House.9 His conservatism is no surprise, given the rural composition of the Second Congressional District. It covers the southern part of the state and is ideologically conservative, but with a Democratic heritage.10 Until the 2008 contest, when Democrat Harry Teague won the seat, Republicans had held the district for twenty-eight consecutive years (and thirty of the forty years since it was created in 1968). Its conservative nature is due to its rural character, with many oil and gas interests, as well as agriculture, ranching, and mining. The Second Congressional District gave majorities to George Bush in 2000 (54 percent to 43 percent) and 2004 (58 percent to 41 percent), but swung to Obama in 2008 (52 percent to 47 percent). Pearce won by an average of seventeen percentage points over his career. Even in his first race (in 2002), Pearce competed well—especially for a newcomer—beating his conservative Democratic opponent by twelve points (56 percent to 44 percent).11 Although Wilson was better known than Pearce, a Survey USA poll in October 2007 showed Pearce having a net favorability rating of −1 versus Wilson’s −14.12 Her four consecutive campaigns between 1998 and 2006 were heated, aggressive, and expensive, making her well known, but not very well liked. Pearce, on the other hand, with quiet and relatively easy wins throughout his tenure, was neither well known nor well liked. He was unfamiliar to a plurality (33 percent) of state voters and was equally favorable (21 percent) and unfavorable (22 percent) to those who knew him. Pearce’s additional advantage was that he could credibly tout himself as more conservative than Wilson. Political observers have long found that primaries reward more extreme candidates.13 Naturally, the candidates’ voting records were the centerpieces of the 2008 Republican primary as both candidates sought to paint the other as outside New Mexico’s mainstream. Wilson repeatedly called her opponent too conservative and thus “unelectable,” while she was the “commonsense conservative who can win in November.” She called Pearce “wrong” on “important issues” such as funding for border security and protecting New Mexico military bases and federal laboratories. On the other hand, Pearce used his television ads to call Wilson too “liberal” for New Mexico, with her “liberal values” and “liberal votes” on hot-button issues such as stem cell research, taxes, and immigration. The divisive nature of the campaign is reflected in the final vote margin. In the end, Pearce defeated Wilson 51 percent to 49 percent, with both candidates spending more than $2 million. In retrospect, Brian Wolff of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said that Pearce’s victory in the primary helped the Democrats. Wolff opined that, during the general election, Democratic candidate Tom Udall “had it really easy” with Pearce as his opponent: By comparison, “Heather Wilson would have been a lot harder to muddy. . . . ​He would have a much harder time beating her up.”14

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  251

The Democratic Candidate Tom Udall entered the Senate race later than his GOP counterparts. According to campaign manager Amanda Cooper, his initial desire was to continue representing the Third Congressional District.15 A grassroots “Draft Udall” movement as well as subsequent pressure from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Governor Bill Richardson ultimately changed his mind. On November 9, 2007, he threw his hat into the ring as a candidate and, at about the same time, other Democratic hopefuls, especially Mayor Martin Chavez of Albuquerque, who had aggressively started his campaign, backed out, leaving the field clear for an easy nomination. Mayor Chavez indicated that his withdrawal was the result of internal polling that showed that Udall had a very strong advantage in both the primary and the general election.16 Representative Udall’s congressional district (the Third Congressional District) covers most of the northern part of the state. It contains most of New Mexico’s historic Spanish-speaking and Indian areas, as well as the state’s capital, Santa Fe. Udall’s voting record reflected the solidly Democratic and generally liberal leanings of the district. According to the National Journal, Udall voted more conservative than only 17 percent of the House, placing him in the top 20 percent of the most liberal members of Congress.17 Over the course of his House career, he won by an average of forty-six percentage points over his nearest challengers, and he ran unopposed in 2002. Udall had one tremendous asset from the beginning: his family’s good name and long political history in the west. Called the “Kennedys of the West,” the Udall family has provided more than a dozen politicians, including federal officers, through six generations in five Western states, mostly Democratic conservationists. In addition, Udall had built his own political resume. Between 1978 and 1981, he was assistant United States attorney for the District of New Mexico. His first two attempts at elected office ended in defeats. In 1982, he ran for Congress in the newly created Third Congressional District, losing to Bill Richardson in the Democratic primary. In 1989, Udall narrowly lost a race for the First Congressional District seat to District Attorney Steven Schiff. Udall’s fortunes changed in 1991, when he was elected state attorney general, and again in 1998, when he defeated first-term Republican incumbent Bill Redmond for New Mexico’s Third Congressional District seat. According to a February Rasmussen Report, three in five participants (59 percent) responded favorably, not quite one-third (31 percent) responded unfavorably, and just under one in ten (9 percent) reported that they were unsure about Udall. These relatively strong numbers came despite any real campaigning by Udall for the Senate seat. (His first television ad was not released for another three months.) Thus, Udall entered the race in a much stronger position with New Mexico’s public than either of his potential competitors. So, while Pearce and Wilson were engaged in an expensive and negative primary battle, their eventual opponent ran unopposed on the Democratic side. This meant that Udall could stay above the in-party fighting that was visibly damaging both GOP opponents and begin his own campaign without distraction. He aired his first general election ad on May 21, during the primary season, as a means to define himself to the state electorate.18 The sixty-second

252  /  Rocca, Atkeson, Kerevel, and Bryant

biographical sketch, called “What’s Right,” highlighted Udall’s New Mexico heritage and his public service to the state as an appointed and elected official. By emphasizing his background in law enforcement, the early ads drew attention away from his liberal congressional voting record. Meanwhile, liberal environmental groups watched the race eagerly. In February, Mark Longabaugh of the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund predicted, “New Mexico is going to be huge [for environmental groups]. We have two enemies in the environment [Wilson and Pearce], and you have a huge champion [Udall]. . . . ​T he Defenders are going to play there big.”19

The General Election: Money, Parties, and Strategy The final reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) showed Udall outspending Pearce by nearly $3 million, $7,841,887 to $4,626,706 (Table 9.1). Three-fourths of both campaigns’ fundraising came from individual contributions, where Udall out-raised Pearce $5,539,268 to $3,224,350. Before winning his House seat, Pearce had spent years in the oil and gas service industry, and his contributions reflected that background. Udall collected more than Pearce did from lawyers, lobbyists, and labor; Pearce collected more from the energy and natural resources sectors.

Party Support Both candidates received negligible support from their respective party committees. This became a much publicized issue for the Pearce campaign in early September. As Politico.com reported on September 4, and the Santa Fe New Mexican on September 6, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) canceled a $2.3 million television ad buy for Pearce. 20 This proved to be a public relations blow to the campaign just as Pearce began making his September climb in the polls. Because committee funding is often a good measure of a party’s chances, the NRSC’s move appeared to some as a signal that the NRSC was giving up on the Pearce campaign. While NRSC chairman Senator John

Table 9.1 Candidate Receipts and Expenditures, New Mexico Congressional Races, 2007–2008 From PACs From individuals From candidate Other contributions Total receipts Total expenditures Cash on hand (as of 12/31/08)

Tom Udall (D) $1,270,798 $5,539,268 $0 $637,618 $7,447,684 $7,841,887 $318,671

Steve Martin Pearce (R) Heinrich (D) $676,725 $3,224,350 $25,000 $706,236 $4,632,311 $4,626,706 $5,605

$633,286 $1,837,601 $0 $42,872 $2,513,759 $2,481,040 $32,716

Darren White (R) $404,117 $1,223,871 $0 $170,903 $1,798,891 $1,778,319 $20,571

Source: Federal Election Commission, “Candidate Summary Reports: 2007–2008 Election,” December 31, 2008, available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+S8NM00184; http://query.nictusa.com/ cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+S0NM00041; http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H8NM01224; and http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/?_08+H8NM01273 (accessed May 18, 2009).

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  253

Ensign (R-New York) called the cancellation a “readjustment” and reassured voters that New Mexico remained a “top priority” for them, Udall spokesperson Marissa Padilla was naturally pleased by the move, stating that “it’s great that the NRSC recognizes that people in New Mexico are ready for Tom Udall to become our next senator.”21 Later, Scott Bensing of the NRSC admitted that Pearce “just wasn’t able to put together the kind of money needed” after he “had such a difficult primary in June and came out of that broke. . . . ​T he race never got close enough for us to invest in.”22 At the state level, both parties sent more unique mailers than did their respective candidates, as shown in Table 9.2 based on data collected by the New Mexico Reconnaissance Network. Throughout the state, the Democratic Party of New Mexico (DPNM) coordinated a campaign that was largely funded by Udall. 23 The coordinated campaign cost approximately $1.7 million, which was $1 million more than they spent in 2006, and largely focused on infrequent ­voters—those who voted in 2004, but not in 2006. 24 As shown in Table 9.2, the DPNM sent out approximately twenty-four unique mailers, which generally consisted of three types: (1) negative ads portraying Pearce as best friends with big oil, “wealthy CEOs,” and President Bush; (2) get-out-the-vote (GOTV) ads encouraging early voting; and (3) piggyback ads supporting Udall and expressing Udall’s support for the local Democratic congressional candidate. Clearly, these were attempts by the DPNM to capitalize on Udall’s popularity; he consistently outperformed each of the Democratic congressional candidates and the Democratic presidential party nominee in polls leading up to Election Day. Even Obama’s campaign adopted the strategy of citing Udall’s support of Obama. The Republican Party of New Mexico (GOPNM), on the other hand, limited their involvement to a large number of “Vote Republican” mailers, but incredibly, none specifically mentioned Pearce or any other candidate. All twenty-seven mailings identified in Table 9.2 encouraged voting early or on Election Day; their themes ranged from national security and the economy to conservative values—especially views against abortion and gay marriage. However, none of them supported Pearce or directly attacked Udall. Much of the campaigns’ spending went to television ads. Pearce released fifteen unique ads during the general election, nine of which were positive, two of which were negative, and seven of which combined both negative and positive messages (see Table 9.2). His total media buy amounted to $1,418,738, as shown in Table 9.3. Udall released thirteen unique ads, seven of which were positive, three of which were negative, and an additional three of which were both positive and negative. His total Albuquerque media ad buy, at $1,786,103, was about $370,000 more than Pearce’s. In the aggregate, party and interest group television ads were at near parity in this race. The Republican Party and interest groups purchased $322,880 in ads for Pearce, compared with allied interest groups’ spending of $313,150 for Udall. After the Republican primary in early June, Udall immediately went on the air with three new positive ads. In contrast, because of his lag in fundraising and the nomination fight that left him “broke,”25 Pearce’s campaign did not start the general election ad game on television until the beginning of August. Perhaps the most notable ads from the Pearce campaign came in the form of five fifteen-second messages released in early September. Each ad ended with the same

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Table 9.2 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Mexico Senate Race, 2007–2008 Total Personal Telephone Unique Type and Organizationa Mail Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Udall for Us All 6   Political parties   Democratic Party of New Mexico 24   DSCC 1   Interest groups   AFL-CIO 4   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund   League of Conservation Voters     Action Fund 2   American Federation of Teachers 1   American Hunters and Shooters     Association 1   Democrats for America’s Future 1   EMILY’s List 1   NAACP 1   Patriot Majority —   Rock the Vote 1   SEIU 1   Sierra Club Republican alliesb   Candidates   Steve Pearce for Congress   Political parties   Republican Party of New Mexico   NRSC   RNC

—

9

—

13

28

4 —

8 1

1 —

— —

37 2

1 —

1 —

— 1

— 3

6 4

— —

— —

— —

— —

2 1

— — — — — — — —

— — — — — — — 1

— — — — — — — —

— — — — 1 — — —

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

—

—

3

2

28

33

27 — 1

— — —

6 1 —

— — —

— — —

33 1 1

(continued on next page)

question: “How did you vote, Tom?” These ads usually came at least two to a commercial break and were meant to help set the policy agenda for voters, raising questions about Udall’s record across multiple issues quickly and at a lower cost. 26 Unfortunately for Pearce, the economic crisis in late September sapped whatever momentum he gained in late summer and early fall. His poll numbers in September, on average, showed him twelve points down, and in one instance, only seven points behind Udall. 27 On average, October polls showed Pearce trailing by seventeen percentage points. 28 Udall’s increased advantage had little to do with the candidates’ positions on the bailout, as both Pearce and Udall voted against the House measure. Pearce was the first to release an ad after the bailout. Titled “Risky,” it characterized Udall’s economic plan as “higher taxes on families,” which would “send our economy into a tailspin” and “shatter dreams.” Udall then released a negative ad entitled “Two Views,” which compared his voting record with that of Pearce. Among other things, the ad stated

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  255

Table 9.2  Continued Total Personal Telephone Unique Type and Organizationa Mail Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb (continued)   Interest groups   National Right to Life PAC    Club for Growth   National Pro-Life Alliance    U.S. Chamber of Commerce   American Energy Alliance   American Future Fund    Freedom’s Watch   NRA Political Victory Fund   Susan B. Anthony List Nonpartisan   Interest groups    Common Cause   Native American Voters Alliance   New Mexico Youth Organized   Southwest Organizing Project

2 — 1 1 — — — 1 1

— — — — — — — — —

2 — — — — — — — —

1 — — — 1 — 1 — —

— 3 1 1 — 1 — — —

5 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1

— — — —

— — — —

— — — —

— — — —

1 1 1 1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 9.3. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, data for Working America, a community affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and New Mexico Federation of Labor AFLCIO have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

that Udall wanted to “get rid of George Bush’s failed economic policies,” while Pearce “supports George Bush’s economic policies” and “wants more tax breaks for the wealthy and special interests like big oil.” Pearce and Udall also strategically targeted New Mexico’s heavily Democratic Hispanic population. According to Amanda Cooper, Udall’s campaign manager, Spanish language ads should focus on specific subgroup populations within the Hispanic community for special message targeting. Because of the narrow targeting, these groups are best reached with radio, as opposed to Spanish language television advertising. Using Spanish radio may make the most sense because the message itself can be tailored to reach the Hispanic consumer in the most culturally relevant way, and it allows the advertiser to reach a carefully targeted audience at low cost. 29 The campaign also ran extensive English and Navajo language ads on local radio. The campaign ran only one ad on Spanish television, and it was subtitled, not dubbed. 30

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Table 9.3 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Mexico Senate Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Tom Udall for Congress $1,763,750 $22,353 $1,786,103   Interest groups   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund $273,655 $4,110 $277,765   Environmental Defense Fund $35,385 — $35,385    Center for Civic Policy — $5,400 $5,400   Patriot Majority West — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates   Steve Pearce for Congress $1,418,505 $233 $1,418,738   Interest groups   National Association of Realtors $214,460 — $214,460   American Energy Alliance $108,420 $108,420    Born Alive Truth $11,588 — $11,588    Freedom’s Watch $10,960 $10,960   National Pro-Life Alliance $2,200 — $2,200   American Future Fund $1,332 $1,332    U.S. Chamber of Commerce — — —    Club for Growth — — — Nonpartisan Interest groups   American Society of Anesthesiologists — $1,191 $1,191

CMAG TV

$1,680,882 $65,530 — — $205,968

$616,395 — — — — — — $143,575 $115,475

—

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 9.2. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Pearce released two television ads in Spanish, one on October 14 and one on October 17. Both were positive ads. The first touted Pearce’s commitment to improving the economy, lowering gas prices, and making health insurance accessible to everyone. The second emphasized Pearce’s New Mexican roots, military

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  257

service, and conservative ideals. In both cases, Pearce approved the message in his own voice, speaking in Spanish. Organizationally, the Udall campaign had the resources to run an extensive statewide campaign. They had eleven offices, including one in Roswell, which is a heavily Republican area. They also ran television commercials outside the Albuquerque media market in both Amarillo and El Paso, Texas, which border New Mexico. These ads focused on local and constituency service issues.31

Interest Group Electioneering Interest groups were involved on both sides of the campaigns in New Mexico. Five organizations, mostly Section 501(c)(4) groups, engaged in independent expenditure campaigns against Udall. Their ads portrayed Udall as anti-nuclear, as anti–energy independence, and as an extreme environmentalist. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran a $283,779 television ad in Albuquerque and El Paso that attacked Udall for his congressional votes against expanding domestic energy exploration and refinery capacity.32 The Chamber also produced a pro-Pearce mailer that focused on health care and Pearce’s positions on health care legislation. Club for Growth, an anti-tax group, endorsed Pearce over Wilson during the primary campaign, spending approximately $11,500, and continued their support for Pearce into the general election. Strictly anti-Udall, their $157,205 general election ad discussed offshore oil drilling, private property and eminent domain, and the “death tax.” Another conservative, “free market” group, 33 American Future Fund, had a very small ad buy ($1,332) on cable that lasted about seven days in late August and focused on gas prices. Two additional independent anti-Udall expenditures were radio ads that focused on energy issues. The American Energy Alliance produced a single ad that ran across the state from late July to September 1, costing $108,420. Finally, Freedom’s Watch spent $10,960 on a small buy that lasted about fourteen days in early and mid-August. A few groups engaged in campaigning on behalf of Pearce. For example, the National Pro-Life Alliance sent a letter to its supporters detailing Pearce’s prolife record and attacking Udall’s record on abortion, and the same group aired a television ad attacking Udall and Obama for their stance on abortion. Although the Susan B. Anthony List focused most of its mail campaign on pieces attacking Obama, they did send out one mailer attacking both Obama and Udall, and encouraged people to “Vote for a team that values Life.” Finally, the National Rifle Association (NRA) sent a pro-Pearce and anti-Obama message on Election Day, printing their ad on the plastic wrapper that covers the Albuquerque Journal. On the Democratic side, progressive interest groups are organized within the America Votes coalition with the goal of increasing the registration and turnout of progressive voters.34 A part of New Mexico politics since 2004, America Votes has grown under the leadership of executive director Jennifer Ford. America Votes provides a shared voter file to partners who coordinate activities so that mobilization efforts are not duplicated and so that voters receive the contact from the group that is most likely to persuade and mobilize the voter. 35 Martin Frost of America Votes spoke of the coordination strategy: “We did something very interesting: Post-convention we started directing a lot of contributions from some of our donors into individual states. We decided to

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completely fund four small states [including New Mexico] first.”36 Several members of America Votes engaged in television and mail campaigns on behalf of Udall. The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, mentioned earlier, became the lead environmental group working against Pearce and for Udall. 37 According to FEC records, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund spent just over $280,000 in independent expenditures against Pearce during the general election. 38 To avoid duplicating efforts, their participation in the race was coordinated with the League of Conservation Voters, who played a relatively minor role in the Udall race, producing only two mailers—one supporting Udall and Obama, and another attacking McCain and Pearce. 39 The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund produced two television ads during the primary campaign attacking both Pearce and Wilson as “two bad for New Mexico.” After Pearce won the primary, they continued with three additional ads, including a thirty-second ad that ran in June and called Pearce “wrong for New Mexico,” another thirty-second ad that ran in July and questioned Pearce’s commitment to clean energy, and a sixtysecond ad that ran in September and attacked Pearce for questionable practices regarding the sale of his oil company. According to Ed Yoon, New Mexico/ Colorado campaign manager for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, about half of the more than $600,000 that they spent on the Senate race was against both Steve Pearce and Heather Wilson, mostly in ads but also including a voter contact program that involved knocking on more than 50,000 doors for the Senate race alone. Yoon noted that “while Udall was popular, we wanted to make sure that whoever came out of the GOP primary—Pearce or Wilson—would be heavily damaged with swing and independent voters. At the end of the day, our strategy was to help Udall maintain a strong and steady early lead going into the general election against a bruised opponent.”40 The Patriot Majority West (PMW) political action committee (PAC) produced a television ad attacking Pearce that was released in late July. In this ad, PMW criticized Pearce and Bush for opposing “American-made renewable energy” and for giving “oil companies billions in special tax breaks.” The American Society of Anesthesiologists supported Udall with a $75,000 independent expenditure, some of which went to their radio ad buy. Their message focused primarily on Udall’s support for health care reform and improved access to health coverage. In the end, Udall’s many advantages figured into a 61 percent to 39 percent victory over Pearce. It is worth noting that Udall outperformed Democratic presidential nominee Obama by four points in New Mexico (61 percent to 57 percent), while Pearce underperformed GOP presidential nominee McCain by three points (42 percent to 39 percent). Since Udall outperformed Obama and McCain outperformed Pearce, it is safe to assume that some voters split their ticket, casting their vote for Udall on one hand and McCain on the other.

The Presidential Race The General Election: Money, Interest Groups, and Strategy With presidential elections hinging on the outcomes of only a few competitive states, New Mexico’s five electoral votes have been an important strategic consideration over the last several federal elections. The New Mexico 2008

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  259

presidential campaign began on March 28, 2008, when the presumptive GOP nominee John McCain aired his first ad in the state. It was a positive ad that depicted McCain as a brave man willing to continue and win the war in Iraq. In the summer, however, high gas prices, hovering somewhere around $4.00 per gallon in New Mexico, prompted John McCain’s campaign to advertise his support for domestic oil drilling and blame Obama and the Democrats for high fuel costs. Obama began his general election ad campaign in New Mexico much later than McCain, running his first television ad in New Mexico and other competitive states on June 20, 2008. He also visited New Mexico in June. Throughout the campaign, Obama ran forty-five different television ads, compared with McCain’s thirty-six. Obama began with an ad that talked about his work ethic and strong “American” values, his single mother, his interest in taking care of others, and his love of country. Obama appeared in the ad sans tie, in soft lighting, presenting himself as a down-to-earth fellow—clearly in contrast to the power-tie-wearing politician depicted in McCain’s ads, backed with patriotic music and themes of strength. Throughout the summer, Obama’s ads continued to carry positive messages of hope and the American Dream; however, as McCain began to run attack ads, primarily based on the economy, taxes, and high energy costs, Obama’s campaign responded with negative ads of their own. For example, after vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin started referring to herself and McCain as “mavericks,” Obama’s ads portrayed McCain’s voting record as highly supportive of George W. Bush’s policies and the Republican Party in general. With Bush’s support extremely low, even among Republicans,41 these ties between McCain and Bush most likely hurt the campaign. By the end of the general election cycle, Obama exceeded $3.3 million in spending in New Mexico media outlets, outspending McCain by almost $500,000. Although Obama ran his own campaign, McCain had assistance from the GOPNM and the Republican National Committee. Combined, the party entities spent $408,000 in support of McCain. An example of this spending is the large number of unique mail pieces sent by Republican Party committees to support McCain. The GOP sent fifty unique mailers, compared with forty-five sent by Democratic Party committees on behalf of Obama (Table 9.4). One area where McCain exceeded Obama in media spending in New Mexico was in interest group support. Interest groups spent approximately $1.1 million in New Mexico on television and radio ads supporting McCain, while Democratic supporters spent only about $915,000. Freedom’s Watch alone spent $889,000 on television ads for McCain. There were, however, a wider array of groups supporting Obama, and these groups were more active in sending mail on Obama’s behalf than were the groups supporting McCain. Obama’s campaign clearly excelled in mobilization efforts in one area that the McCain campaign did not even touch: reaching out to young, educated voters through e-mail and text messages. Using cell phone numbers provided on my.BarackObama.com, the campaign sent messages almost daily throughout the summer, recruiting people to volunteer, notifying voters of rallies, giving updates on poll numbers, and of course, soliciting donations. On Election Day, the Obama campaign sent hourly updates about the number of hours left to vote, encouraging supporters to take a friend to the polls, and providing election

Table 9.4 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, Presidential Race Activity in New Mexico, 2007–2008 News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates    Obama for America   Political parties   Democratic Party of New Mexico   DNC   DSCC   DCCC   Interest groups   AFL-CIO   American Federation of Teachers   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund   American Hunters and Shooters     Association   NARAL Pro-Choice America   SEIU    United Auto Workers   VoteVets.org   AFSCME   Association of Community      Organizations for Reform Now   EMILY’s List   League of Conservation Voters     Action Fund   National Nurses Organizing Committee    United Steel Workers    Women’s Voices, Women Vote     Action Fund    Council for a Livable World Veterans’     Alliance for Security and Democracy   Defend America   Democrats for America’s Future   MoveOn.org   NAACP   Rock the Vote   Sierra Club Republican alliesb   Candidates   McCain for President   Political parties   Republican Party of New Mexico   RNC   Interest groups   Susan B. Anthony List   National Right to Life PAC

5

—

—

15

8

45

73

35 7 2 1

— — — —

5 — — —

19 — — —

2 — — —

— — — —

61 7 2 1

8 5 5

— — —

1 — —

1 — —

— 1 —

— — —

10 6 5

4 4 4 3 2 —

— — — — — —

— — — — — —

— — — — — —

— — — — 1 —

— — — — — 2

4 4 4 3 3 2

2 2

— —

— —

— —

— —

— —

2 2

2 2 1

— — 1

— — —

— — —

— — —

— — —

2 2 2

2

—

—

—

—

—

2

— — 1 — 1 1 —

— — — — — — —

— — — — — — —

— — — 1 — — 1

— — — — — — —

1 1 — — — — —

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

4

—

—

12

—

36

52

42 15

— —

— —

10 9

— —

— 1

52 25

3 2

— —

— —

4 2

— 1

— —

7 5

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  261

Table 9.4  Continued News- Tele- Total paper/ Personal phone Unique Type and Organizationa Mail Magazine Contact Call Radio TV Ads Republican alliesb (continued)   Interest groups (continued)   NRA Political Victory Fund   AIC 2008 RES   American Group   Let Freedom Ring   National Poller 2008   National Pro-Life Alliance   Priests for Life   National Republican Trust PAC

1 — — — — — 1 —

— — — — — — — —

— — — — — — — —

1 1 1 — 1 — — —

2 — — — — — — —

— — — 1 — 1 — 1

4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Nonpartisan   Interest groups    Common Cause   Native American Voters Alliance   New Mexico Youth Organized   Southwest Organizing Project

1 1 1 1

— — — —

— — — —

— — — —

— — — —

— — — —

1 1 1 1

Other   Candidates    Barr 2008 Presidential Committee 1 — — — — —   Interest groups   Libertarian National Committee 1 — — — — —

1 1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 9.6. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America, a community affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and New Mexico Federation of Labor AFL-CIO have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

results as the polls closed across the country. In this arena, McCain’s campaign was nonexistent, clearly a sign of a divide between the traditional tactics of the Republican Party and the new campaign style of the Democratic Party. Both Obama and McCain were hoping to do well among New Mexico’s Hispanics. However, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe explained, “New Mexico was strongly trending Democratic, and even though it neighbored McCain’s home state of Arizona, we saw no sign that he would have outsized appeal to the Hispanic voters that made up a hefty percentage of New Mexico’s electorate.”42 Some in the state suggested that racial tensions between Hispanics

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and blacks might push some Hispanic voters away from Obama. This possibility received an enormous amount of media attention after Bernalillo GOP County Chair Fernando C de Baca told a reporter, “The truth is that Hispanics came here as conquerors. African Americans came here as slaves. Hispanics consider themselves above blacks. They won’t vote for a black president.”43 Ultimately, C de Baca resigned because of his remarks. Because many Hispanics in New Mexico are Catholic and pro-life, abortion can be an important issue for Democratic candidates. For example, in 2004, in many predominantly Hispanic and Democratic precincts, there appeared to be a relatively large undervote for the presidential contest—voters submitted ballots without indicating their choice for either George Bush or John Kerry. National election observers attributed the undervote to technology problems in minority precincts, but local residents attributed the high rate of undervoting to the many Catholic priests in these communities who actively came out against Kerry, also a Catholic, for his pro-choice position. One group that was quite active in bringing the pro-life issue to the forefront in New Mexico was the Susan B. Anthony List. They focused their message on registered Republicans through mailings and telephone calls, but ran some ads through the media as well.44 With messages that were more anti-Obama than pro-McCain,45 the National Right to Life PAC, Priests for Life, BornAliveTruth. org, and the National Pro-Life Alliance ran television and radio ads and made robocalls in New Mexico as well. One unknown group handed out prayer cards at mass in central New Mexico just before Election Day with a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe behind John McCain on one side of the card and a prayer for John McCain in both English and Spanish on the other side. During early voting, a truck, roamed the northern New Mexico communities of Santa Fe and Espanola with a large poster hanging from it that said “Obama Healthcare” and featured a picture of an aborted fetus and the words “your taxes at work.” By comparison, traditional issue interest groups made a very limited effort in New Mexico. The NRA, for example, ran only two radio ads, sent out one mailer, and made one telephone call during the general election. It was against this backdrop that Obama made efforts to reach out to local Hispanic voters and visited several key Hispanic communities, including Las Cruces in Doña Ana County, which is 65 percent Hispanic.46 (See Table 9.5 for an overview of candidate visits to the state.) Interestingly, McCain also made visits to Doña Ana County. In 2004, Bush campaigned heavily in this area, substantially narrowing the gap between the Democratic and Republican vote. Some of the 2004 vote had to come from rural and more ideologically conservative Hispanics, and McCain’s visits were no doubt trying to tap into that community. Allied groups assisted McCain in this mobilization effort through independent expenditure campaigns. One group, McCain Hispanic Support, spent more than $126,480 on Spanish language radio ads, mostly in the two top-rated Spanish language radio stations in Albuquerque (as listed in Table 9.6)—the highest amount of money spent on radio ads by any group supporting McCain, and even more than the campaign itself spent on radio ads. An interest group called Mex­ icans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT.org) also supported McCain on television, spending $20,000 on Spanish language ads targeting Mexican Americans. McCain also ran several commercials on Spanish television. Many

Table 9.5  Candidate Visits to New Mexico, 2000, 2004, and 2008 Demo- Demo- Demo- cratic GOP cratic GOP cratic GOP Ticket Ticket Ticket Ticket Ticket Ticket County 2000 2000 2004 2004 2008 2008

Total Demo- Total cratic GOP Regis- Registration tration

Bernalillo Santa Fe Doña Ana Sandoval San Juan Valencia McKinley Chaves Otero Lea Rio Arriba San Miguel Total

188,009 61,603 53,626 36,968 24,562 20,253 24,345 12,527 11,579 55,511 20,508 15,801 525,313

7 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9

3 0 2 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 8

4 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 10

4 0 1 1 2 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 12

5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 9

6 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 10

127,721 16,590 30,937 28,006 29,097 13,316 6,390 15,960 15,057 10,223 2,806 2,925 376,838

Source: Data compiled by the authors from newspaper sources. Note: Data are presented in descending order by total number of registered Democrats.

Table 9.6 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, Presidential Race Activity in New Mexico, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates    Obama for America $3,224,705 $152,342 $3,377,047   Interest groups   AFSCME $185,260 $11,540 $196,800   SEIU $181,690 $1,961 $183,651   Power PAC $22,300 — $22,300   Defend America $21,625 — $21,625   New Democratic Network — $10,325 $10,325   Political 2008 — $5,710 $5,710   Vote Vets Action Fund — $2,970 $2,970   Planned Parenthood $2,725 — $2,725    United Food and Commercial Workers — $1,801 $1,801   MoveOn.org — — — Republican alliesa   Candidates   McCain for President $2,846,690 $1,465 $2,848,155   McCain Hispanic Support — $126,480 $126,480   Political parties   RNC $212,330 — $212,330   RNC/McCain — $21,305 $21,305

CMAG TV

$3,220,214 $150,068 $161,521 $79,880 — — — — $3,322 — $19,024

$3,088,367 — $175,333 —

(continued on next page)

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Table 9.6  Continued Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

CMAG TV

alliesa

Republican (continued)   Interest groups    Freedom’s Watch $889,440 — $889,440    Born Alive Truth $75,615 — $75,615    U.S. Chamber of Commerce $53,360 — $53,360   Vets for Freedom $33,210 — $33,210   MATT.org $20,105 — $20,105   NRA Political Victory Fund — $5,340 $5,340   National Pro-Life Alliance $4,600 $4,600   Susan B. Anthony PAC — $3,531 $3,531   Latinos for Reform — — —

— $60,841 — $197,724 — — $710 — $5,974

Nonpartisan Interest groups $132,550 — $132,550   AARP   Strong American Schools — — —    ONE Campaign — — —

$213,730 $173,215 $696

Other   Candidates   Ron Paul for President — $5,780 $5,780

—

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 9.4. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

focused on trade agreements with Mexico and South America, “creating jobs for our neighbors down South,” and attacking Obama’s stance on immigration reform. Obama, on the other hand, ran very few radio ads and only two Spanish language television ads in New Mexico, primarily emphasizing how McCain was out of touch with what “hard-working” Americans were going through in the tough economic times. In terms of media spending and mobilizing through advertising, McCain was much more organized when it came to reaching His-

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  265

panics in New Mexico. However, Obama’s ground game ultimately may have been more productive. Brian Wolff of the DCCC commented on the result of the “Hispanic leaders [who] got out there in a big way” and the “Hispanic surrogates” used by the Obama campaign (and by the DCCC in the First Congressional District) to contact voters: “About four weeks from the election, you saw that the Hispanic community really just [stood] lockstep with Barack Obama. . . . ​[ T]hey just came out in huge numbers.”47 Organizationally, both McCain and Obama were very active in the state. McCain had at least ten offices throughout New Mexico, a new record for the GOP, but Obama managed to have thirty-eight—many more than Kerry had in 2004.48 These offices allowed Obama’s campaign access to supporters and the ability to enlist large numbers of paid and volunteer workers in voter registration and voter mobilization drives. The two main vehicles in the state for voter registration were likely the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and the Obama for Change campaign. According to DPNM executive director Josh Geise, the party was not active in voter registration.49 In contrast, in 2004, the state saw tremendous voter registration drives by progressive groups, the parties, and the candidates. The gains at that time in voter registration numbers were huge, with the state voter roll surging by 17 percent, or an additional 163,000 voters. 50 In 2008, this process continued; however, the overall gains were much smaller. The statewide gain was only 7 percent, or about 80,000 new voters (Tables 9.7 and 9.8). These new voters were largely in areas where Democratic registration was generally high. If we look at changes over time, we find that 2008 was a bad year for the GOP, with a 1 percent decrease in overall statewide party registration. Democrats managed to maintain their status of having 50 percent of identified voters statewide. An increase in the number of Independents suggests one reason why New Mexico continues to oscillate between red and blue and hints that continued voter volatility will be the norm in New Mexico. Beyond registering voters, Obama’s organization was strong in mobilizing them. The Obama for Change campaign invested heavily in the statewide voter file, scoring each voter’s probability of voting for Obama. This information allowed Obama to create a persuasive message, focusing on turnout of infrequent voters and new registrants. His strategy was “community or neighborhood based, more than constituency based,” according to DPNM executive director Josh Geise. 51 This fit well with Obama’s background in community organizing and, in conjunction with large numbers of field offices and paid and unpaid workers, was very effective. The DPNM also worked hard on identifying potential voters and on getout-the-vote (GOTV) efforts statewide. Overall, the Democratic Party spent $1.7 million on GOTV efforts, focusing on infrequent voters. Their canvassing efforts began in early spring and were very productive in identifying targets and beginning the push for absentee voting and, later, early voting. 52 The Party coordinated expenditures that funded thousands of robocalls from Democratic leaders such as Governor Richardson and former president Bill Clinton, and supported ten telephone banks in Albuquerque, which made tens of thousands of personal telephone contacts. Following the national strategy, as developed by Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, DPNM provided a

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Table 9.7 Changes in Voter Registration by County, 2000–2008 County Bernalillo Doña Ana Santa Fe Sandoval San Juan Valencia McKinley Chaves Otero Lea Eddy Rio Arriba Taos Curry Grant San Miguel Cibola Lincoln Los Alamos Socorro Luna Roosevelt Torrance Colfax Sierra Quay Mora Guadalupe Catron Hidalgo Union De Baca Harding Total

Voter Registration 2000

Voter Registration 2004

Voter Registration 2008

Percent Change 2000 to 2004

300,794 78,658 73,685 46,186 54,614 31,719 30,759 31,637 26,573 26,473 27,843 21,934 17,809 19,937 18,785 17,585 12,897 12,609 13,111 10,548 10,249 10,078 8,241 8,455 7,398 6,218 3,957 3,444 2,635 3,254 2,400 1,517 807 942,809

356,536 94,345 94,634 63,951 63,340 37,398 34,934 33,520 31,052 29,333 27,926 24,839 23,080 21,554 21,100 21,081 14,270 14,100 13,633 12,445 11,085 11,071 9,503 8,549 7,258 6,198 4,413 3,821 2,766 2,968 2,523 1,462 785 1,105,373

393,061 108,615 96,990 79,220 58,001 40,538 37,837 34,447 32,658 28,880 27,900 25,629 24,365 22,272 22,233 21,659 15,475 13,768 13,194 12,545 12,342 10,434 9,616 9,213 7,694 6,126 4,069 3,557 2,914 2,880 2,434 1,467 778 1,183,081

31 38 32 72 6 28 23 9 23 10 0 17 37 12 18 23 20 9 1 8 20 4 17 9 8 −1 3 3 11 −11 1 −3 −4 17

Percent Change 2004 to 2008 10 15 2 24 −8 8 8 3 5 −2 0 3 6 3 5 3 8 –2 −3 0 11 6 1 8 10 −1 −8 −4 5 −3 −4 0 −1 7

Source: Data compiled by the authors from historical voter registration data from the New Mexico Secretary of State. Note: Counties are listed in descending order based on number of registered voters in 2008.

voter file, Catalist, to candidates for a fee, which was then used to finance Democratic Party activities. This provided a powerful tool for contacting voters and provided needed information about voters to state and local candidates. Interest groups also played an important role in the mobilization campaign, although on the Democratic side, these groups focused more heavily on other ballot contests, given the large resources available to the Obama for Change campaign. Left-leaning interest groups, organized within the America Votes

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  267

Table 9.8 New Mexico Statewide Election Statistics 2000, 2004, and 2008

Registered voters Turnout Turnout rate of registered voters Absentee voting Early voting Election Day Voting age population (VAP) Turnout rate of VAP Voting eligible population (VEP) Turnout rate of VEP

2000

2004

2008

973,533 615,607 63.2% 18% 13% 69% 1,318,425 46.7%

1,105,372 775,301 70.1% 20% 31% 49%

1,185,439 833,365 70.3% 20%

1,234,088 49.9%

1,404,259 55.2% 1,282,767 60.4%

42% 38% 1,485,995 56.1% 1,376,025 60.5%

Sources: Data compiled by the authors from election statistics from New Mexico Secretary of State and VAP and VEP figures from Michael McDonald’s Web site (see http://elections.gmu.edu).

coalition, followed a general plan of reaching voters in persuadable precincts and getting these voters to either return their absentee ballots or vote early. According to their own database, America Votes partners made a minimum of more than three million voter contacts. These included 896,078 door knocks, 1,025,215 telephone calls, and 1,380,227 mail pieces. An initial problem that America Votes and its partners faced was that the Obama campaign was steering wealthy Democratic voters away from Section 527 groups. By early summer, Fund for America money had dried up. 53 Late in the summer, Obama gave donors the cue to make donations to Section 527 groups, allowing them to take the lead—especially with negative messages. 54 America Votes members used a variety of messages to mobilize voters to vote early. These included “we’ll stop bugging you,” “avoid the lines,” and “convenient, safe, and effective.” Among the groups that were most active in campaigning for Obama were unions. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) were all vocal in their attacks on the Republicans and their support for Obama. They primarily focused their attacks on the loss of American jobs, the poor state of the national economy, and the Republicans’ lack of response. Additional attack ads on issues, such as health care, the environment and energy, and the war in Iraq, came from groups such as the Campaign to Defend America and the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund. The Campaign to Defend America ads referred to McCain as “McSame” as Bush and promised a third Bush term if McCain were elected. Through advertisements and mailings with these messages, the Democratic allies used negative attack ads without the Democratic candidate himself having to seem too nasty. Groups allied with the GOP were also engaged in largely negative campaigns. Among these, the group Freedom’s Watch stretched their ad dollars by running several ads with the Democratic presidential candidate and the state’s Democratic congressional candidates side by side, showing how their positions on issues such as higher taxes would hurt America. In New Mexico, the candidate most often paired with Obama was Martin Heinrich, who was running for

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New Mexico’s First Congressional District. Most of the attack ads were focused on corruption and corrupt politicians. Obama, for example, was linked to the Tony Rezko scandal. Both parties have increasingly relied on mobilizing voters to vote early over absentee voting or voting on Election Day. Both early voting modes theoretically allow candidates, parties, and interest groups to track voter activity by collecting this information from the County Clerks. Early voting provides the best vehicle because the vote history is captured immediately. Absentee voting, of course, relies on the postal service and therefore creates a time delay for monitoring voter activities. In our own statewide poll, we found that these GOTV efforts really paid off, especially for Obama and the Democrats (Table 9.9). Voters who identified themselves as Democrats indicated that they were more likely to be encouraged to vote absentee and early than Independents or Republicans. When all voting modes were considered, the Democrats were overall more likely to be encouraged to vote than either Independents or Republicans. This success was also visible in the volume of voters voting early in the state, which was the modal voting mode for the first time, and this volume increased dramatically over 2004. More than two in five voters (42 percent) chose to vote early, slightly more than one in five (21 percent) of voters chose to vote absentee, and just under two in five (38 percent) of voters chose to vote on Election Day. In 2004, the Democratic presidential strategy was to mobilize Democratic voters in urban areas. In 2004, this strategy did not work because, although the Democratic candidate won the urban areas of the state, the GOP was able to make up those gains in the rural parts of the state. In 2008, however, this same strategy was successful because urban voters overwhelmingly supported Obama and rural voters underwhelmingly supported McCain, compared with their 2004 support for Kerry and Bush, respectively. 55 For example, in Bernalillo County, the difference in vote totals between the Democratic and Republican candidates was 10,798 in 2004, but it was 61,035 in 2008. In Santa Fe County, the increase was about 11,000 votes, from 28,608 in 2004 to 39,760 in 2008. In Doña Ana County, the difference went from a very close 2,214 votes in 2004 to a substantial difference of 12,214 votes in 2008. Even in Republican strongholds, the difference in votes was much smaller than before. For example, in Republican San Juan County, a vote difference of 14,682 favoring Bush was seen in 2004, but this difference was only 9,841 in 2008. In Los Alamos County, where non–major party registration made up Table 9.9 People Encouraged to Vote across Different Voting Modes, by Party Identification, New Mexico, 2008 Encouraged to vote absentee Encouraged to vote early Encouraged to vote    on Election Day Encouraged to vote    by any voting modes

Democrats Independents (%) (%)

Republicans (%)

Total (%)

28 69

22 46

23 47

25 56

26

33

34

30

79

62

63

68

Source: Data compiled from the authors’ 2008 New Mexico Election Mixed Mode Election Administration Survey.

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  269

22 percent of voters, there was a reversal from a small GOP lead in 2004 (694 votes) to a small Democratic lead in 2008 (760 votes). Especially in the largest areas of the state, changes in electoral outcomes—likely due to Independent voters—led to a big Obama victory and McCain defeat.

The First Congressional District Race New Mexico’s First Congressional District was created in 1968, splitting the single district that had represented New Mexico for fifty-six years. Located in the center of the state, the First Congressional District is home to New Mexico’s most populated county, Bernalillo, and city, Albuquerque. It is an ethnically diverse district, almost evenly divided between white and Hispanic populations (48.6 percent and 42.6 percent, respectively). 56 Its registration numbers in 2008 were 48 percent Democratic and 33 percent Republican, and 16 percent of voters declined to state their party preference. Mostly urban and suburban, the First Congressional District is home to thousands of moderate and Independent voters who cross party lines, in the words of reporter Mark Barabak, as “casually as they commute across the winding river.”57 Despite party registration numbers that favored Democrats, the district typically sent fiscally conservative, defense-oriented, moderate Republicans to Congress. Representative Heather Wilson, introduced earlier, was one of those Republicans. When Wilson opted to run for the Senate instead of the House in 2008, Democrats in the First Congressional District believed that they could break the Republican streak. First, national conditions were in the Democrats’ favor. Second, House Democrats (through the DCCC) had a huge financial advantage over House Republicans (see Chapters 2 and 3). Third, the number of First Congressional District voters registered as Democrats was climbing. Consistent with the national trends reported by the Center for Democracy and Election Management, 58 Democrats’ registration advantage in Bernalillo County—representing approximately 90 percent of First Congressional District voters—increased to 60,288 voters in 2008, compared with 39,621 in 2004. 59

The Candidates After Representative Wilson declined to run as an incumbent, the First Congressional District race featured two quality candidates: Democrat Martin Heinrich, a former Albuquerque city council president, and Republican Darren White, Bernalillo County sheriff. The contest was quickly dubbed a “race to watch” and a “hot seat” by, among others, Time magazine, Congressional Quarterly Politics, and the National Journal.60 In September, Brian Walsh of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) predicted a fight: Darren White is a great candidate. . . . They’re going to try to pin him with the Bush stuff, but . . . he’s well positioned to kind of run as that outsider candidate. . . . Martin Heinrich is a liberal environmentalist who’s never held a real job, and they’re going to ping him for it, and it’s just going to be a battle.61

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Heinrich would have disputed Walsh’s characterization. He had spent five years as head of a nonprofit foundation that sponsors educational wilderness expeditions for youth. He also ran a one-man public affairs consulting firm and worked with environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. Heinrich’s work on the environment—including his efforts to establish the federal Ojito Wilderness just outside Albuquerque—earned him the position of New Mexico’s Natural Resources Trustee in 2006. Appointed by Governor Bill Richardson, he stepped down from the position in 2007, when he decided to run for the congressional seat. Only five days after Wilson said that she would run for Domenici’s seat, two-term Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White announced his intent to succeed Wilson. His announcement emphasized his integrity and his record of independence from the Republican Party—a clear sign that he was sensitive to the Democratic leanings of the district and was positioning himself as a moderate.62 Long seen as a rising GOP star, White was a U.S. Army veteran, former Albuquerque police officer, and one-time secretary of New Mexico’s Department of Public Safety under Governor Gary Johnson. Being a sheriff was certainly a plus: White had no voting record for opponents to attack. “Sheriffs are great finds when you can find them,” admitted one liberal political advisor.63 However, White had a major vulnerability: In 2004, he served as county chairman of President George W. Bush’s reelection effort. Not surprisingly, this alliance with the unpopular president became a central target for the Heinrich campaign and interest groups during the general election. Neither party’s primary was particularly interesting or hostile, even if somewhat competitive. White, however, appeared to be in the stronger position at the start of the general election campaign. White’s name identification registered higher than Heinrich’s because, as Bernalillo County Sheriff, he represented 90 percent of the district’s voters. A July 24 Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll showed White’s name recognition at 78 percent versus Heinrich’s at 65 percent.64 At that point, Heinrich was still mostly a regional candidate with greater name recognition in the area of town that he represented in the city council. Second, early polls showed White ahead of Heinrich, even with the unfavorable political climate for Republicans. The POS poll showed White holding a lead of 47 percent to 41 percent, despite not having run a single television ad.65 Third, after the primary, White had almost twice as much cash on hand as Heinrich. As of June 30, White had $634,307.16, while Heinrich had only $354,165.01. Coming out of the primary, then, White appeared well positioned to maintain the Republicans’ dominance of New Mexico’s First Congressional District.

The General Election: Money, Parties, and Strategy Together, the two candidates spent roughly $4.3 million on the congressional race, according to reports by the FEC. Compared with the hotly contested 2006 race between incumbent Heather Wilson and Democratic challenger Patricia Madrid—in which Wilson and Madrid combined spent nearly $8 million in roughly equal proportions—the amount of money spent by First Congressional District candidates in 2008 dropped by nearly half.66 Martin Heinrich, however, amassed a huge resource advantage, outspending his opponent Darren

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  271

White by more than $600,000 in the election cycle; during the general election alone, Heinrich spent $1.8 million compared with White’s $1.2 million. Table 9.1 provides an initial breakdown of each candidate’s sources of funding. Both candidates received roughly 70 percent of their contributions from individual donors ($1,837,601 for Heinrich and $1,223,871 for White). A little more than 65 percent of individual contributions to Heinrich came from within Albuquerque, 23 percent came from the Santa Fe area, and the remaining 12 percent came from outside the state. White’s individual donors were much more local, with nearly 90 percent of contributions coming from within Albuquerque, 4 percent from Santa Fe, and 6 percent from out of state.67 Nearly all of the remaining contributions that Heinrich and White received were from PACs, as shown in Table 9.1, making up 25 percent of Heinrich’s contributions and 22 percent of White’s. PAC contributions to Martin Heinrich’s campaign were nearly evenly split between labor (37 percent) and ideological (41 percent) PACs, with the remaining 21 percent coming from business. In contrast, business PACs made up nearly 68 percent of PAC contributions to Darren White, with nearly all of the remaining contributions to White’s campaign coming from ideological PACs.68 In collecting donations, Heinrich benefited from ActBlue, a pro-Democratic, Internet-based PAC that helped facilitate donations to the candidate’s campaign totaling $403,495.69 The greatest difference between the two campaigns was in the level of independent expenditures. More than $3 million was spent in the First Congressional District in independent expenditures, with more than half of this money coming from the DCCC and most of the remaining contributions coming from Democratic allies. In total, $2,583,522 was spent in support of Heinrich (or against White). These figures are $2 million greater than the $555,302 spent by Republican allies in support of White or against Heinrich. The Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico (RCCNM), a PAC of GOPNM, was responsible for $465,000 of this expenditure, while the NRCC, hampered by a national lack of resources, spent just $83,000 in support of the White campaign (a paltry 4 percent of the amount the DCCC spent on Heinrich).70 Most of the RCCNM’s expenditures were used to oppose Martin Heinrich through television ads and mailers. They only spent $704 in party coordinated expenditures on behalf of White.71 By contrast, the DPNM spent $10,364 on party coordinated expenditures for Heinrich and nothing on independent expenditures. The other major groups that had independent expenditures in support of Heinrich included AFSCME ($500,000); the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund ($305,632 in support of Heinrich or against White); National Wildlife Action ($29,963 in support of Heinrich); and the SEIU ($4,365 in support of Heinrich). Besides the state Republican Party and NRCC, the only other group to make independent expenditures in support of White was National Right to Life, spending $7,302.72 Lack of support for White became a much-publicized issue during the campaign. Similar to Pearce’s experience with the NRSC, the NRCC pulled their funding from the First Congressional District race, leading voters to believe that the Republican Party had lost faith in White’s ability to win the election. Indeed, the news of the NRCC’s canceled ads came at an unfortunate time for the White campaign—October 9, less than one week after an Albuquerque Journal poll

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showed White pulling to within two points of Heinrich.73 This statistical dead heat was the closest that White had gotten to Heinrich since the July 24 POS poll showed him up two points on Heinrich. The NRCC pullout appeared to sap whatever momentum the White campaign had created. One month later, Heinrich’s lead had extended to four points.74 As in the Senate race, money raised in the First Congressional District race went to two areas: television ads and mailers. The on-air competition between Martin Heinrich and Darren White did not start until the beginning of September and quickly turned negative. From September to Election Day, twenty-four unique television ads featured this contest,75 and only two were exclusively positive. As can be seen in Table 9.10, more than $4 million was spent in the First Congressional District’s air game. Although the Heinrich and White campaigns spent about the same amount of their campaign’s money on television ads (a little more than $1 million for each campaign), White spent a much larger proportion of his (smaller) war chest on television ads to make up for the lack of independent expenditure ads in his behalf. Nearly 60 percent of White’s expenditures went toward the air game, compared with a little more than 40 percent of Heinrich’s expenditures, leaving Heinrich with more funds for other activities. The major air game advantage for Heinrich came from heavy spending by the DCCC and Democratic allies. Combined, these groups spent an additional $2 million on television ads, making three-fourths of all ads in this race either for Heinrich or against White. Clearly, White and his allies were massively outspent on television, and the NRCC’s canceled ad buys created a huge campaign deficit for White and a huge advantage for Heinrich.76 A number of PACs also aired ads through their independent expenditure campaign that either supported Martin Heinrich or attacked Darren White (see the listing in Table 9.10). AFSCME aired an ad at the end of October linking White to Bush and attacking White for supporting free trade deals that would hurt New Mexico. The PMW PAC aired an ad in late September attacking White’s support for the war in Iraq. Finally, an ad by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund presented a positive message about Heinrich without attacking Bush or White. In this ad, aired in late October, Heinrich was portrayed as a courageous leader who will work “to break our dependence on foreign oil” and will invest “in clean energy like wind and solar, creating thousands of jobs here in New Mexico.” A few groups aired ads in support of White, although all of them were negative ads attacking Heinrich. The GOPNM spent $100,400 on a single ad that ran in mid-October, attacking Heinrich for calling General David Petraeus a traitor and for promising “to block funding for body armor, bullets, and other critical equipment for our combat troops unless they’re pulled from Iraq.” Freedom’s Watch spent $1,036,710 (see Table 9.10)—more than White’s campaign spent on television ads—and ran three negative ads attacking Heinrich’s ethics and his support for higher taxes. They also ran ads on the Web. The direct mail campaign contained many of the same messages included in the air game, but with added emphasis on GOTV efforts. Although there were some interest group mailers in the First Congressional District race (Table 9.11), the two parties had the most aggressive mail campaigns. The Democratic party committees (DPNM and DCCC) sent fifty-two unique mailers, compared with

Table 9.10 The Air Game: Television and Radio Advertising Expenditures, New Mexico First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Type and Organization

TV

Radio

Total $ Spent

Democratic alliesa   Candidates   Martin Heinrich for Congress $1,040,960 — $1,040,960   Political parties   DCCC $922,695 — $922,695   Interest groups   AFSCME $545,685 — $545,685   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund $273,655 $9,375 $283,030   Patriot Majority $155,275 — $155,275   SEIU $57,450 — $57,450   Environmental Defense Fund $21,880 — $21,880    Center for Civic Policy — $5,400 $5,400 Republican alliesa   Candidates   Darren White for Congress $1,022,905 $1,045 $1,023,950   Political parties   Republican Party of New Mexico $100,400 $6,790 $107,190   NRCC $32,500 — $32,500   NRCC/Darren White — — — Interest groups    Freedom’s Watch $1,036,710 — $1,036,710   MATT.org $56,800 — $56,800    Club for Growth $36,780 — $36,780   National Association of Realtors $21,590 — $21,590    U.S. Chamber of Commerce — $19,040 $19,040   Associated Builders and Contractors — $8,265 $8,265

CMAG TV

$892,165 $704,313 $130,029 $35,851 $79,173 — — —

$584,767 $93,914 — $86,609 $275,294 — — — — —

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008); and Campaign Media Analysis Group data. Note: The ad buy data collected for this study may contain extraneous data because of the difficulty in determining the content of the ads. The parties or interest groups that purchased the ad buys possibly ran some ads promoting House, Senatorial, or presidential candidates or ballot propositions not in the study’s sample but still within that media market. Unless the participating academics were able to determine the exact content of the ad buy from the limited information given by the station, the data may contain observations that do not pertain to the study’s relevant House, Senate, or presidential battleground races. For comparison purposes, the Campaign Media Analysis Group data are included in the table. Because of the sheer volume of television and radio stations and varying degrees of compliance in providing ad buy information, data on spending by various groups might be incomplete. These data do not include every station in the state. This table is not intended to represent comprehensive organizational spending or activity within the sample races. Television ads purchased from national cable stations that aired in this state are not reflected in this table. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 9.11. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a Certain organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

274  /  Rocca, Atkeson, Kerevel, and Bryant

Table 9.11 Number of Unique Campaign Communications by Organization, New Mexico First Congressional District Race, 2007–2008 Total Personal Telephone Unique Type and Organizationa Mail Contact Call Radio TV Ads Democratic alliesb   Candidates   Martin Heinrich for Congress 1   Political parties   Democratic Party of New Mexico 21   DCCC 13   Interest groups   AFL-CIO 14   Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund 4   National Wildlife Federation     Action Fund 4   AFSCME —   American Federation of Teachers 1   Democrats for America’s Future 1   EMILY’s List 1   NAACP 1   Patriot Majority —   SEIU 1   Sierra Club Republican alliesb   Candidates   Darren White for Congress   Political parties   Republican Party of New Mexico   NRCC   RNC   Interest groups    Freedom’s Watch    U.S. Chamber of Commerce   National Right to Life PAC

1

—

—

8

10

4 —

8 —

1 —

— 5

34 18

1 —

— —

— 1

— 1

15 6

— — — — — — — — —

— — — — — — — — 1

— — — — — — — — —

— 1 — — — — 1 — —

4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1

—

1

—

7

9

46 — 1

— — —

5 — —

— — —

1 1 —

52 1 1

7 3 2

— — —

1 — 1

— 2 —

3 — —

11 5 3

(continued on next page)

Heinrich’s campaign, which sent ten. Republican party committees sent fiftyfour unique mail pieces, most of them funded by the NRCC. White’s campaign sent nine. The DPNM produced three mailers and one piece of campaign literature specific to Heinrich’s campaign. The remaining pieces of mail produced by the DPNM, as seen in Table 9.11, were more general GOTV materials, such as postcards and flyers encouraging support for Obama, Udall, and Heinrich; door hangers; and campaign literature in support of the entire Democratic ticket. Of the three mailers produced by the DPNM, two were very similar in style. The front side featured a positive message from Heinrich, suggesting, in one mailer, that he will “fight” for “economic policies that help Main Street, not just Wall

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  275

Table 9.11  Continued Total Personal Telephone Unique Type and Organizationa Mail Contact Call Radio TV Ads Nonpartisan   Interest groups   AARP    Common Cause   Native American Voters Alliance   New Mexico Youth Organized   Southwest Organizing Project

1 1 1 1 1

— — — — —

— — — — —

— — — — —

— — — — —

1 1 1 1 1

Source: Data compiled from David B. Magleby, Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2008 Monitoring Campaign Spending and Trends in Electioneering Database (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University, 2008). Note: Data represent the number of unique or distinct pieces or ads by the group and do not represent a count of total items sent or made. This table is not intended to portray comprehensive organizational activity within the sample races. A more complete picture can be obtained by examining this table in conjunction with Table 9.10. Key: The designation “—” reflects only the absence of collected data; it does not imply that the organization was inactive in that medium. a All state and local chapters or affiliates have been combined with their national affiliate to better render a picture of the organization’s activity. For instance, Working America, a community affiliate of American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), and New Mexico Federation of Labor AFL-CIO have been included in the AFL-CIO totals. b Certain

organizations that maintained neutrality were categorized according to which candidates their ads supported or attacked or whether the organization was openly anti- or pro- conservative or liberal.

Street . . . ​a safe and responsible end to the war in Iraq [and] an energy policy that makes us energy independent.” On the flip side, the DPNM linked White to Bush and Bush policies.77 The DCCC had a very active presence in the direct mail campaign, producing thirteen pieces specific to the First Congressional District race, including two different fundraising letters. All eleven of the DCCC’s direct mail persuasion pieces were attacks on White, with messages such as “Darren White sold us George W. Bush’s economic policies.” Five mailers attacked White’s record as sheriff, calling him “inexperienced, immature, a glory hound” and asserting, “The New Mexico State Police Association voted ‘no confidence’ on Darren White.” Several of New Mexico’s progressive groups within the America Votes coalition were very active for Heinrich. One effort that stood out was a direct mail piece by the fifty-six-union conglomerate American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), whose interest in the 2008 election was partly due to the pending Employee Free Choice Act (or “card check,” explained in Chapter 3). Nine of the fourteen direct mail pieces in the district were specifically related to this race. Of the nine direct mail pieces, five were positive messages in support of Heinrich’s positions on health care, jobs, middle-class tax relief, retirement benefits, and improving the economy. The remaining four direct mailers matched Heinrich and White on their support for policies related to employment, health care, and the hot-button “card check” issue for unions. The remaining materials were election guides supporting the entire Democratic ticket, GOTV flyers, and black-and-white flyers that were handed out in person by activists.

276  /  Rocca, Atkeson, Kerevel, and Bryant

The GOPNM produced eighteen pieces of direct mail specific to the First Congressional District race, along with another twenty-eight pieces of general GOTV mailers that did not advocate support for any specific Republican candidates. Eleven of the eighteen mailers were exclusively negative attacks on Heinrich’s ethics and his support for higher taxes. Four focused on local concerns, such as Heinrich’s opposition to road projects on Albuquerque’s Westside and his support for a trolley in his own “trendy neighborhood.” The remaining attack mailers were similar to the television ads produced by the White campaign, suggesting that “weasel” Heinrich “co-founded an organization with a radical felon,” “lobbied illegally,” and “ran an illegal business for three years.” Two additional mailers contrasted White with Heinrich, while five positive mailers focused on White’s leadership qualities and an increase in DWI arrests while White was sheriff. In addition to participating in the air game, Freedom’s Watch also was active in the ground game, producing seven unique direct mail pieces attacking Martin Heinrich. Among other objections, Freedom’s Watch criticized Heinrich’s opposition to requiring voter identification, suggesting that Heinrich is “leaving the door open for illegal immigrants to vote in our elections.” The only other major player in the direct mail campaign for White (with three pieces of mail) was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—interested, like the AFL-CIO, in “card check” legislation, but on the other side. Ground mobilization efforts by America Votes members, especially the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and the SEIU, were also particularly important in the First Congressional District race as the general election campaign heated up. The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund targeted persuadable voters and precincts, as defined by the voter file.78 This group spent approximately $200,000 on the First Congressional District race. Although their usual strategy is to beat up the candidate they do not like, in this case, that approach was more difficult because White’s credentials were so strong. Therefore, canvassers emphasized a positive message for Heinrich—that he was young, energetic and different and part of the change needed in Washington. Working in conjunction with SEIU, forty to fifty paid canvassers knocked on about 180,000 doors during the general election, with about 35,000 of those contacts taking place in the last 72 hours. In the end, Martin Heinrich defeated Darren White by twelve points, 56 percent to 44 percent. It was a remarkable result, considering that an October 30 Albuquerque Journal poll showed him up by only four points. While Heinrich certainly benefited from an edge in spending and a favorable political climate, he was also undoubtedly helped by the extraordinary mobilization efforts of the Obama campaign and the work of America Votes, which played a particularly strong role in the First Congressional District. Brian Wolff, DCCC executive director, reflected, “The sheriff was a good candidate on the Republican side, but I[’ll] tell you what, with Obama winning the Albuquerque area in that district by fourteen, it was really going to be hard with that type of tailwind for any Republican to catch up to Martin Heinrich.”79 Wolff praised the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which—along with the Congressional Black Caucus—“really made a difference in [House] races in helping to keep off those drop-off votes,” when voters begin voting for top-ticket candidates but do not finish the ballot. Given that New Mexico allows voters

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  277

a straight party option, with such a strong Democratic ticket statewide, this choice may have been an easy one for many voters.

Conclusion The federal elections in New Mexico in 2008 were intense, with potentially competitive races in all quarters. GOTV efforts on both sides of the aisle were active, but Democrats and their allies had both more energy and the financial resources to mobilize Democratic voters in numbers unprecedented for nonincumbent candidates. In 2008 the Democratic Party, Obama, and progressive groups helped change the flavor of elections and representation in New Mexico. For the first time since 2000 there were no close races and the Democrats took the state handily. Their largest win was in the U.S. Senate contest, where Udall beat Pearce 61 percent to 39 percent, followed by the presidential contest, with Obama beating McCain 57 percent to 42 percent. Although it was not among the sample races, the Third Congressional District, which had a third-party candidate in the race, saw another Democratic victory, 57 percent to 42 percent. The First and Second Congressional Districts were last, with 56 percent of voters supporting Democrats and 44 percent supporting Republicans. All of these were very comfortable margins for open-seat races, three of which had previously been held by the GOP. The result was that New Mexico’s election outcomes helped increase the overall Democratic numbers in both the House and the Senate. However, given the large number of Independents and crossover voters, New Mexico is likely to continue to be an important and competitive federal election state in future contests.

Notes 1. See Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldrich, and David W. Rohde, “Progressive Ambition Among United States Senators, 1972–1988,” Journal of Politics, 49 (1987), 3–35; Cherie Maestas, “The Incentive to Listen: Progressive Ambition, Resources, and Opinion Monitoring among State Legislators,” Journal of Politics, 65 (2003), 439–456; David W. Rohde, “Risk-Bearing and Progressive Ambition: The Case of Members of the United States House of Representatives,” Ameri­ can Journal of Political Science, 23 (1979), 1–26. 2.  There have been exceptions: In the very close election of 1976, New Mexico failed to predict Jimmy Carter’s win, and in 2000, Vice President Al Gore received 300 more votes than did his competitor, George W. Bush. 3. New Mexico Secretary of State, “New Mexico Voter Registration Statistics by District,” available at http://www.sos.state.nm.us/pdf/CONG1103.pdf (accessed January 15, 2009). 4.  This is based on an examination of the voter file using Hispanic surnames to identify Hispanic voters by Lonna Atkeson. See David L. Word and R. Colby Perkins Jr., Building a Spanish Surname List for the 1990s—A New Approach to an Old Problem (Washington, DC: US Census Bureau, 1996), available at http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/spanname.html (accessed June 2, 2009). 5. Mike Podhorzer, AFL-CIO deputy political director, interview by David Magleby, May 21, 2008. 6.  Frank Montoya, general sales manager, KRQE-TV (Albuquerque), personal discussion with Lisa A. Bryant, December 12, 2008. 7. See Lonna Rae Atkeson and Nancy Carrillo, “De Ja Vu 2002: The New Mexico 1st Congressional District,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties and Interest Groups Interact in the New Campaign Environment,” ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2005); Lonna Rae Atkeson, Nancy Carrillo, and Margaret C. Toulouse, “The New Mexico 1st and 2nd Congressio-

278  /  Rocca, Atkeson, Kerevel, and Bryant nal District,” in The Last Hurrah? Soft Money and Issue Advocacy in the 2002 Congressional Elections, ed. David B. Magleby and J. Quin Monson (Provo, UT: Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 2003). 8.  The 2006 First District election was one of the closest in the nation and one of the last to be resolved. Representative Wilson defeated State Attorney General Patricia Madrid by only 861 votes. Lonna Rae Atkeson and Lorraine Tafoya, “Close but Not Close Enough: Democrats Lose Again by the Slimmest Margin in New Mexico’s First Congressional District,” in The Battle for Congress: Iraq, Scandals, and Campaign Finance in the 2006 Election, ed. David B. Magleby and Kelly D. Patterson (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007). 9.  Based on composite vote ratings from 2002 to 2008 by the National Journal. The composite ratings can be found either directly through National Journal (www.nationaljournal.com) or can be calculated from legislators’ foreign, domestic, and economic ratings, as noted in the Alma­ nac of American Politics. 10.  Fully half (50 percent) of Second District voters are registered Democrats, and only approximately one-third (32 percent) are registered Republican; see New Mexico Secretary of State, “New Mexico Voter Registration Statistics by District,” available at http://www.sos.state. nm.us/ pdf/CONG1103.pdf (accessed January 15, 2009). 11. See Atkeson, Carrillo, and Toulouse, “New Mexico 1st and 2nd Congressional District.” 12.  “Results of SurveyUSA Election Poll #12737,” available at http://www.surveyusa.com/ client/PollReport.aspx?g=0c284bce-cac2-4c56-88c23f35c6b617bf (accessed January 21, 2009). 13.  David W. Brady, Hahrie Han, and Jeremy C. Pope, “Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology: Out of Step with the Primary Electorate?” Legislative Studies Quarterly, 32 (2007), 79–105; Barbara Norrander, “Ideological Representativeness of Presidential Primary Voters,” American Journal of Political Science, 33 (1989), 570–587; Nelson Polsby and Aaron Wildavsky, Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American Politics (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); Walter J. Stone and Ronald B. Rapoport, “Candidate Perception Among Nomination Activists: A New Look at the Moderation Hypothesis,” Journal of Politics, 56 (1994), 1034–1052. 14.  Brian Wolff, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee executive director, interview by David Magleby, December 2, 2008. 15.  Amanda Cooper, Udall for Senate campaign manager, personal communication with Lonna Atkeson, November 18, 2008. 16.  Jeff Jones, “Chavez Gives Up Senate Bid: Mayor Says He’ll Back Udall Nomination,” Albuquerque Journal, December 8, 2007, A1. 17.  Based on composite vote ratings from 1998 to 2008 by the National Journal. Again, the composite ratings can be found either directly through the National Journal (www.nationaljournal. com) or can be calculated from legislators’ foreign, domestic, and economic ratings, as noted in the Almanac of American Politics. 18.  Cooper, personal communication. 19. Mark Longabaugh, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund political director, interview by David Magleby, February 12, 2008. 20. Reid Wilson, “NRSC Cancels Ads in New Mexico,” Politico, available at http://www. politico.com/blogs/scorecard/0908/NRSC_Cancels_Ads_In_New_Mexico (accessed December 19, 2008); Steve Terrell, “GOP Group Pulls Pearce TV Ads,” Santa Fe New Mexican, September 6, 2008, A1. 21. Steve Terrell, “GOP Group Pulls Pearce TV Ads.” 22. Scott Bensing, NRSC executive director, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 23.  Josh Geise, Democratic Party of New Mexico executive director, personal communication with Lonna Atkeson, November 15, 2008. 24. Ibid. 25.  Bensing, interview. 26.  Joe Manahan, “Bailout Has Steve and Tom in Lip Lock, but Wannabe Congressmen Play it Low-Key; Plus: U.S. Attorney Scandal Explodes Anew; Indictments: and Job for Bill,” New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan blog, available at http://joemonahansnewmexico.blogspot.com (accessed January 12, 2009). 27. Rasmussen Reports, “New Mexico Senate: Udall’s Lead Continues to Fall,” September 10, 2008, available at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  279 senate_elections/new_mexico/ new_mexico_senate_udall_s_lead_continues_to_fall (accessed May 1, 2009). 28. Rasmussen Reports, “New Mexico Senate: Udall Opens 20 Point Lead,” June 23, 2008, available at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_ senate_elections/new_mexico/ new_mexico_senate_udall_opens_20_point _lead (accessed January 15, 2009). 29.  Hispanic Market Weekly, “Tuned in and Turned on: A Special Report on the Spanish Language Radio Industry,” November 3, 2008, available at http://www.hispanicmarketweekly. com/article.cms?id=10278 (accessed March 12, 2009). 30. National Journal Group, “And the Winners Are . . . ,” National Journal, available at http://adspotlight.nationaljournal.com/2008/11/best-ads.php#more (accessed January 15, 2009); Chris Cillizza, “The Best Senate Ads,” Washington Post, available at http://voices.washingtonpost. com/thefix/2008/11/the_best_senate_ads.html (accessed January 15, 2009). Titled “Humble,” the ad featured a thank you message from a disabled veteran; its English-language version was named one of the year’s best ads by the National Journal and Washington Post. 31.  Cooper, personal communication. 32.  This total is based on ad buy data collected directly from Albuquerque stations and does not include additional resources used to purchase time in El Paso. 33. See American Future Fund, “About the American Future Fund,” available at http:// americanfuturefund.com/aboutaff/ (accessed January 15, 2009). 34. See America Votes, “About,” available at http://www.americavotes.org/site/content/ about/ (accessed January 15, 2009). 35.  Jennifer Ford, America Votes executive director, personal communication with Lonna Atkeson, December 18, 2009. 36. Martin Frost, America Votes president, interview by David Magleby, November 11, 2008. 37. Longabaugh, interview; Ed Yoon, NM/CO campaign manager, Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, telephone interview by Lonna Atkeson, January 28, 2009. 38. See Center for Responsive Politics, “Independent Expenditures: 2008 Race New Mexico Senate,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/indexp.php?cycle=2008&id=NMS2 (accessed May 17, 2009). 39. Ed Yoon, executive director of New Mexico Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, personal communication with Lonna Atkeson, January 29, 2009. 40. Yoon, personal communication. 41.  Jeffrey Jones, “Bush Approval Rating Down to 60 percent Among Republicans,” Gal­ lup Poll, May 8, 2008, available at http://www.gallup.com/poll/107128/Bush-Approval-RatingDown-60-Among-Republicans.aspx (accessed March 31, 2009). 42.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win (New York: Penguin, 2009), 250. 43. See Jon Kelly, “Latin Class,” BBC News, September 19, 2008, available at http://www. bbc.co.uk/blogs/talkingamerica /2008/09/the_sound_of_ranchera_and.html (accessed March 10, 2009). The audio of a follow-up interview is available at http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/ production/mp3/ksfr/local-ksfr-763883.mp3 (accessed March 10, 2009). 44.  One mass mailing by the Susan B. Anthony List sought to increase support for McCain by indicating that because of Democrats, teenagers do not need to receive parental permission to get an abortion. The ad showed a tattooed teenager with the message that teens have to have parental permission to get tattoos, but not abortions. 45.  Approximately 40 percent of pro-life communications had an anti-Obama message. 46.  Obama also visited Las Vegas in San Miguel County (77 percent Hispanic) and Española in Rio Arriba County (72 percent Hispanic). 47.  Wolff, interview. 48. Matthew Reichbach, “Mapping the NM Vote,” New Mexico Independent, November 10, 2008, available at http://newmexicoindependent.com/9382/mapping-the-vote (accessed March 10, 2009). 49.  Geise, personal communication. 50. See Lonna Rae Atkeson, Nancy Carrillo, and Mekoce Walker, “New Mexico Presidential Race 2004: The Battle for Five Electoral Votes,” in Dancing without Partners: How Candidates, Parites, and Interest Groups Interact in the Presidential Campaign, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).

280  /  Rocca, Atkeson, Kerevel, and Bryant 51.  Geise, personal communication. 52. Ibid. 53. Yoon, interview. 54. Ibid. 55.  Howard Berkes, “McCain Holds Lead with Rural Voters: Is It Enough?” National Pub­ lic Radio, available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94893207 (accessed June 5, 2009). 56. Michael Barone and Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics, 2008 (Washington, DC: National Journal Group, 2008). 57. Ibid. 58.  Democratic registration increased nationwide by approximately 2,916,000, or 1.4 percent, while Republican registration declined by 1,458,000. 59.  The change was propelled by an increase of 25,548 in Democratic registration between 2004 and 2008, compared with an increase of only 4,881 for Republicans. See New Mexico Secretary of State, “New Mexico Voter Registration Statistics by District,” available at http://www. sos.state.nm.us/pdf/CONG1103.pdf (accessed January 15, 2009); see also Atkeson, Carrillo, and Walker, “New Mexico Presidential Race 2004. 60. Randy James, “Races to Watch ’08: New Mexico Republican Can’t Shake Bush,” Time, available at http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1849130_1849126_ 1852091,00.html (accessed January 22, 2009); David Wasserman, “Races to Watch,” National Journal, July 25, 2008; Marie Horrigan, “Albuquerque House Race Stands Out in New Mexico’s Open Season,” CQ Politics, February 17, 2008, available at http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage. cfm?docID=news-000002672888 (accessed January 22, 2009). 61.  Brian Walsh, National Republican Congressional Committee political director, interview by David Magleby, September 23, 2008. 62.  Jeff Jones, “White Seeking House Seat: Sheriff Stresses Independence,” Albuquerque Journal, October 11, 2007, A1. 63. Longabaugh, interview. 64. See Public Opinion Strategies, “New Mexico CD-01 Survey Key Findings,” available at http://www.haussamen.com/WhitePoll.pdf (accessed January 19, 2009). 65. Ibid. 66. See Atkeson and Tafoya, “Not Close Enough.” 67.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Geography Data: 2008 Race New Mexico District 01,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/geog.php?cycle=2008&id=NM01 (accessed January 19, 2009). These percentages are based on what is available on this site, and do not directly correspond to the figure of total individual contributions available in Table 9.1. 68.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Business/Labor/Ideology Split in PAC Contributions: 2008 Race New Mexico District 01,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/races/pacs. php?cycle=2008&id=NM01 (accessed May 17, 2009). 69. See ActBlue, “Home Page,” available at http://www.actblue.com/ (accessed March 31, 2009). 70. None of our data indicated a funding source of Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico. 71.  Federal Election Commission, “Committees and Candidates Supported/Opposed: Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico,” available at http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/ com_supopp/C00020818 (accessed January 20, 2009). 72. Started in 2004, ActBlue provides an online, ready-made fundraising infrastructure to all Democratic candidates. See ActBlue, “Home Page,” available at http://www.actblue.com/ (accessed March 31, 2009). 73.  Colleen Heild, “Race For District 1 Seat Tight—Heinrich, White Nearly Even; 16 Percent Are Undecided,” Albuquerque Journal, October 7, 2008, A1. 74.  Colleen Heild and Dan Boyd, “Heinrich Edging Out White—Teague, Lujan Also Out Front,” Albuquerque Journal, November 2, 2008, B1. 75.  Table 9.11 suggests that there were 28 different ads produced in this race. Two of the Heinrich campaign ads accounted for in the table were from the primary. The one positive ad from the White campaign was initially run as a joint expenditure between the NRCC and his campaign, but was then aired again as wholly paid for by the White campaign. This ad is accounted for three times in the table.

Moving from Red to Blue: The 2008 New Mexico Races  /  281 76.  Heath Haussamen, “GOP: $700,000 in TV Time Reserved for Homestretch in 1st CD Race,” New Mexico Independent, August 27, 2008, available at http://newmexicoindependent. com/253/gop-700000-in-tv-time-reserved-for-homestretch-in-1st-cd-race (accessed January 19, 2009). 77.  The other piece of direct mail was a strictly positive message highlighting Heinrich’s support for energy independence. 78. Yoon, interview. 79.  Wolff, interview.

10

Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections David B. Magleby

T

he 2008 election was the second presidential election conducted after the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) of 2002 took effect. BCRA changed the financing of federal elections in some important ways. First, it increased individual contribution limits and indexed those limits to inflation. Within an individual’s total contribution limit in a two-year election cycle there is also an aggregate limit for contributions to candidates. The difference between those two limits has given political parties an area that they can exploit among “max-out” donors. To date, the Democrats have done a better job exploiting this change. An intended aim of BCRA was to bring more individual donor money into the financing of federal elections. That has happened and will likely continue into the future. BCRA’s best-known provision was its ban on party soft money, which had grown to $500 million in 2000. Parties, especially the Democratic Party, had come to rely on unlimited contributions by soft money donors to help underwrite their activity. Some party money had come from corporate and union treasury funds, which had otherwise long been banned from federal election finance. Most party soft money was spent in an effort to promote specific candidates, often mounted through state parties. The BCRA soft money ban was seen by some journalists and academics as profoundly weakening the political parties. In reality, the parties have adapted by cultivating the sources of funding allowed under BCRA. Within the Senate and House, Democrats have also substantially ramped up the level of member contributions to political party committees. Other important provisions of BCRA have been stricken or limited by court rulings. In the initial court rulings on the constitutionality of BCRA, the Supreme Court ruled that BCRA’s definition of what constituted an electioneering communication was too restrictive. Instead, Justice John Roberts substituted a new definition for electioneering in McConnell v. FEC: when a broadcast, cable, or satellite ad is “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.”1 Even more recently, in Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court ruled that BCRA cannot ban political spending by corporations from their general funds in elections, counting such spending as a form of freedom of speech. This overruled the part of BCRA that restricted such spending by businesses and labor unions, a portion that was held up in McConnell v. FEC. 2 Allowing such freedom for corporations (and labor unions, which also fall under this category) could have significant effects on the way in which election advertising is conducted in the future. Of course, corporations and unions cannot contribute from their general funds to candi-

Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections  /  283

dates or party committees, but they can spend such funds independently—even on communications that specifically mention candidates. These and other rulings by the court have restored options for interest groups to spend unlimited amounts of money in the period immediately before federal elections, a period that would have been protected under BCRA. In 2008, for reasons examined in this volume, we did not see all of these options used, but in future elections, that may not remain the case. In important respects, the 2008 presidential election was a departure from previous elections and is likely a watershed for how presidential elections will be financed and waged. This book has demonstrated that in campaign finance and electioneering a campaign in which all entities were coordinated was clearly superior to previous campaign structures and approaches. The ability of the Obama campaign to mount a campaign on the scale it did and to coordinate the entire campaign (advertising, events, voter contacting, and mobilizing) was important to its success. While the unified structure of the campaign and its focus on being “on message” were clearly superior to the approaches used in other Democratic presidential campaigns, Republican campaigns have had some of these elements, most notably, the Bush 2004 campaign. Thus, it was the combination of resources and campaign structure that distinguished the Obama campaign and will become the presumed approach for candidates in the future. Another change in the broad approach of the Obama campaign that was important to its success and may be adopted by other campaigns runs exactly counter to the centralized and coordinated structure just described. It was the early decision to permit volunteers to help structure campaign communications to their friends and acquaintances. This approach was most evident in the electioneering of campaign volunteers on the Internet, specifically on Facebook and Twitter. The level of investment that the Obama campaign made in these new media was much greater than seen before, and the approach of allowing individuals to tailor their own messages and organize their own meetings on such a large scale was unprecedented. As Obama campaign manager David Plouffe put it: Central to this effort to grow was our supporters’ continued use of social-networking sites like MyBO.com and Facebook to build the campaign and organize themselves. We wanted to make it easy for these selfstarters to connect with our huge staff in the battleground states, most often our young, talented, and fearless field organizers. And always we made sure to stress to volunteers that they had standing behind them a national HQ—and most important, a candidate–that believed in them and would make sure their work was strategically sound and received adequate resources.3 The way in which congressional campaigns were financed and waged in 2008 was less of a departure from previous elections, but constituted a change in the extent to which party committees relied on limited contributions to help them remain important independent participants in competitive contests. Political parties, which before BCRA had become a major means for candidates and their partisan allies to direct unlimited contributions into competitive races, have seen the end of unlimited soft money but have substantially increased

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their fundraising and again are important in competitive contests, independent of the candidates. They electioneer primarily through independent expenditures or by playing limited roles in campaign activities mounted jointly with the candidates. As mentioned, BCRA banned soft money but at the same time increased individual contribution limits, such that parties are now raising sufficient hard money to be important participants in federal elections. The scale of interest group involvement in 2008 grew, but the ways in which interest groups sought to influence the outcome of key contests changed. Interest groups seek to influence the outcome of federal elections in a range of ways. They can form political action committees (PACs), which can contribute to candidates, party committees, and other PACs. PACs can also make independent expenditures. Interest groups can also communicate with their membership and provide in-kind services to candidates. In addition to forming political committees organized for electoral purposes, groups can organize themselves under a variety of classifications in the Internal Revenue Code. The level of partisan and candidate advocacy activity allowed for such organizations varies with the structure of the group and its purpose. Figure 10.1 compares the level of activity of interest groups in federal elections over time. Interest groups engaged in more conventional PAC contributions and independent expenditures in 2008 than in either 2000 or 2004. Section 527 groups spent less in 2008 than in 2004, while Section 501(c) organizations have seen modest growth in each presidential election since 2000. The 2008 contest had conspicuously fewer visible attack ads from outside groups along the lines of Republicans for Clean Air, which had attacked John McCain in the 2000 $1,400 527 groups $1,200

501(c) groups PACs

Millions of dollars

$1,000

$800

$600

$400

$200

$0

2000

2004

2008

Figure 10.1 Interest Group Spending Sources: PAC data are from www.fec.gov; 527 data are from http://www.opensecrets.org/; 501(c) data are from http://www.cfinst.org/.

Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections  /  285

Republican primaries or Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,4 which assailed John Kerry soon after the Democratic Convention in 2004. There were some attacks from groups such as these in 2008, but the level of this kind of activity was less and the effect on the race was much less. Interestingly, such groups would have had ample material for such ads: McCain’s age, for example, or Obama’s experimentation with cocaine, association with Weather Underground member William Ayers, or affinity for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose statements caused multiple media stirs. Notably, the Weather Underground issue did become part of Republican Party and McCain ads and robocalls. 5

What Remained Constant? The title of this book emphasizes changes that occurred in the 2008 elections. Before summarizing those changes, however, it is important to emphasize that some important aspects of federal elections did not change. In both the presidential and congressional races, voters’ partisan identification remained the single most important predictor of the candidates they supported. This subjective selfassessment of partisanship has been important in presidential voting for more than half a century.6 In 2008 more than 90 percent of Republicans voted for McCain and more than 90 percent of Democrats voted for Obama, including 91 percent of Independent-leaning Democrats voting for Obama and 82 percent of Independent-leaning Republicans voting for McCain. Consistent with past elections, a majority (55 percent) of Independents without reported partisan leanings voted for the winner.7 Another constant in 2008 was incumbency. Party leaders often work hard to encourage incumbents to run again. When an incumbent retires, it creates an open seat and often a more competitive electoral environment. Going into the 2008 election, there were five retirements in the Senate, all Republicans. Democrats were able to pick up three of these five states, including two featured in this volume (Colorado and New Mexico). Retirements in the House were also disproportionately Republican (twenty-three of twenty-six), and Democrats won in nine of the twenty-three districts that had been held by a GOP retiree. More broadly, since 1970, House incumbents seeking reelection have had approximately a 95 percent reelection rate, while Senate incumbents seeking reelection have won 82 percent of the time.8 Most of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House races examined in this volume were contests that departed from these patterns. In U.S. Senate races, Incumbents Elizabeth Dole (North Carolina) and John Sununu (New Hampshire) were defeated. They were not alone, as fellow Republicans Gordon Smith of Oregon, Ted Stevens of Alaska, and Norm Coleman of Minnesota were also defeated. Overall, in 2008, 83 percent of Senators seeking reelection were returned to office. All Democrats seeking reelection won, while five Republicans lost. In the House, the proportion winning reelection was 94 percent,9 but incumbency worked better for Democrats than for Republicans. In the House, the anti-Republican mood was also apparent in competitive contests. Of the eight House races we monitored in 2008 and discussed in this book, three involved Republican incumbents and two, Democratic incumbents. The Republican incumbents were all defeated, while both of the Democrats were reelected. The Democratic tide in 2008 clearly helped Democrats, including

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Democrats running in open seats that had been Republican, such as New Mexico’s First Congressional District, North Carolina’s Eighth Congressional District, and Ohio’s Fifteenth and Sixteenth Congressional Districts. As discussed in Chapter 5, Republican incumbent Robin Hayes of North Carolina appeared to recognize problems with the GOP brand: He ran ads that said, “Sometimes I have to fight my party.” In addition, in 2008, candidates running in competitive open seats were able to raise more money than non-incumbents, generally. Table 10.1 presents the amounts raised by incumbents, challengers, and open-seat candidates running in contests that were competitive and uncompetitive. Competitive contests are defined as those in which the winner does not get more than 60 percent of the vote. In the aggregate, Republican and Democratic candidates running in competitive open seats were at near parity in overall receipts in 2008. Senate Democratic open-seat candidates raised about $1.2 million more than Senate Republican open-seat candidates. In non-open-seat races, Senate Republican incumbents raised, on average, $10.9 million, while Senate Democratic challengers raised $7.2 million. As noted, this difference was often made up in competitive contests

Table 10.1 Congressional Candidate Receipts in Competitive versus Uncompetitive Races, 2007–2008

House

Senate



Democrats

Republicans

Democrats

Republicans

Competitive Incumbents    N Challengers    N Open seats    N

$83,595,711 35 $85,262,962 68 $43,422,970 24

$122,272,285 68 $44,970,195 35 $42,474,894 24

$16,428,387 2 $78,944,843 11 $13,639,142 2

$119,705,073 11 $6,371,745 2 $11,289,557 2

Uncompetitive Incumbents    N Challengers    N Open seats    N

$198,734,622 152 $15,023,389 90 $14,827,991 10

$108,681,984 90 $26,378,010 152 $8,637,471 10

$62,381,199 9 $8,982,889 7 $22,535,551 3

$30,540,157 7 $5,648,118 9 $10,630,204 3

Total    N

$440,867,645 379

$353,414,839 379

$202,912,011 34

$184,184,854 34

Source: Compiled from Federal Election Commission data. Note: Figures are for major party candidates in two-party contested general elections (Democrats vs. Republicans), excluding incumbent versus incumbent contests. Incumbents in competitive races are defined as those who lost or won by 20 percent or less of the two-party vote. Incumbents in uncompetitive races are those who won by more than 20 percent of the two-party vote. Challengers in competitive races are those who won or lost by 20 percent or less of the two-party vote. Challengers in uncompetitive races are those who lost by more than 20 percent of the two-party vote. Open seats in competitive races are those whose election was decided by 20 percent or less of the two-party vote. Open seats in uncompetitive races are those whose election was decided by more than 20 percent of the two-party vote.

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by spending by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Senate Republican challengers raised, on average, $3.2 million, or about $4 million less than the average for Senate Democratic challengers. Only approximately $40,000 separated the average Democratic and Republican House open-seat candidates in terms of money raised ($1.77 million for GOP challengers and $1.81 million for Democratic challengers, on average). Republican incumbents involved in competitive House contests raised, on average, $1.8 million, while the average for Democratic incumbents was $2.4 million. Challengers running against them in both parties raised about $1.2 million to $1.3 million. This meant that Republican challengers in competitive contests raised on average about $1 million less than the Democratic incumbents they ran against. House challengers in uncompetitive contests are largely invisible in their fundraising. This longstanding pattern remained the case in 2008. In both parties, on average these candidates did not exceed $175,000 in money raised or more than $1 million less than the average fundraising of House challengers in competitive contests. A similar reality exists for challengers in uncompetitive Senate contests, although on average they raised more money ($1.3 million for Democrats and $627,000 for Republicans). A continuing reality is that for candidates to be taken seriously they need to pass a minimal fundraising threshold.10 As has been noted in this volume, in terms of the issue agenda the 2008 election was in many respects an extension of the 2006 election, in which Democrats regained the majority in both houses of Congress, picking up a net gain of seven seats in the Senate and thirty-two seats in the house. They did so by exploiting public concerns with the war in Iraq, Congressional scandals, and President Bush’s declining popularity. Even though the Democrats became the majority party in Congress in early 2007, in 2008 they ran against the Bush Administration’s record and the record of the Republican Congress. This retrospective assessment worked to their benefit in both 2006 and 2008. Former National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) chair Representative Thomas Davis III of Virginia said in March 2008 that Bush had “just killed the Republican brand.”11 The broad theme of the Democrats in general and Obama in particular was, not surprisingly, change. The out-party in U.S. history has often run on the change theme, as Richard Nixon did in 1968, Ronald Reagan did in 1980, and Bill Clinton did in 1992.

What Changed? In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 2001, the Republicans successfully claimed the mantle as the party best suited to defend the country in the “War on Terror.” Rather than lose House seats in 2002, as is the norm in midterm elections, Republicans picked up a net gain of seven seats. In 2004, Bush and Cheney again emphasized national security and won reelection.12 By 2008, the Iraq War had become unpopular, and like the Vietnam War four decades earlier, it became an important negative for the party in power. More broadly, the government’s delayed and inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina, the growing budget deficits and, in mid-September, the economic crisis all reinforced the out-party’s primary theme of a need for change. As noted, the change theme was present in the House and Senate races we monitored in 2008.

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Change was also personified by the Democratic presidential standard bearer. Barack Obama, as the first African American major party nominee for the presidency, gave the 2008 election a new dimension. How would a predominantly white country vote in an election with a black candidate for president? Would the assumed tensions between Latino and black voters fracture the Democratic coalition? How would white working-class voters and white union members in battleground states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania vote? At the level of the candidates, political parties, and outside groups, would race become an issue, and if so, how? Obama had an additional personal characteristic that was potentially problematic in the post-9/11 environment. His middle name was Hussein. On one occasion, he remarked, “And I got my middle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run for president.”13 Would his name and his having a father who was “raised a Muslim” become an issue for voters?14 The fact that both Obama and his Republican opponent in the general election were sitting U.S. senators was also a change. No sitting U.S. senator had been elected president since John F. Kennedy in 1960. In addition, the presidential candidate pool in 2008 included the first female vice presidential candidate in the GOP, the oldest nominee for the presidency, and the most serious female and Mormon contenders for the nomination. Public opinion on the Iraq War had shifted from support to opposition between 2004 and 2008; in addition, Obama was different from Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards and, among the Republican candidates, from all but Ron Paul, in his consistent and early opposition to the war. Early in the campaign, this issue was among the most important substantive elements of Obama’s change message. There were three important changes in the way in which the Obama campaign was financed and conducted: the surge in individual donors, especially donors making small contributions; the use of new media, especially the Internet; and the full integration and large-scale deployment of field offices and volunteers. All of these factors were interconnected and reinforcing. This observation is not meant to diminish some of the specific innovations that the Obama campaign made in the staging of events, most notably, the acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, or to dismiss Obama’s extensive use of television and radio ads. However, the most significant elements that signify a change from previous campaigns are the three noted earlier.

Changes in Fundraising Early on, the Obama campaign surprised many, including the campaign staff, in its success in fundraising. Campaign manager Plouffe said, “We ended the second quarter on June 20 having raised $32.5 million, $31 million of it for the primary. Hillary raised only $21 million for the primary—which would have been seen as astronomical but for our report—and the news created an uproar in the campaign world. No one, us included, would have predicted that we could match her in money this early, much less outraise her by $10 million in one quarter.”15 It was also the case that early fundraising efforts were quite traditional, with a preponderance of individual donors making large contributions. Early on, however, Obama’s “money did not grow at the grass roots.”16 Rather, according to Penny Pritzker, Obama’s finance chair, the campaign

Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections  /  289

used a more typical approach to reach networks of large donors: “We tapped everybody and did every event we could. He’d do seven events in New York, back-to-back-to-back-to-back.”17 Later, the Obama campaign added to its donor pool a very large number of small individual donors. The campaign reported nearly four million contributors, more than double the number who gave to any other presidential campaign.18 Combined, donors giving $200 or less to Obama contributed more than $400 million.19 The Internet made it relatively easy to solicit repeat donations from these donors, and many gave more than once. The protracted contest for the Democratic nomination had a silver lining for Obama as it meant that he built an even larger donor base, including additional small donors. These donors then joined earlier Obama donors as individuals the campaign could solicit for additional contributions and volunteer activities in the general election phase, often through quick and inexpensive e-mail communications. 20 Congressional fundraising saw some changes as well, although candidates remained central to that fundraising. Overall, of the $1.7 billion spent on congressional races by candidates, party committees, and interest groups, 80 percent was spent by candidates. 21 In competitive U.S. Senate contests, Republican challengers lagged behind all others in average receipts in 2008, averaging $3.2 million. Their Democratic opponents averaged $8.2 million, and all other senate candidates ranged, on average, from $5.6 million to $10.9 million, depending on whether they were incumbents, challengers, or open-seat candidates. In the U.S. Senate races that we monitored, the two Republican incumbents raised more money than their party’s incumbents, on average, in 2008. John Sununu, in New Hampshire, raised $8.9 million, and Elizabeth Dole, in North Carolina, raised $17.3 million. However, in competitive contests such as those described in this book, a much larger share is often spent by party committees and interest groups. For example, in the North Carolina Senate race, Kay Hagan, the Democratic challenger to Elizabeth Dole, raised $9 million, and Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic challenger to Sununu, raised $8.3 million. However, Hagan and Shaheen had much more ample support from the DSCC than Dole or Sununu received from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC). The DSCC spent $8.1 million to assist Hagan and $7.5 million to assist Shaheen. In contrast, the NRSC spent $3.6 million to assist Dole and $5 million to assist Sununu. Adding the party committee independent expenditures and the candidate receipts shows that Democrats spent $15.8 million in New Hampshire, compared with $13.9 million for Republicans. In North Carolina, Democrats spent $17.1 million, compared with $20.9 million for Republicans. If we factor in the activity of interest groups, we again see the Democrats as having been helped, especially in U.S. Senate races. In the congressional races we monitored, there was generally more interest group activity on behalf of the Democratic candidates and the groups supporting Democrats were also better coordinated. As discussed in Chapter 3, America Votes, the Section 527 organization that coordinates the activities of progressive interest groups, has helped Democratic allies target resources to particular races and in coordinated ways. In one open-seat U.S. Senate race we monitored, the party committees reinforced the Democratic candidate’s fundraising advantage, while in the other, the Democratic candidate also had the advantage, but neither party spent money independently. In Colorado, Democrat Mark Udall spent $13 million and the

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DSCC spent $1.8 million. Republican Bob Schaffer spent $7.2 million and the NRSC spent $1.1 million. In New Mexico, Democrat Tom Udall spent $7.8 million and Republican Steve Pearce spent $4.6 million, with neither party committee spending independently. In 2008, House incumbents generally enjoyed a large financial advantage over the challengers running against them. This was especially the case in uncompetitive contests, where Democratic incumbents outspent GOP challengers, on average, 7.5 to 1, and Republican incumbents had a similar 7.2-to-1 advantage over Democratic challengers. In competitive races, the spending of Democratic challengers was much closer to that of Republican incumbents, on average, while Republican challengers raised about $1 million less than Democratic incumbents. In our sample races, GOP incumbents generally raised more than their challengers, but in Colorado, Republican incumbent Marilyn Musgrave raised $2.87 million compared with Democratic challenger Betsy Markey’s $2.92 million. In all of the open-seat races we monitored, the Democratic candidate raised more than the Republican. The largest gap was in New Mexico, where Democratic candidate Heinrich raised $2.51 million and Republican candidate White raised $1.8 million. In House races, as in Senate contests, the party committees invested in competitive contests. Overall, the DCCC spent $81,641,424 in independent expenditures and the NRCC spent $30,971,545. 22 In the sample races, the DCCC spent $14,129,206 in independent expenditures and the NRCC spent $3,645,187. When party committee independent expenditures and candidate expenditures are combined, the Democrats had roughly a three-to-two advantage. If we look at aggregate candidate expenditures without party spending included, the two parties were at near parity. Clearly, party expenditures gave the Democrats an advantage in 2008.

Changes in Technology and Internet Use Obama’s success in raising small individual contributions was driven in part by his strategy in using the Internet and new media. Individuals were drawn to the campaign’s Web site, My.BarackObama.com, or “MyBO,” in a variety of ways—banner ads on the Web, mail, e-mail, telephone calls, or contacts from friends. Contributing money was only one way in which people became involved in the campaign—but online contributions were of particular importance. The advantages to the Obama campaign of its large and mostly electronic donor base went well beyond the initial contributions. Money given online was immediately available to the campaign, without any waiting for checks to clear. In the process of giving online, the donor completed the necessary information for disclosure to the Federal Election Commission, saving the campaign that clerical expense. More important, donors giving online could be contacted very quickly for additional contributions as the campaign progressed. The Obama campaign’s success in raising money through the nomination phase was important to Obama’s decision to be the first major party nominee not to accept public funding and its associated spending limitations in the general election. This strategic decision involved some risk, as there could have been a strong negative reaction among voters and it was not certain that money would continue to flow to the campaign. However, it turned out to have been a prudent

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political decision: The campaign raised $153,148,585 in September and another $149,835,251 in October and November combined, giving Obama a large financial advantage over McCain, even after including the spending McCain was able to do with the Republican National Committee (RNC). Thus, Obama established the new preferred campaign strategy, which will be to bypass federal funding and seek to cultivate a broad donor base that can give repeatedly through the election cycle, combined with a solid foundation of donors making contributions at or near the maximum allowable. John McCain followed the same approach that George W. Bush and John Kerry followed in 2004 by accepting public funding in the general election campaign. For McCain, this amount totaled $84 million. Like his predecessors, McCain urged individuals to donate to the national party committee, which in turn could assist his campaign through joint activities and “hybrid” ads. Overall, McCain and the RNC together spent an estimated $375 million on the presidential campaign. Candidates prefer the approach that the Obama campaign took of funding the ground game and ads themselves. As McCain deputy campaign manager Christian Ferry observed, when a candidate and party spend money jointly: Operations cannot be candidate specific and they can’t be just about the presidential campaign, they need to be about the entire ticket. In an election where the Republican party brand was damaged, where the incumbent president was a Republican and was incredibly unpopular, where the right track/wrong track number was, prior to September 15, around 30% and then after September 15 around 8%, being a Republican is not necessarily the way you want to brand yourself if you want to win the campaign. We had no choice. We had to do things with our entire ticket, we had to do things under the banner of the Republican Party. 23 Obama was not the only candidate to emphasize the Internet in fundraising. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney had substantial online fundraising, as did the Clinton campaign later in the cycle. 24 The party committees that had seen some success in using the Internet to raise money in 2004 made further progress in this effort. To date, Democratic committees are outperforming the GOP in this mode of fundraising. One pro-Democratic interest group stands out as successful in using the Internet to raise money and direct it to Democratic congressional candidates. ActBlue, a Section 527 organization that specializes in Internet fundraising for Democratic candidates, raised $60 million for Democratic House and Senate candidates in 2008 and more than $2.4 million for Kay Hagan in North Carolina (see Chapter 5). The broad vision of using new technology to help organize voter registration, mobilization, and persuasion was also innovative. Obama’s success in the caucus states relative to Clinton and Edwards is in part attributable to his Internet strategy. 25 In the general election phase, the use of the Web also became helpful in mobilizing early and absentee voters. Finally, on Election Day, the Internet allowed the campaign to contact voters multiple times and give them personalized information relevant to their voting places and times in a way that far surpassed the communication techniques used in previous campaigns.

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In hopes of achieving the kind of Internet communication and networking that Obama had attained, the McCain campaign created “McCainSpace,” but the site was underfunded and was not as extensively used. An example of the innovative use of new media in the 2008 campaign is an application that an Obama volunteer created for the iPhone that could sort through an individual’s address book using area codes and zip codes to identify people living in competitive states, keep a call log for those people that encouraged the person with the iPhone to call those people, and keep track of those calls. Chief Internet consultant to John McCain, Becki Donatelli, said to Obama new media director Joe Rospars during a post-election conference, “We loved your iPhone application.”26

A Change in the Ground Game All of this technology was combined with old-fashioned retail politics done by volunteers in the community, often in a visible, but not fancy, field office. As noted in this book, the Obama campaign invested more money early and consistently throughout the campaign in field offices and field office managers than did any other campaign. This deployment of human capital helped maximize the effect of the large number of volunteers who wanted to work for the Obama campaign—volunteers recruited through events, the Internet, and other volunteers. In the past the field operations for the Democrats had been largely outsourced to allies in organized labor or, in 2004, to America Coming Together. Those previous efforts could not be integrated into specific campaigns in terms of strategy and communications. The opposite was the case in 2008. In the general election phase, the Obama campaign clearly benefited from the push that Howard Dean made as Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair to strengthen the party in more states. Dean’s “Fifty State” plan did not mean that Obama could compete in all states, but it assisted him in expanding the battlefield to include states such as North Carolina, Indiana, and Virginia, and even the electoral vote associated with Nebraska’s Second Congressional District. Enhanced party infrastructure helped Obama win in all of these places. Central to an effective ground operation is a database on individuals targeted by the campaign for voter registration and mobilization. Through the 2004 campaign, this was an area where the Republicans had an advantage. They had approached the building of a voter file as a high priority for the RNC and had used the file in sophisticated ways to microtarget voters in 2004. 27 Interest group allies of the Democrats invested heavily in trying to catch up with the Republicans through America Coming Together in 2004, and they made major strides. After 2004, the DNC, under Howard Dean, invested more in building a party list, while longtime Democratic activist and Dean critic Harold Ickes created Data Warehouse and Catalist, its trademark. Democratic candidates and allied groups now match the GOP in capacity to use large databases to microtarget voters. The Obama campaign, which purchased the Catalist database to supplement its own voter file, was committed to engaging voters and tracking their activity. The protracted nomination battle meant that Obama had a much more complete and current database on prospective voters than presidential candidates have generally had. As discussed in Chapter 4, Catalist provided addi-

Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections  /  293

tional information beyond what the Obama campaign had already gathered. The merged list was constantly updated as the campaign came to know the preferences of individuals. Interest groups were again important, particularly through internal member communications and with targeted messages on the ground. On the Democratic side, unions set new records for political activity, much of it targeted to its membership and allies. Unions were critical in helping Democrats secure the votes of blue-collar workers in states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio. An important legacy of the 2004 campaign that continued and grew in 2008 is America Votes, the coordination mechanism for progressive groups. America Votes has facilitated better coordination and sharing of information among pro-choice, environmental, union, public employee, trial lawyer, and other supportive interest groups.

Implications for Future Elections Some important elements of the 2008 election were specific to that contest. The public’s view of President George W. Bush, for example, is not likely to be important in 2012 and beyond. Candidates and parties experience ebbs and flows of popularity, and the enthusiasm gap that benefited the Obama campaign and Democrats more generally may also be transitory. What, then, are the likely implications of the 2008 election for future federal elections in the United States? The success that the Obama campaign had in bypassing public financing is likely a lesson that future campaigns will draw from the 2008 election cycle. Previous election cycles saw the demise of public financing in the presidential nomination phase. Reasons for this included the rising costs of primaries and caucuses; the compressed schedule, or front-loading, of contests; and the fact that matching funds had not been indexed to inflation, while campaign costs rose dramatically. Obama did not pay a price in the court of public opinion for declining public funding, and he reaped substantial strategic advantages. Both of these political realities will not be lost on future presidential candidates. An emphasis on ground activity, including voter contact, voter files, field offices, and volunteers, is also something that campaigns will seek to emulate. The 2000 and 2004 campaigns saw a renewed emphasis on direct voter contact and microtargeting. While expensive, in competitive environments, a well-organized and effective ground operation is now widely seen as essential. One benefit of the protracted nomination struggle for the Democrats is that Obama built a substantial ground operation in several states that previous Democratic candidates had ignored. This gives him and his party an important advantage going into the 2012 campaign. The Internet and new communication technologies will also remain important in future campaigns. Part of Obama’s success with the Internet was the ­result of his compelling candidacy and his message about the Iraq War, health care, and the environment. Some or all of those elements will not be part of future campaigns, however, so it is important to separate out the effect of the messenger and that of the message. However, 2008 demonstrated ways in which the Internet could be used effectively in fundraising as well as in registering and mobilizing voters, and some of these techniques will become increasingly com-

294  /  David B. Magleby

mon in American electoral politics. Ironically, it was John McCain, who had been seen as an innovator in the use of the Internet in fundraising in his 2000 presidential campaign, who took the back seat to his Democratic opponent in the use of media in 2008. The use of the Internet has evolved from a means to reinforce those who are already attached to a candidate and a supplemental way to raise money to a means to recruit new converts to a candidate and encourage them to recruit others. Howard Dean’s use of the Internet to facilitate people in organizing themselves for a candidate in the 2004 Democratic nomination battle was expanded to a much larger way of connecting people to a candidate by Obama in 2008. Candidates are also likely to attempt to build donor bases among both “max-out” donors and all other donor types. Individual donors giving via the Internet can make important contributions, even while giving small amounts of money. The costs of fundraising and processing such contributions are so low and the prospects of repeat donations are so high that candidates at all levels are likely to seek to cultivate a large base of small donors. Political party committees will also continue to exploit the BCRA provision allowing donors to invest in party committees at levels above what they can give to any individual candidate. This will not deter party committees from broadening their fundraising efforts among small donors. The Internet is one means by which the party committees may seek to accomplish this objective. To date, Democrats have been more successful in persuading their House and Senate incumbents to contribute substantially to the party committees. Republicans, now in the minority, may find a way to do this as well. The net effect of court rulings is to free interest groups from constraints imposed by BCRA. To date, this has not resulted in activity on the scale seen in 2000 and 2002. However, the competitive nature of federal elections and the importance of elections to public policy mean that this will change, and we will see much greater involvement of interest groups in candidate-specific electioneering in the future.

Notes 1.  Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., 551 U.S. 449 (2007). 2.  McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, 540 U.S. 93 (2003). 3.  David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory (New York: Viking, 2009), 255–256. 4.  On September 29, 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth changed its name to Swift Vets and POWs for Truth. Throughout this book we continue to use Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to avoid confusion. For a press release from the group announcing the change, see http://horse. he.net/~swiftpow/article.php?story=2004092911015589. 5.  CBS News, “Campaigns Do Battle over Ayers, Keating,” CBS News, October 6, 2008, available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/06/politics/main4503380.shtml (accessed January 19, 2010). See also Associated Press, “GOP Cites Ayers in Calls,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 2008, available at http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/17/nation/na-ayers17 (accessed January 19, 2010). Melissa Block, “Head of North Carolina GOP Talks About Ad Flap,” NPR News, April 24, 2008, available at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89922205 (accessed January 19, 2010). Anna Schecter, Eric Longabardi, and Brian Ross, “Watch: Rev. Wright TV Ad that McCain Would Not Run,” ABC News, December 8, 2008, available at http://abcnews.go.com/ Blotter/Vote2008/story?id=6395775&page=1 (accessed January 19, 2010).

Continuity and Change in the 2008 Federal Elections  /  295 6.  Angus Campbell, Philip E. Converse, Warren E. Miller, and Donald E. Stokes, The Amer­ ican Voter (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 7.  Data are drawn from the 2008 American National Election Study. 8.  Harold W. Stanley and Richard G. Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics 2007– 2008 (Washington, DC:CQ Press, 2008), 57–59. 9.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Election Stats,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/ bigpicture/elec_stats.php?cycle=2008 (accessed January 27, 2010). 10.  David B. Magleby and Candice J. Nelson, The Money Chase: Congressional Campaign Finance Reform (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1990), 171. 11.  Jonathan Weisman, “GOP Rep Thomas Davis III: Bush ‘Has Killed the Republican Brand,’” Washington Post, March 16, 2008, available at http://www.huffingtonpost. com/2008/03/16/gop-rep-thomas-davis-iii_n_91738.html (accessed January 22, 2010); see also Charlie Cook, “Missing: Seller’s Remorse,” National Journal, November 22, 2008, available at http://www.cookpolitical.com/node/4081 (accessed January 22, 2010); Stuart Rothenberg, “Can John McCain Win in Spite of the Republican Brand?” Real Clear Politics, March 3, 2008, available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/can_john_mccain_win_in_spite_o. html (accessed January 22, 2010). 12.  David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson, “Introduction,” in Danc­ ing without Partners: How Candidates, Parties, and Interest Groups Interact in the Presidential Campaign, ed. David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, and Kelly D. Patterson (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 19–20. 13.  Barack Obama, “Barack Obama at the Al Smith Dinner,” Real Clear Politics, October 16, 2008, available at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/barack_obama_at_the_ al_smith_d.html (accessed January 22, 2010). 14.  Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (New York: Crown, 2006), 204. 15. Plouffe, The Audacity to Win, 77. 16. Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of a President (New York: Crown), 74. 17.  Quoted in Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of a President (New York: Crown), 74–75. 18.  “Obama Amassed $745M for Campaign,” CBS News, March 24, 2008, available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/05/politics/main4649880.shtml?source=related_story (accessed May 22, 2009). 19.  Center for Responsive Politics, “Donor Demographics: Contribution Size,” available at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/donordems.php?cycle=2008 (accessed October 9, 2009). 20.  David B. Magleby, Bradley Jones, and David Lassen, “Turning the Tables: Individual Contributions, and the Changing Campaign Finance Environment,” The Forum 7, no. 1, Article 11 (2009), available at http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol7/iss1/art11. 21.  This estimate is based on aggregate candidate expenditures of $1.375 billion, $240 million in party coordinated and independent expenditures, and $114 million in interest group spending, not including contributions to candidates. 22.  Federal Election Commission, “Party Financial Activity Summarized for the 2008 Election Cycle: Party Support for Candidates Increases,” press release, May 28, 2009, available at http://www.fec.gov/press/press2009/05282009Party/20090528Party.shtml (accessed December 30, 2009]). 23.  Christian Ferry, deputy campaign manager, John McCain for President, The Change Election Press Event, Washington, DC, June 23, 2009. 24.  Fox News, “Ron Paul Sets Online Fundraising Record with $4.2 million in One Day,” available at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308404,00.html (accessed January 22, 2010). 25. Steve Schifferes, “Internet Key to Obama Victories,” BBC News. June 12, 2008, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7412045.stm (accessed January 19, 2010). 26.  Becki Donatelli, McCain-Palin Campaign 2008, comment at post-election conference co-sponsored by the Jesse M. Unruh Institute for Politics and Politico.com, November 22, 2008, Los Angeles. 27. Matt Bai, “The Multilevel Marketing of the President,” New York Times Magazine, April 25, 2004; David B. Magleby, “Change and Continuity in the Financing of Federal Elections,” in Magleby, Corrado, and Patterson, Financing the 2004 Election, 15–16; Magleby and Patterson, “War Games.”

Appendix A

List of Studies Table A.1 Case Studies Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, 1998–2008

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

Presidential General Colorado Florida X Iowa X Missouri X New Hampshire New Mexico X North Carolina Ohio X Presidential Primary/Caucus California Iowa Missouri New Hampshire South Carolina

2008 X

X X X X

X X X X X X X X

Senate General Alaska X Arkansas X Colorado X Delaware X * Florida X Iowa X Kentucky X Michigan X * Minnesota X X Missouri X X Montana X X * Nevada X New Hampshire X New Mexico * North Carolina X X Ohio X Oklahoma X Pennsylvania X South Carolina X South Dakota X X Virginia X

X

X X X

House General Arizona 1 X X Arkansas 1 * Arkansas 4 X X California 27 X California 29 * Colorado 1 * (continued on next page)

Table A.1  Continued

1998

2000

2002

2004

2006

Colorado 4 Colorado 7 X X X Connecticut 1 * Connecticut 5 X X X Georgia 12 X Idaho 2 X X Illinois 10 X Illinois 17 X Indiana 2 X Indiana 9 X Iowa 1 X Iowa 2 X Iowa 3 X Iowa 3 X Iowa 4 Kansas 3 X X Kentucky 6 X X Maryland 5 * Maryland 8 X X Minnesota 2 X Minnesota 6 X Mississippi 2 * Mississippi 3 X Montana AL X * New Hampshire 1 X New Hampshire 2 * New Jersey 12 X New Mexico 1 X X X New Mexico 2 X New Mexico 3 X North Carolina 8 X North Carolina 9 * Ohio 1 Ohio 6 X Ohio 13 X Ohio 15 X Ohio 16 Ohio 18 X Oklahoma 2 X Oregon 1 X Pennsylvania 4 X * Pennsylvania 6 X * Pennsylvania 13 X X X Pennsylvania 17 X South Dakota AL X X Texas 32 X Utah 1 * Utah 2 X X X Utah 3 * Washington 2 X Wisconsin 1 X

2008 X

X X X X X X X

Key: The designation “X” indicates that the race was considered competitive; the designation “*” indicates a “control” race (included only in the 2002 study).

298

appendix b

List of Interviews Table B.1 List of Interviews Conducted by the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy Researchers Date(s) Name Title Organization Interviewed Mark Mellman President; CEO Mellman Group February 11, 2008 Larry Noble Counsel Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom February 11, 2008 Kristina Wilfore Executive Director Ballot Strategies Initiative Center February 11, 2008 Federal Election Commission (FEC) February 12, 2008 Bob Biersack Press Officer Mike Lux CEO, Co-Founder Progressive Strategies February 12, 2008 Mark Longabaugh Executive Director Majority Action February 12, 2008 Bernadette Budde Senior Vice President Business Industry Political Action February 13, 2008, Committee November 10, 2008 Jennifer Duffy Senior Editor Cook Political Report February 13, 2008 Brian Wolff Executive Director Democratic Congressional March 5, 2008, Campaign Committee December 2, 2008 Edward A. Goeas III President; CEO Tarrance Group March 5, 2008 Congressional Quarterly March 5, 2008, Greg Giroux Senior Reporter September 23, 2008 Marie Horrigan Reporter Congressional Quarterly March 5, 2008 Rachel Kapochunas Political Reporter Congressional Quarterly March 5, 2008, September 23, 2008 Congressional Quarterly March 5, 2008 Jonathan Allen Political Reporter Alex Knott Editor Congressional Quarterly March 5, 2008, September 23, 2008 Emily Cadei Political Reporter Congressional Quarterly March 5, 2008, September 23, 2008 Michael Toner Partner Bryan Cave, LLP March 6, 2008 Scott Bensing Executive Director National Republican March 6, 2008, Senatorial Committee November 11, 2008 Chuck Cunningham Director of Federal Affairs National Rifle Association March 6, 2008, November 13, 2008 Geoff Garin President Hart Research Associates March 6, 2008 Marc Elias Partner Perkins Coie March 7, 2008 Stuart Rothenberg Editor; Publisher Rothenberg Political Report March 7, 2008 Nathan Gonzales Political Editor Rothenberg Political Report March 7, 2008 Ben Ginsberg Partner Patton Boggs April 9, 2008, April 28, 2008 Bill Miller Senior Vice President for Chamber of Commerce April 9, 2008, Political Affairs and April 28, 2008 Federation Relations Hal Malchow President MSHC Partners April 28, 2008 Nancy Bocskor Fundraising Strategist The Nancy Bocskor Company April 28, 2008 (continued on next page)

Table B.1  Continued Date(s) Name Title Organization Interviewed Michael Cornfield Vice President of Research 720 Strategies April 29, 2008, and Media Strategies July 18, 2008, December 4, 2008 Michael Petro Vice President; Director of Committee for Economic Development April 29, 2008 Business and Government Policy; Chief of Staff Tom McMahon Executive Director Democratic National Committee April 29, 2008 Candy Nelson Director American University, April 29, 2008 Campaign Management Institute Jen Stolp Consultant Campaign Solutions April 29, 2008 Paige Lance Director of Corporate Chamber of Commerce April 30, 2008 Development Tom Mann Senior Fellow, Governance Brookings Institution April 30, 2008 Studies Amy Walter Editor in Chief National Journal’s The Hotline May 19, 2008 Steve Rosenthal Co-Founder Organizing Group May 19, 2008, November 11, 2008 David Wasserman House Editor Cook Political Report May 19, 2008 Tiffany Adams Vice President of National Association of Manufacturers May 20. 2008 Public Affairs Gary Hebert Executive Director; Campaign Legal Center May 21, 2008 Director of Litigation Paul Ryan FEC Program Director and Campaign Legal Center May 21, 2008 Associate Legal Counsel Tara Malloy Associate Legal Counsel Campaign Legal Center May 21, 2008 Linda Lipsen Senior Vice President of American Association for Justice May 21, 2008, Government Affairs November 12, 2008 Mike Podhorzer Deputy Director American Federation of Labor and May 21, 2008, Congress of Industrial Organizations November 14, 2008 (AFL-CIO) Political Department July 14, 2008, Bob Bauer Partner Perkins Coie, LLP November 14, 2008 Harold Ickes Co-Founder The Ickes and Enright Group, Inc. July 14, 2008, November 14, 2008 Scott Keeter Director of Survey Research Pew Research Center for the July 14, 2008 People and the Press July 14, 2008, Tony Massaro Political Director League of Conservation Voters November 11, 2008 Lily Eskelson Vice President National Education Association July 14, 2008 Ed Brookover Chairman of Greener and Hook July 15, 2008 Political Practice Pete Hegseth Chairman; Executive Director Vets for Freedom July 15, 2008 Lina Brunton Director of Data Acquisition Catalist July 16, 2008, November 12, 2008 Laura Quinn CEO Catalist July 16, 2008, August 20, 2008, September 26, 2008, November 12, 2008 Vijay Rivindran Chief Technology Officer Catalist July 16, 2008 Simon Rosenberg President; Founder New Democrat Network July 16, 2008 300

Table B.1  Continued Date(s) Name Title Organization Interviewed Sharon Wolff Sussin National Political Director National Federation of July 16, 2008, Independent Business November 17, 2008 Andrew Fimka Advocacy Director National Federation of July 16, 2008, Independent Business November 10, 2008 Lee Rainie Director Pew Internet and American Life Project July 17, 2008 Laurie Moskowitz Partner FieldWorks July 17, 2008, December 3, 2008 Alexander Gage President; Founder TargetPoint Consulting July 17, 2008, December 2, 2008 Tom McClusky Vice President for Family Research Council July 17, 2008, Government Affairs December 19, 2008 Paul Ryan FEC Program Director; Campaign Legal Center July 17, 2008 Associate Legal Counsel Trevor Potter General Counsel McCain Campaign July 17, 2008, December 3, 2008 Chris Mann Vice President MSHC Partners July 18, 2008 Pam Fielding President 720 Strategies July 18, 2008, December 4, 2008 Tom Cole Chairman National Republican July 18, 2008 Congressional Committee Mike Duncan Chairman Republican National Committee July 21, 2008 Mike Cys Director of Political Action American Medical Association July 23, 2008, November 13, 2008 Chris LaCivita Consultant Crosslink Strategy Group July 28, 2008, December 8, 2008 Maren Hesla Director EMILY’s List WOMEN VOTE! July 30, 2008, January 22, 2009 Matt Angle President Angle and Associates July 31, 2008 Gina Glantz Senior Advisor to the Service Employees August 8, 2008 President International Union The Dewey Square Group August 20, 2008, Karin Johansen Principal November 13, 2008 Benjamin Flaccus Account Executive Catalist August 20, 2008, September 26, 2008 Morra Aarons Political Director BlogHer.com September 11, 2008 Family Research Council September 22, 2008 Chuck Donovan Senior Vice President for Policy and Government Affairs Wes Boyd Co-Founder MoveOn.org September 22, 2008 Paul Clark Statistician Federal Election Commission, September 23, 2008 Information Technology Division Brian Walsh Deputy Political Director National Republican September 23, 2008, Congressional Committee November 10, 2008 Greg Speed Executive Director America Votes September 23, 2008, November 18, 2008 Congressional Quarterly September 23, 2008 Bob Benenson Editor Evan Tracey COO Campaign Media Analysis Group September 24, 2008, May 20, 2009 Alex Conant Press Secretary Republican National Committee September 24, 2008 (continued on next page) 301

Table B.1  Continued Date(s) Name Title Organization Interviewed Jonathan Bydlack Director of Fundraising Ron Paul for President September 25, 2008, January 30, 2009 Fred Wertheimer President Democracy 21 September 25, 2008 Cathy Duvall Political Director Sierra Club September 25, 2008, November 24, 2008 Brent Messenger New Mexico Field Director

Obama for America

October 13, 2008

Ann Beaudry

Field Office Staff

Obama for America

October 13, 2008

John Blair New Mexico Staff

Obama for America

October 13, 2008

Ivette Barajas Director of Spanish McCain for President Communications in New Mexico

October 13, 2008

Don Manning Staff AFL-CIO Phone Bank

October 13, 2008

Tiffany Fisu Staff AFL-CIO Phone Bank

October 13, 2008

Margaret Toulouse Oliver County Clerk

Bernalillo County, New Mexico

October 14, 2008

Robert Adams Deputy County Clerk

Bernalillo County, New Mexico

October 14, 2008

Thomas A. Anderson Member of the Legislature New Mexico House of Representatives (District 29)

October 14, 2008

Tom Udall

October 14, 2008

Congressional Candidate

Tom Udall for Senate (New Mexico)

Martin Heinrich Congressional Candidate Martin Heinrich for Congress (New Mexico 1st District)

October 14, 2008

Rod Atone Press Secretary

October 14, 2008

Congressman Steve Pearce (New Mexico 2nd District)

Taylor West

Communications Director Mark Udall for Colorado

October 21, 2008

Brandan McGuyre

Colorado Staff

Obama for America

October 21, 2008

Obama for America

October 21, 2008

Laura Tatum Regional Director for South Denver Ed Chen

Colorado Deputy Regional McCain for President Communications Director

October 21, 2008

Dick Wadhams

Colorado State Chair Republican Party

October 22, 2008

Stephanie O’Malley

County Clerk; Recorder Denver County, Colorado

October 22, 2008

Scott Doyle

County Clerk; Recorder Larimer County, Colorado

October 22, 2008

J. Curtis Mayhew Campaign Finance Administrator

Office of Colorado Secretary of State

October 28, 2008

Kelly Near Campaign Finance Administrator

Office of Colorado Secretary of State

October 28, 2008

Matt Damschroeder Associate Director

Franklin County Board of Elections

October 28, 2008

Michael Stinziano Director

Franklin County Board of Elections

October 28, 2008

Ron L. Rapp Director of Government Services

Ohio Education Association

October 28, 2008

Ron Nichols Press Secretary Steve Stivers for U.S. Congress (Ohio 15th District)

October 28, 2008

Mary Jo Kilroy

Congressional Candidate

October 28, 2008

Paul Lindsay

Ohio Regional McCain for President Communications Director

Ohio 15th District

October 28, 2008

Nick Ivey Franklin County Republican Party Victory Director

October 28, 2008

Pat Gorman

October 28, 2008

302

Columbus, Ohio, Office Manager

Obama for America

Table B.1  Continued Date(s) Name Title Organization Interviewed Elissa McBride Staff AFL-CIO Phone Bank (from American October 28, 2008 Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) Aaron Pickrell Ohio State Director Obama for America October 28, 2008 Tim Berga Chief of Staff Ohio AFL-CIO October 29, 2008 Office of Ohio Secretary of State October 29, 2008 Jacqueline Rothschuh Elections Assistant Administrator Clinton Key Consultant National Republican November 10, 2008 Congressional Committee Julie Silver Political Advocacy National Federation of November 10, 2008 Coordinator Independent Business Martin Frost President America Votes November 11, 2008 Bo Harmon National Political Director McCain for President November 11, 2008 Jon Youngdahl Political Director Service Employees November 12, 2008 International Union Rob Engstrom Vice President Political Chamber of Commerce November 12, 2008 Affairs and Federation Relations Charlie Smith Chairman College Republican National Committee November 13, 2008 Bill Bloomfield National Volunteer Director McCain for President November 13, 2008 Karen White Director of Campaigns National Education Association November 17, 2008 and Elections Scott Reiter Managing Director National Association of Realtors November 20, 2008 Political Action Committee David Trichler Staff Obama for America November 21, 2008 Rafael Collazo National Deputy Director Democracia USA November 25, 2008 Ken Strasma President; Founder Strategic Telemetry December 2, 2008 Michael Myers Partner; President TargetPoint Consulting December 2, 2008 David Boundy Political Director Democratic National Committee December 4, 2008 JB Poersch Executive Director Democratic Senatorial Campaign December 4, 2008 Committee Martha McKenna Political Director Democratic Senatorial Campaign December 4, 2008 Committee Communications Director Ron Paul Campaign December 11, 2008 Jesse Burton Jon Carson National Field Director Obama for America December 11, 2008 Michael McDonald Associate Professor George Mason University December 17, 2008 Joe Trippi Senior Advisor John Edwards 08 December 18, 2008 Ben Monterroso Executive Director Service Employees International December 18, 2008 Union–Mi Familia Page Gardner President; Founder Women’s Voices, Women Vote December 18, 2008 OnMessage Inc. January 21, 2009 Brad Todd Partner Joe Rospars New Media Director Obama for America January 28, 2009 Colin Hanna President Let Freedom Ring March 10, 2009 Paul Tewes Iowa State Director Obama for America March 10, 2009 Erin Hill Managing Director ActBlue March 18, 2009 Rodger Schlickheisen President Defenders of Wildlife March 24, 2009 Heather Smith Executive Director Rock the Vote March 25, 2009 (continued on next page) 303

Table B.1  Continued Date(s) Name Title Organization Interviewed Scott Wheeler Executive Director National Republican Trust March 30, 2009 Political Action Committee Inga Smulkstys Director Planned Parenthood Action Fund March 31, 2009 Glen Caroline Director, Grassroots Division National Rifle Association of America, May 21, 2009 Institute for Legislative Action Carla Eudy Senior Advisor McCain for President May 26, 2009 Christian Ferry Deputy Campaign Manager McCain for President May 27, 2009

304

Contributors Lonna Rae Atkeson is a professor and Regents’ lecturer in the Political Science Department at the University of New Mexico. Her expertise is in the areas of elections, election administration, campaigns, public opinion, political behavior, and parties, and she has written numerous articles, book chapters, monographs, and technical reports on these topics. Lisa A. Bryant is a doctoral candidate at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests include campaigns and elections, electoral administration, and political behavior. Dustin Carnahan is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University. His research interests include political communication, with an emphasis on the mass media, campaigns and elections, and public opinion. Daniel Coffey is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Akron and a Fellow at the university’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. He is a coeditor of The State of the Parties: The Changing Role of Contemporary American Parties (with John C. Green) and a coauthor of the forthcoming Buckeye Battleground: Ohio, Campaigns, and Elections in the Twenty-first Century (with John C. Green, David B. Cohen, and Stephen C. Brooks). David B. Cohen is an associate professor of political science at the University of Akron and holds the title of Fellow at the university’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. His primary area of research and teaching is the American presidency, particularly White House organization, Congress, and homeland security. Robert J. Duffy is a professor of political science at Colorado State University. His current research focuses on energy and environmental politics and policy in the United States and on the role of interest groups and money in federal elections. Joshua Dunn is an associate professor of political science at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where he teaches courses on American institutions and public law. His research focuses on constitutional history, education policy, and the courts. Peter L. Francia is an associate professor of political science at East Carolina University. He has published several books and articles on elections, interest groups, political parties, and campaign finance. John C. Green holds the titles Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. He has written extensively on American campaign finance, political parties, and religion and politics. Steven H. Greene is an associate professor of political science at North Carolina State University. His research focuses on public opinion, political parties, and gender and politics. He is currently working on a book on the politics of parenthood. Eric S. Heberlig is an associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is a coauthor of Classics in Congressional Politics (with Herbert F. Weisberg and Lisa M. Campoli) and American Labor Unions in the Electoral Arena (with

306  /  Contributors

Herbert B. Asher, Randall B. Ripley, and Karen Snyder) as well as journal articles on legislative, interest group, and electoral politics. Yann Kerevel is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. His research interests include the comparative study of electoral systems, election administration, legislative behavior, political parties, and elections. His dissertation research focuses on participation in the Mexican legislature. Diana Kingsbury received her Master of American Politics degree from the University of Akron, with a focus on media, political parties, and interest groups. She now serves as the research associate for the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron and is also an assistant lecturer in the Department of Political Science. David B. Magleby is Dean of the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University. He is the editor of Financing the 2000 Election and a coeditor of Financing the 2004 Election (with Anthony Corrado and Kelly D. Patterson) and Financing the 2008 Election (with Anthony Corrado), and for nearly two decades he has been a coauthor of Government by the People, an introductory American government textbook. He has also written numerous other campaign finance books, including this book, which is the last installment of a Pew-funded series. Michael P. McDonald is an associate professor of government and politics at George Mason University. He also holds the title Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Michael S. Rocca is an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Mexico. His specialty is American politics, with an emphasis on the legislative process. Kyle L. Saunders is an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University. His studies and interests include American politics, with an emphasis on public opinion, political behavior, U.S. and Colorado elections, political parties, and political methodology. He has authored or coauthored more than twenty-five scholarly articles and book chapters. Dante J. Scala is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of New Hampshire. He is a nationally recognized commentator on New Hampshire politics and presidential nomination contests. His work has recently appeared in American Review of Politics and Social Science and Modern Society. Thomas F. Schaller is an associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He is the author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win without the South and a coauthor of Devolution and Black State Legislators: Challenges and Choices in the Twenty-first Century (with Tyson King Meadows). Monica C. Schneider is an assistant professor of political science at Miami University (Ohio). She studies how and to what effect candidates use their gender strategically in political campaigns. Barry L. Tadlock is an associate professor of political science at Ohio University, where he teaches courses about legislative processes and the American presidency. His research interests include congressional elections, identity politics, and Ohio public policy reform.

Index

AARP, 120, 147, 176, 179, 200, 220, 241 abortion, 5, 46, 117, 125, 141, 179, 180, 187, 188, 197, 201, 203, 213, 228, 233, 236, 238, 241, 253, 257, 262, 279 Abramoff, Jack, 201, 231 absentee voting, 16, 55, 81, 97, 226, 265 Accountable America, 200, 201 ACORN, 47, 183, 265 ActBlue, 14, 46, 47, 75, 113, 224, 235, 271, 291 advertising: broadcast ads, 57, 131; by Bush in 2004, 57; cable TV ads, 56, 57, 131; candidate ads, 10, 56, 58; card check legislation, 78; by Chamber of Commerce, 232; by DCCC, 131, 132, 194, 239; by Democrats, 157, 162, 194, 196, 227, 231, 253; by DSCC, 70, 124, 125, 224, 231; GOTV ads, 253; hybrid ads, 57, 58, 180; by interest groups, 10, 58, 74, 79, 121, 155, 166, 179, 180, 222, 231, 232, 258, 259, 267, 272; Internet ads, 59, 272; issue ads, 9–11, 56, 76, 78, 180; by McCain campaign, 57, 180, 259; Navajo language ads, 255; negative ads, 10, 56, 58, 119, 121, 125, 128, 134, 155, 156, 179, 180, 185, 194, 199, 219, 221–223, 225, 231– 233, 237–239, 241, 253, 257, 259, 267, 268, 271, 272, 276; by NRCC, 199, 234, 236; by NRSC, 125, 225; by Obama campaign, 56, 57, 121, 145, 146, 176, 221, 259; in Ohio, 174; by party committees, 56–58, 180; positive ads, 131, 232, 238, 252, 253, 256, 259, 272; regulation of, 5, 11, 80; by Republicans, 70, 128, 238, 253; by RNC, 56, 70, 180, 221; Spanish language ads, 78, 221, 249, 255, 256, 262, 264; spending on television, 66; by unions, 78, 80, 160; vapor ads, 57, 59; on video games, 59. See also radio advertising; television advertising Afghanistan, 2, 15, 47, 145, 187 AFL-CIO. See American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations AFSCME. See American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Allard, Wayne, 7, 212, 213, 222, 228 Alliance for a New America, 45, 75

America Coming Together (ACT), 12, 38, 61, 73, 78, 90, 292 America Votes, 38, 46, 53, 61, 73–76, 81, 90, 183, 203, 257, 266, 267, 275, 276, 289, 293 American Association for Justice, 47, 79 American Conservative Union, 77, 110, 123, 233 American Energy Alliance, 175, 257 American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, 10, 38, 45–47, 72, 78, 90, 91, 122, 126, 148, 156, 158, 164, 177, 183, 190, 194, 195, 199, 200, 203, 205, 217, 229, 232, 240, 241, 275, 276 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, 47, 72, 77, 122, 156, 158, 160, 177, 189, 190, 225, 267, 271, 272 American Federation of Teachers, 46, 47, 76, 77, 122, 126, 147, 148, 158, 164, 175, 177 American Future Fund, 156, 157, 159, 225, 227, 230, 231, 257 American Hospital Association, 77 American Issues Project, 77, 79, 175, 186 American Leadership Project, 75, 79 American Medical Association, 76, 156, 158 American National Election Studies, 87 American Petroleum Institute, 189 American Society of Anesthesiologists, 258 American Solutions Winning the Future, 74, 75 Americans for Job Security, 114, 123, 125, 127, 156, 158, 175, 230 Americans United for Change, 47, 74, 122, 163, 164, 198, 199 America’s Agenda: Health Care for All, 175; Health Care for Kids, 74, 163, 164, 166, 225, 226, 229 Armstrong, Jerome, 91 “Ashley’s Story,” 10, 73 Associated Builders and Contractors, 125, 127, 129, 130, 148, 159, 164, 218, 227, 230, 231, 240 automated calls. See robocalls Ayers, William, 10, 60, 79, 124, 145, 180, 285

308  /  Index

Bai, Matt, 89 Balz, Dan, 215, 219 Barabak, Mark, 269 Barnett, Jim, 150 Bartley, Sean, 203 Bass, Charlie, 142 battleground states, 17, 18, 61, 70, 71, 80, 89, 93, 101–103, 121, 143, 149, 172, 206, 214, 219, 248 Bauer, Bob, 12, 300 BCRA. See Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 Beach, Michael, 101 Bensing, Scott, 124, 154, 253, 299 Benson, Craig, 142 BET, 56 Biden, Joe: campaigning efforts as vice presidential candidate, 98, 109, 173, 215; comment on Obama’s foreign policy experience, 146, 180; presidential campaign, 4 BIPAC. See Business Industry Political ­Action Committee Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002: constitutionality of, 11; contribution limits and, 12, 35, 39, 282; definition of electioneering, 11; definition of issue advocacy, 73; impact of, 13, 22, 38, 39, 45, 48, 68, 134, 135, 282, 283, 294; implementation of, 11; passage of, 37; regulation of advertising, 80; regulation of interest groups, 10; regulation of issue advocacy, 76; on self-financed candidates, 11; soft money ban, 11, 15, 22, 48, 55, 66, 69, 282, 284 Black, Charles R., Jr., 79 Boccieri, John, 65, 187–189, 191, 206 Boehner, John, 202 BornAliveTruth.org, 175, 178, 180, 186, 218, 220, 262 Bowles, Erskine, 110 Bradley, Bill, 29 Bradley, Jeb, 20, 65, 140, 142, 149, 161, 162, 165–168 Bring Ohio Back, 175, 177, 179 Britt, Michael, 223, 228 Brock, William, 34 Bromley, Beau, 202 Brown, Scott, 91 Brunelle, Mike, 162, 165, 166 Buchanan, Patrick, 141 Buckley v. Valeo, 9, 76 Budde, Bernadette, 152, 219, 299 bundlers, 31 Burnett, Jamie, 151–153, 159, 160 Burr, Aaron, 88 Burton, Bill, 79 Bush, George H. W., 141

Bush, George W.: approval ratings, 1, 20, 142; criticism of, 145; influence on the 2008 election, 1, 2, 18, 74, 78, 91, 104, 108, 111, 124, 131, 134, 143, 152, 153, 157, 159, 162, 167, 173, 174, 183, 191, 196, 199, 213, 222, 228, 234, 235, 242, 243, 253, 255, 258, 259, 267, 269, 270, 272, 275, 287; 2000 campaign, 5, 15, 21, 35, 89, 109, 141, 212, 250; 2000 primary, 143; 2004 campaign, 1, 4, 10, 21, 31, 38, 53, 61, 73, 89–92, 100–103, 132, 179, 184, 186, 201, 205, 206, 212–214, 262, 268, 283; 2004 campaign ads, 57 Bush Legacy Project, 74 Bush tax cuts, 110, 111, 145 Business Industry Political Action Committee, 73, 152, 219 business progressives, 111 campaign communications, 18, 146, 183, 196 Campaign for Change, 115–118, 121, 122, 126, 134, 148, 158, 164, 177, 181–183, 216, 217, 226, 229, 240 Campaign Media Analysis Group, 16, 18, 56, 57, 59, 79, 113, 114, 120, 129, 146, 147, 156, 163, 174, 175, 179, 188, 189, 193, 194, 197–199, 203, 204, 219–221, 226, 237 Campaign to Defend America, 45, 74, 267 candidate visits, 62 Cannon, Charles, 112 canvassing: by Democratic Party, 115, 118, 239, 265, 276; for McCain, 6, 19; for Obama, 19, 116, 149, 150, 182; by Republican Party, 119 Caprara, Anne, 236, 239 card check legislation, 76, 77, 125, 156, 232, 275, 276 Carolina Mills, 145 Carson, Jon, 8, 61, 91, 116, 182, 303 Carter, Jimmy, 108 Carusone, Pia, 162 Catalist, 12, 38, 94, 95, 241, 266, 292, 301 Catholic Citizens, 218, 228 Catholics United, 178, 186 CBS, 56 C de Baca, Fernando, 262 Center for Democracy and Election Management, 269 Center for Responsive Politics, 235 Center for the Study of Elections and Democ­racy, 166 Central American Free Trade Agreement, 112 Chabot, Steve, 7, 65, 197–199, 201

Index  /  309

Change to Win, 46, 47, 72, 78, 122, 124– 126, 177, 183, 216, 217 Chavez, Martin, 251 Christensen, Rob, 128, 134 Christian Coalition, 9, 10 Cincinnati Enquirer, 197 Cirelli, Mary, 188 Cisneros, Gil, 228 Citizens for Reform, 10 Citizens for Strength and Security, 75, 114, 120, 121, 125, 126 Citizens of Community Values, 186 Citizens United, 74, 75, 79, 178 Citizens United v. FEC, 80, 282 Clark, Paul, 301 Clean Water Action, 46, 47, 217, 229, 240 Clinton, Bill, 3, 9, 110, 141, 149, 215, 265, 287 Clinton, Hillary: fundraising efforts, 31, 32; opposition to, 74, 80; primary campaign, 2–5, 15, 31, 93, 95, 109, 143, 150, 173, 215, 288; support for, 79, 144; support for Obama, 173 Club for Growth, 74, 75, 77, 155, 156, 159, 186, 227, 230, 257 CMAG. See Campaign Media Analysis Group CNN, 57 Coalition for a Conservative Majority, 79 Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, 76, 125, 127, 156, 159, 230 Coalition for Our Children’s Future, 10 Coleman, Norm, 27, 64, 285 College Republicans, 74, 75, 97 Coloradans for Economic Growth, 225, 227 Coloradans for Employee Freedom, 225, 227 Coloradans for Life, 234 Coloradans for Plain Talk, 233 Colorado: absentee voting, 97; battleground state, 21, 214; candidate visits, 62; card check legislation, 77, 78; direct mail, 60; early voting, 97, 98 Colorado Democratic Party: advertising, 216, 217, 227, 240; coordinated campaign, 216; voter registration efforts, 226 Colorado Education Association, 240, 241 Colorado First Project, 225 Colorado Reconnaissance Network, 219 Colorado Republican Party, 219, 228, 241 Colorado WOMEN VOTE!, 240, 241 Committee for Truth in Politics, 120, 175, 178, 180 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 17, 269 Connally, John, 15 Cook Political Report, 17 Cooper, Amanda, 251, 255

coordinated campaigns, 53 coordinated expenditures: by Democratic Party, 225, 265, 271; overview, 68; by party committees, 38, 66, 68; by Republican Party, 271 Coors, Pete, 223, 231 Craig, Larry, 7 Cranley, John, 197 Cullen, Fergus, 150 Cunningham, Chuck, 6, 299 Current Population Survey, 87, 91, 97 Dailey, Fred, 65, 202–204 Dann, Marc, 191 Davis, Rick, 57, 92 Davis, Thomas, III, 287 Davis v. FEC, 11 DCCC. See Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Dean, Howard, 13, 38, 59, 265, 292, 294 Defenders of Wildlife, 38, 46, 47, 76, 77, 175, 178, 217, 220, 229, 236, 237, 240, 241, 252, 258, 267, 271, 272, 276 Demers, Jim, 144, 146, 149, 150 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, 71; advertising, 116, 119, 131, 132, 134, 162, 163, 165, 191, 194, 239; advertising expenditures, 114, 129, 163, 189, 193, 194, 198, 226, 237; campaign communications, 122, 126, 130, 164, 177, 189, 190, 194, 195, 199, 200; contributions to candidates, 67; coordinated campaign, 68; direct mail, 166, 239, 272, 275; expenditures, 67, 81, 166, 167, 225, 240, 243, 272; Frontline fundraising program, 162, 201; fundraising efforts, 34; funds from candidates, 38, 43; hard money contributions, 68; independent expenditures, 69, 71, 113, 118, 188, 198, 236, 271, 290; Mobilize for Change Contest, 118; partner with Catalist, 38; radio advertising, 198; resource advantage, 206; strategy of, 112; total receipts, 36, 39, 40, 43, 44; voter mobilization efforts, 183 Democratic Coordinated Campaign, 118 Democratic National Committee: advertising, 174, 216, 221; advertising expenditures, 120, 175, 219, 220; campaign communications, 122, 126, 130, 148, 158, 177, 217, 229, 240; coordinated campaign, 68, 69, 81; expenditures, 54, 66, 67, 225; fundraising efforts, 34, 38, 39; ground game, 181; hard money contributions, 68; independent expenditures, 69–71; money disadvantage, 71; tension with other party committees, 35; total receipts, 36, 37, 39, 40; use of soft money, 9;

310  /  Index

Democratic National Committee (cont.) voter files, 95, 227; voter mobilization efforts, 38, 90, 183 Democratic National Convention, 21, 77, 96, 202, 215 Democratic Party of New Mexico: advertising, 272; coordinated campaign, 253; ­d irect mail, 253, 274; voter mobilization, 265 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee: advertising, 119, 124, 125, 134, 159, 231; advertising expenditures, 113, 114, 120, 129, 155, 156, 226, 231; campaign communications, 122, 126, 130, 148, 158, 229; candidate recruitment, 111, 251; contributions to candidates, 67; coordinated campaign, 68; expenditures, 19, 66, 67, 81, 155, 167, 225, 287, 289, 290; fundraising efforts, 34; funds from candidates, 38, 43; hard money contributions, 68; independent expenditures, 69–71, 224; partner with Catalist, 38; total receipts, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43 direct mail: by Democrats, 116, 125, 146, 165, 183, 189, 191, 194, 199, 203, 224, 225, 239, 253, 274, 275; by interest groups, 77, 78, 117, 125, 183–185, 228, 231, 258, 272, 275, 276; overview, 60; by party committees, 9, 166, 253, 259, 271; by Republicans, 34, 124, 184, 185, 189, 191, 196, 199, 201, 203, 219, 228, 236, 253, 276 direct voter contact, 22, 56 Dirty Dozen, 125, 231 Dixiecrat, 108, 131 DNC. See Democratic National Committee Dobson, James, 213, 215 Dodd, Chris, 4 Dole, Elizabeth: advertising, 124, 125, 127, 128; coordinated expenditures, 69; expenditures, 65, 113; fundraising efforts, 112, 289; ground game, 117; opposition to, 119, 124, 125, 134, 135; reelection bid, 7, 18, 70, 108, 110, 133, 285; support for, 113, 119, 125, 133; voting record, 110, 111 Dole, Robert, 9, 110 Domenici, Pete, 7, 21, 248–250, 270 Donatelli, Becki, 92, 96, 292 DPNM. See Democratic Party of New Mexico Driehaus, Steve, 7, 65, 197–199, 201, 206 DSCC. See Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Duffy, Jennifer, 17, 299 DuHaime, Mike, 98 Durkin, John, 141

Early Vote for Change, 98 early voting, 13, 16, 31, 55, 59, 87, 96–100, 102, 104, 109, 115–118, 132, 134, 216, 219, 221, 226, 236, 253, 262, 265, 268 Eckhart, Don, 192, 193, 196 economic crisis and effect on the 2008 election, 79, 109, 159, 162, 176, 180, 223, 227, 235, 254 Edwards, John, 2, 4, 29, 31, 45, 59, 99, 109, 288 Eidsness, Eric, 234 electioneering, definition of, 282 e-mail, 6, 17, 60, 97, 119, 181, 196, 199; use by Obama campaign, 90, 100, 182, 216 Emanuel, Rahm, 16, 34, 43 EMILY’s List, 38, 46, 47, 74–77, 113, 166, 194, 235 Employee Free Choice Act, 76–78, 91, 156, 232, 275 Employee Freedom Action Committee, 74, 114, 120, 125, 127, 147, 156, 159, 220, 222, 227 Engstrom, Rob, 77, 155, 303 Ensign, John, 70, 252–253 enthusiasm gap, 5, 6, 19, 56, 60, 91, 92, 99, 100, 116, 117, 132, 135, 149, 150, 186, 201, 212, 216, 293 Environment Colorado, 241 equal pay legislation, 183 ESPN, 57, 121 Eudy, Carla, 45, 304 exit polls, 3, 101–104, 132, 242 Exley, Zach, 4 express advocacy, 79 Facebook, 96, 283 Faith Vote Columbus, 178, 184, 190, 195, 200, 205 Family Research Council, 127, 218, 233 Fannie Mae, 180 Farrakhan, Louis, 180 Feather, Tony, 79 FECA. See Federal Election Campaign Act Federal Election Campaign Act: contribution limits, 13, 31; impact of, 40; public financ­ ing and, 15; regulation of advertising and, 9; regulation of interest groups and, 8; ­Supreme Court case, 76 Federal Election Commission: definition of unitemized contributions, 39; fines to interest groups, 5, 45; implemen­tation of BCRA, 11, 13; regulation of advertising, 57; regulation of federal matching funds, 5, 15; regulation of 527 organizations, 73, 79; regulation of fundraising, 8; regulation of independent expenditures, 76; regulation of interest groups, 10, 12, 74;

Index  /  311

regulation of issue advo­cacy, 10, 72; reporting deadlines, 30; source of data, 16, 18, 66, 194, 224, 235, 236, 258, 270; Supreme Court decision, 11 Federal Marriage Amendment, 233 Fernald, Mark, 142 Ferraro, Geraldine, 3 Ferry, Christian, 14, 30, 54, 61, 110, 291, 304 field offices, 4, 8, 14, 62, 63, 100 field operation, 54, 55, 57, 61, 62 501(c) organizations: expenditures, 10, 27, 28, 74, 81; fundraising, 73; issue advocacy, 45; overview, 78, 284; regulation of, 74 501(c)(4) organizations: advertising, 79; criticism of, 238; expenditures, 74, 223, 235, 236, 257; regulation of, 79 501(c)(5) organizations, 74 501(c)(6) organizations, 74 527 organizations: advertising, 78, 125, 234; coordination of, 12, 53, 76; criticism of, 238; expenditures, 10, 27, 28, 74, 75, 81, 223, 236; fundraising, 73, 225; issue advocacy, 45; overview, 73, 74, 78, 284; regulation of, 12, 74, 79 fivethirtyeight.com, 100 Florida: battleground state, 70; Spanish language ads, 69; voting controversy, 16 Focus on the Family, 213, 218, 228, 230, 240 Forbes, Steve, 15, 32 Ford, Gerald, 4, 143 Ford, Jennifer, 257 foreign policy, 2, 146, 180 foreign trade, 131, 176 Fort Bragg, 111 Forward Colorado, 225, 226, 239 Fox, 56, 57 Franken, Al, 27, 64 Freddie Mac, 180 Freedom’s Watch, 74, 114, 120, 121, 125, 127, 159, 163, 225, 227, 230–232, 257, 259, 267, 272, 276 free trade, 121, 272 Frist, William, 34 Frontline fundraising program, 162, 201 Frost, Martin, 46, 53, 61, 257, 303 Fund for America, 45, 75, 79 fundraising: by candidates, 27, 29; Democratic advantage, 15, 21, 33, 172, 224, 235, 289; by Democrats, 162, 192; incumbency advantage, 32, 153, 287; individual contributions, 252; by interest groups, 22, 27, 45; through the Internet, 1, 6, 13, 47, 59, 90, 113; by McCain campaign, 6, 30, 92; by Obama campaign, 4, 13, 29, 31,

54, 206; by party committees, 34, 35, 38, 42, 43, 233, 236, 275, 284; regulation of, 31, 45; by Republicans, 7, 185, 234 FX Network, 57, 121 gambling, 184 Gawiser, Sheldon, 3, 4 gay marriage, 141, 179, 184, 213, 233, 253 Geise, Josh, 265 get-out-the-vote: by Democrats, 118, 142, 183, 194, 196, 253, 265, 274, 275, 277; effectiveness of, 268; by interest groups, 78, 119, 183, 227; by McCain campaign, 101; by Obama campaign, 62, 118, 182, 239; by party committees, 9, 119; by presidential candidates, 56; by Republicans, 38, 117, 184, 196, 228, 276 Gill, Tim, 233, 234 Gingrich, Newt, 74 Giroux, Greg, 17, 299 Giuliani, Rudy, 30 Godless Americans Political Action Committee, 127, 128 Golf Channel, 57 GOP. See Republican Party GOPAC, 74, 75 GOPNM. See Republican Party of New Mexico Gore, Al, 21, 29, 61, 103, 141 GOTV. See get-out-the-vote grassroots organizations: through the Internet, 59, 87; supporting Democrats, 90, 118, 119, 166; supporting McCain, 184; supporting Obama, 15, 30, 96, 109, 117, 134, 149, 182, 206; supporting presidential candidates, 181; supporting Republicans, 89, 117, 119, 125, 134, 150, 185, 204 Green, John, 38 Gronbeck, Bruce E., 59 ground game: Democratic advantage, 12, 20, 115, 116, 216; by Democrats, 89, 118, 119, 132, 133, 181, 206, 216; by interest groups, 117, 216, 219, 231, 241, 276; by Obama campaign, 14, 118, 146; by presidential candidates, 181; by Republicans, 117, 185, 216, 228, 236 Guam: candidate visits, 62 Guinta, Frank, 167 gun control, 112, 187, 192, 196, 202, 233 Hagan, Kay: advertising, 124, 125; campaign strategy, 111, 116, 118; expenditures, 65, 113; experience in politics, 110, 111; fundraising efforts, 112, 289; opposition to, 125, 127, 128; support for, 19, 47, 113, 116, 118, 121, 125, 133–135, 291

312  /  Index

Hagel, Chuck, 7 hard money: effects of BCRA, 13; raising, 15, 42, 44; receipts, 36, 37, 39; regulation of, 8, 38, 66 Harmon, Bo, 99, 219, 303 Hart, Gary, 222 Hayes, Robin, 19, 65, 69, 108, 112, 113, 115, 118, 119, 128, 131–135, 286 Haynes, Clay, 134 health care, 78, 112, 129, 145, 155, 160, 169, 176, 179, 183, 194, 221, 257, 258, 267, 275 Health Care for America Now, 47, 120–122, 156, 158 Hefner, Bill, 112 Heinrich, Martin, 8, 47, 65, 248, 267, 269– 272, 274–276, 290, 302 Helms, Ned, 149, 150 Help America Vote Act, 94 HGTV Network, 57, 121 Hildebrand Tewes Consulting, 90 HillRaisers, 31 Hodes, Paul, 142, 167 Houdini, 239 Huckabee, Mike, 5, 15, 30, 32 Hughes, Chris, 96 Hunt, Jim, 111, 112 Ickes, Harold, 12, 94, 292, 300 immigration, 21, 111, 125, 165, 180, 221, 231, 250, 264 incumbency advantage, 8, 19, 29, 81, 151, 153, 162, 167, 172, 204, 250, 277, 285– 287, 290 independent expenditures: by interest groups, 9, 71, 72, 76, 194, 235, 257, 258, 262, 271, 272, 284; by party committees, 66, 69, 70, 71, 81, 113, 119, 134, 188, 198, 224, 236, 271, 284; regulation of, 69, 76, 283 independent voters, 132, 144, 269 Innovators, 31 interest groups: advertising, 125, 157, 166, 179, 184, 185, 189, 191, 222, 231, 253, 262, 272; advertising expenditures, 114, 120, 129, 147, 156, 157, 163, 175, 176, 189, 193, 194, 198, 204, 220, 226, 227, 237, 259, 272; campaign communications, 60, 80, 122, 123, 126, 127, 130, 148, 158, 159, 164, 177–179, 190, 194, 195, 200, 205, 217, 218, 229, 230, 240, 241; coordination of, 8, 46, 53; electioneering, 257; expenditures, 10, 35, 55, 71, 113, 121, 125, 134, 167, 225, 236, 284; fundraising efforts, 22, 27, 45, 46, 80; ground game, 117, 293; independent expenditures, 9,

69, 72, 81; issue advocacy, 9, 45, 76; regulation of, 5, 8, 11, 13; strategies of, 134, 151, 155, 162, 235, 249; supporting Democrats, 2, 73, 81, 119, 160, 174, 181, 183, 199, 201, 203, 216, 257, 270; supporting McCain, 180; supporting Republicans, 6, 115, 128, 180, 201, 219, 228; voter mobilization efforts, 20, 228, 266, 268; voter registration efforts, 12, 73, 186 Internal Revenue Service Code, 10, 16, 45, 73, 74, 284 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 74, 75 Iowa, 143; caucus, 4, 5 Iraq War: influence on the 2008 election, 1, 2, 7, 15, 31, 47, 110–112, 121, 131, 135, 142, 152, 167, 185, 187, 213, 222, 226, 259, 267, 272, 274, 287, 288 IRS. See Internal Revenue Service Code issue advocacy: by interest groups, 10, 45, 72, 235; regulation of, 9, 11, 73, 76 James, LeBron, 173 Jefferson, Thomas, 88 Jenkins, Greg, 100 Joe the Plumber, 173 Johnson, Dennis, 6, 60 Johnson, Gary, 270 Johnson, Haynes, 215, 219 Jordan, Michael, 52 Judicial Confirmation Network, 178, 180 Kay, Timothy, 57 Kennedy, Edward, 91 Kerry, John: influence on the 2008 election, 149, 180; opposition to, 10; response to negative ads, 10; 2004 campaign, 2, 21, 29, 37–39, 53, 54, 61, 70, 73, 90, 91, 101, 103, 132, 133, 141, 142, 174, 182, 186, 197, 212, 213, 262, 265, 268, 285 Kilroy, Mary Jo, 7, 20, 65, 192–194, 196, 206, 302 Kissell, Larry, 19, 65, 108, 112, 113, 116, 118, 119, 128, 131–133, 135 Kubasko, Rob, 104 Laborers Union, 74, 75 labor unions, 35, 80, 89, 113, 160, 174, 183, 189, 203, 216, 225, 227 LaCivita, Chris, 79, 101, 301 Lantern Project, 79 large donors, 15, 29, 31, 39, 40, 43, 44, 46 League of Conservation Voters, 12, 38, 45– 47, 75–77, 114, 120–122, 125, 126, 148, 155, 156, 158, 178, 190, 195, 200, 205, 217, 225, 226, 229, 231, 258

Index  /  313

Ledbetter, Lilly, 183 Lee, Jackie, 98 Lehman Brothers, 2, 61, 215, 223 Let Freedom Ring, 123, 175, 178, 180, 186, 218, 220, 222 Lifetime Network, 57, 121 Limbaugh, Rush, 143 Lipsen, Linda, 79, 300 Longabaugh, Mark, 252, 299 Luo, Michael, 62 Lux, Michael, 7, 46, 299 Lynch, John, 142 Madrid, Patricia, 270 Majority Action, 75, 114, 125, 126, 237, 240 Majority America, 175, 198–201 Mallory, Mark, 199 Markey, Betsy, 7, 21, 65, 212, 233–236, 238, 239, 241–243, 290 Marshall, Thurgood, 116 Massaro, Tony, 155, 300 Matsunaka, Stan, 233 MATT.org, 218, 262 max-out donors, 282, 294 McCain, John: accepting public financing, 54, 112, 291; candidate visits, 62, 173, 215; connection to Bush, 1, 173, 174, 183, 242; criticism of Obama, 145; enthusiasm gap, 19, 104; on 527 organizations, 79; foreign policy, 146; funds transferred to party committees, 38; on interest groups, 10, 45; on negative ads, 58; opposition to, 74, 121, 124, 135, 145, 179, 184, 221, 222, 258, 264, 267; primary campaign, 5, 93, 109, 144, 149, 215; support for, 6, 54, 69, 92, 96, 98, 119, 133, 151, 186, 196, 205, 215, 222, 259, 262, 268; 2000 ­campaign, 13, 141, 143; YouTube ­videos, 59 McCain campaign: absence from Boston television, 146; advertising, 56–58, 60, 174, 180, 185, 219, 221, 259; advertising expenditures, 56, 119, 146, 179, 181, 219, 259; campaign staff, 62, 115; campaign strategy, 5, 14, 21, 102, 103, 109, 110, 144, 146, 149, 150, 168, 172, 173; canvassing, 6; coordinated campaign, 14, 53, 54, 57, 69, 184, 185; direct mail, 124; early voting efforts, 98; expenditure gap, 54, 70; field operation, 4, 62, 63, 80, 100, 184, 216; fundraising efforts, 29–31, 38, 40, 92; grassroots effort, 184; ground game, 60, 100, 265; hybrid ads, 221; limited resources, 101; organization, 92; outreach to Hispanic voters, 261, 262; robo­calls, 60; use of radio, 58; use of tech-

nology, 96, 292, 294; voter mobilization efforts, 88, 98, 100–103, 147, 259 McCain Hispanic Support, 262 McCain/RNC joint committee, 57, 58, 121 McCarthy, Eugene, 149 McClure, Chris, 117 McConnell, Mitch, 34 McConnell v. FEC, 11, 282 McDonald, Michael, 94, 303 McIntire, Mike, 62 McKenna, Martha, 78, 303 media: coverage of ads, 57; use of new forms, 56, 58; video games, 58, 59 Medicare, 176 Meehan, Martin, 11 Mehlman, Ken, 89, 90 Melanson, Mike, 223, 224, 231 Menino, Thomas, 149 Mexicans and Americans Thinking ­Together, 218, 262 microtargeting, 57, 60, 61, 89, 93, 94, 184, 185 Milkis, Sidney, 13 Miller, Matt, 188 Millerick, Jayne, 146, 147, 151 Mitchell, George, 34 Mobilize for Change Contest, 118 Moll, Jeannette, 202 Mondale, Walter, 3 Mook, Robby, 160 Mormons, 215 Moulitsas, Markos, 91 Move America Forward, 188 MoveOn.org, 12, 13, 45–47, 76, 77, 113, 114, 120–122, 125, 126, 175, 177, 190, 195, 200, 205, 217, 220 MSNBC, 56, 121 multilevel marketing scheme, 89 Musgrave, Marilyn, 7, 21, 65, 212, 221, 233–239, 241, 243, 290 My.BarackObama.com, 13, 100, 182, 259, 283, 290 Nader, Ralph, 141 Nagourney, Adam, 92 NARAL, 38, 46, 47, 72, 148, 158, 177, 216, 217 National Association of Manufacturers, 77, 300 National Association of Realtors, 72, 76 National Cable Communications, 119 National Education Association, 38, 46, 47, 72, 74, 75, 114, 148, 158, 164, 166, 177, 216, 225, 226 National Federation of Independent Business, 117, 119, 129, 130, 175, 193–196

314  /  Index

National Jewish Democratic Council, 47, 177, 184 National Pro-Life Alliance, 120, 123, 127, 129, 130, 218, 219, 257, 262 National Republican Congressional Committee: advertising, 128, 134, 196, 199, 234, 238; advertising expenditures, 163, 175, 189, 193, 194, 198, 220, 237; campaign communications, 164, 195, 196, 199, 200, 240; candidate recruiting, 202; contributions to candidates, 67; coor­dinated campaign, 68; direct mail, 166, 241, 274; expenditures, 66, 67, 166, 236; fundraising efforts, 34, 233; funds from candidates, 38, 43; grassroots ­effort, 135; ground game, 185; hard money contributions, 68; independent expendi­t ures, 69–71, 113, 188, 198, 271; strategy of, 162, 221, 239, 271, 272; ­support from RNC, 71; total receipts, 36, 39, 41, 43, 44; voter mobilization ­efforts, 119 National Republican Senatorial Committee: advertising, 125; advertising expenditures, 113, 114, 120, 156, 226, 232; campaign communications, 123, 127, 158, 164, 178, 230; contributions to candidates, 68; coordinated campaign, 68; expenditures, 66, 67, 155, 289, 290; fundraising efforts, 34; funds from candidates, 38, 43; hard money contributions, 68; historical advantage, 43; independent expenditures, 69–71, 225; strategy of, 161, 221, 252, 271; support from RNC, 71; total receipts, 36, 37, 39, 41–43 National Republican Trust, 76, 77, 120, 123, 127, 148, 175, 178, 180, 193, 194, 218, 220, 230 National Rifle Association, 6, 72, 76, 117, 119, 123, 127, 129, 130, 186, 191, 196, 201, 203, 204, 219, 228, 257, 262; Political Victory Fund, 148, 156, 159, 163, 164, 175, 178, 190, 195, 196, 200, 205, 218, 230, 240 National Right to Life, 72, 76, 77, 119, 123, 127, 129, 130, 148, 159, 175, 178, 186, 200, 201, 218, 228, 230, 240, 262, 271 National Taxpayers Union, 77 National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, 158, 228, 229, 271 Nation of Islam, 180 Natural Resources Defense Council, 46 NBC, 56 NCRN, 121, 124, 125 NEA. See National Education Association Nelson, Michael, 59

NEP exit poll, 102 netroots, 91 New Hampshire: battleground state, 141; candidate visits, 62; card check legislation, 78; early voting, 98; primary, 4, 91 New Hampshire Democratic Party, 158, 160, 162, 164 New Hampshire Reconnaissance Network, 146 New Hampshire Republican Party, 160 New Hampshire Women VOTE, 148, 158, 164, 166 New Life Church, 228 New Mexico: battleground state, 248; candidate visits, 62; direct mail, 60; early voting, 97, 98 New Mexico Reconnaissance Network, 253 New Mexico State Police Association, 275 New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, 270 Ney, Robert, 201, 202 NFIB. See National Federation of Independent Business Nighthorse Campbell, Ben, 212 96 Hour Effort, 184 Nixon, Richard, 287 Noble, Mark, 192 North Carolina: battleground state, 18, 93; candidate visits, 62; card check legislation, 78; early voting, 97, 98; voting process, 19 North Carolina Association of Educators, 122, 124, 126 North Carolina Democratic Party, 115, 118, 120, 122, 125, 131, 134 North Carolina Reconnaissance Network, 121, 124, 125 North Carolina Republican Party, 119, 124, 125, 128 NRA. See National Rifle Association NRCC. See National Republican Congressional Committee NRSC. See National Republican Senatorial Committee Obama, Barack: appeal to young voters, 96; candidate visits, 62, 109, 110, 116, 173, 215; connection to Jeremiah Wright, 180; criticism of McCain, 173; enthusiasm gap, 19, 99, 100, 134, 135, 201; on 527 organizations, 79; foreign policy, 146; funds transferred to party committees, 38; on interest groups, 10, 45; mobilization efforts, 197; on negative ads, 58; opposition to, 6, 10, 57, 74, 79, 124, 145, 180, 219, 221, 222, 257, 259, 262, 264, 267; opting out of public financing, 14, 15, 88, 112, 206,

Index  /  315

290; platform, 144, 145, 183; primary campaign, 4, 93, 109, 140, 143, 144, 150, 215; support for, 6, 21, 53, 78, 102, 103, 121, 124, 133, 167, 172, 184, 191, 196, 205, 216, 222, 258, 267, 268, 274, 276; theme of change, 1, 2, 159, 191, 194, 199, 206, 288; victory in Ohio, 206; YouTube videos, 59 Obama, Michelle, 173, 215 Obama campaign: advertising, 55, 56, 58, 59, 80, 116, 121, 145, 146, 174, 176, 221, 259, 264; advertising expenditures, 56, 57, 119, 121, 174, 181, 219, 259; campaign staff, 62, 115; campaign strategy, 95, 110, 111, 121, 144, 146, 150, 172, 173, 181, 219, 253, 283; coordinated campaign, 53, 54, 115, 160, 181, 216; early voting efforts, 98, 99; field operation, 4, 61–63, 80, 100, 116, 215, 216; fundraising advantage, 29, 30, 32, 103, 112; fundraising efforts, 13, 29–31, 38, 39, 47, 48, 54, 134, 267, 288; fundraising through the Internet, 30; grassroots effort, 117, 149; ground game, 20, 60, 61, 100, 117, 118, 147, 181, 216, 265, 292; outreach to Hispanic voters, 57, 262; resource advantage, 61, 70, 80, 146, 167, 172; use of radio, 58; use of technology, 13, 47, 91, 92, 95, 96, 182, 283, 290; video game ads, 59; volunteer recruiting, 90, 96, 100, 182, 239; voter mobilization efforts, 60, 81, 88, 90, 91, 98, 101–103, 109, 116, 118, 132, 134, 182, 206, 226, 227, 259, 265, 268, 276, 291; voter registration efforts, 12, 103, 116 Obama Fellows, 182 Obama for America, 38, 117, 216 Obama for Change campaign, 265, 266 Obama Online Operation, 13 Ohio: absentee voting, 97; battleground state, 70, 93, 172, 187, 206; candidate visits, 62; early voting, 97, 98; voter turnout, 186 Ohio Army National Guard, 192, 196 Ohio Christian Alliance, 186 Ohio Christian Coalition, 186 Ohio Democratic Party, 181, 189, 190, 194– 196, 199, 205 Ohio Education Association, 189, 190 Ohio Elections Central, 186 Ohio Reconnaissance Network, 174, 179, 183–185, 188, 189, 193, 194, 196–199, 203 Ohio Republican Party, 185, 190, 191, 195, 196, 199, 204, 205 Ohio Women Vote, 194 ONE Campaign, 120, 147, 175, 220 one-stop voting, 115, 117, 216

ORN. See Ohio Reconnaissance Network Owens, Bill, 213, 228 Paccione, Angie, 234, 235 PACs. See political action committees Padgett, Joy, 202 Padilla, Marissa, 253 Palin, Sarah, 3, 6, 61, 92, 98, 110, 148, 150, 173, 183, 186, 215, 216, 259 Patriot Act, 153 Patriot Majority, 75, 114, 120, 125, 126, 156, 158, 160, 175, 190, 193–195, 198, 199, 226, 229, 231, 258, 272 Patterson, Thomas, 87 Paul, Ron, 13, 30, 47, 288, 291 Pearce, Steve, 21, 65, 248–258, 271, 277, 290 Pelosi, Nancy, 7, 165, 228, 235 Pennsylvania: battleground state, 70, 93; field operation, 63 People for the American Way, 47, 120, 156, 158, 178, 184, 190, 195, 200, 205 Perdue, Bev, 121 Perlmutter, Ed, 213 Perot, Ross, 56, 141 Peterson, Collin, 202 Petraeus, David, 272 Pew Research Center, 91, 92 Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, 166 Phillips, Paul, 202 Planned Parenthood, 38, 46, 47, 126, 177, 217, 220 Plouffe, David, 6, 53, 60, 90, 91, 100, 110, 116, 144, 183, 261, 283, 288 Podhorzer, Mike, 91, 93, 94, 232, 300 Polis, Jared, 233 political action committees: advertising, 222, 272; contributions, 10, 27, 35, 45, 74, 113, 154, 188, 192, 197, 202, 224, 235, 236, 252, 271, 284; expenditures, 28, 81; receipts, 13, 235; regulation of, 22, 39, 72 political machines, 87–89 Political Victory Fund, 219 Politico.com, 252 Pope Air Force Base, 111 Potter, Trevor, 92, 149, 301 Power Vote, 148, 159, 164 Priests for Life, 148, 178, 186, 262 Pritzker, Penny, 288 Pro-Choice America, 38, 46, 47, 72, 148, 158, 177, 216, 217 Progress for America, 10, 12, 73, 79 Progressive Media USA, 45, 79 Progressive Strategies, 46 Project Vote, 242

316  /  Index

Pryce, Deborah, 7, 20, 192 Public Opinion Strategies poll, 270, 272 Public Policy Polling, 132 Puerto Rico: candidate visits, 62 Putnam, Robert, 87 Quinn, Brady, 173 Race Fans for Change, 123, 124, 178 radio advertising: by Democrats, 121, 166, 183, 198, 199, 203, 224, 231; importance of, 56, 58; by interest groups, 73, 121, 129, 155, 156, 184, 185, 234, 257–259, 262; by McCain campaign, 80, 119, 179, 221; Obama advantage, 5, 14, 80, 146; by Obama campaign, 57, 119, 174, 221; by party committees, 121, 155; by Republicans, 128, 185, 199, 232; Spanish language ads, 255, 262, 264; spending on, 154, 188, 194 Rasmussen Reports, 251 Reagan, Ronald, 4, 15, 108, 287 Reardon, Judy, 151–153, 156 Red Cross, 110 Redfern, Chris, 181, 182 Redmond, Bill, 251 Red to Blue program, 236 Regula, Ralph, 187, 188, 191 Reid, Harry, 7 RENEW OHIO-18 Economic Summit, 202 Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico, independent expenditures of, 271 Republican Jewish Coalition, 175, 178 Republican Majority Campaign, 76, 77 Republican National Committee: advertising, 56, 70, 180, 191, 219, 221; advertising expenditures, 114, 120, 121, 147, 175, 180, 194, 220, 221, 226; campaign communications, 123, 126, 130, 148, 158, 164, 178, 190, 196, 218, 230, 240; coordinated campaign, 14, 57, 61, 68, 69, 80, 160, 184, 291; direct mail, 125, 128, 191; expenditures, 54, 66, 67, 225, 259; fundraising efforts, 34, 39; ground game, 185, 236; hard money contributions, 68; historical advantage, 38, 40, 43; hybrid ads, 58, 60, 128; independent expenditures, 69, 70, 71; resource advantage, 71; support for McCain, 54; total receipts, 6, 36–39, 41; use of soft money, 9; voter files, 12; voter mobilization efforts, 196 Republican National Convention, 215 Republican Party: advertising, 185, 259; expenditures, 67; historical advantage, 36, 37, 39; microtargeting, 184; strategy, 236; voter files, 38

Republican Party of New Mexico, 253, 259, 271, 272, 276 Republicans for Clean Air, 5, 73, 284 Rezko, Tony, 185, 268 Richardson, Bill, 21, 31, 251, 265, 270 RightChange.com, 75, 114, 117, 120, 127, 178 Right to Life, 188 Ritter, Bill, 213, 228 RNC. See Republican National Committee Roberts, John, 11, 80, 282 Robinson, Jackie, 116 robocalls, 6, 56, 60, 128, 232, 249, 262, 265, 285 Rockefeller, Nelson, 143 Rock the Vote, 38, 122, 177, 190, 195, 200, 205, 217, 229 Roe v. Wade, 203 Romney, Mitt, 3, 5, 15, 30–32, 143, 149, 215, 291 Rosenthal, Steve, 78, 90, 144, 300 Rospars, Joe, 6, 30, 96, 292, 303 Rothenberg, Stuart, 17, 214, 299 Rothenberg Political Report, 17 Rove, Karl, 89 Rutenberg, Jim, 56 Ryall, Marty, 128 Ryan, Paul, 57, 300 Salazar, John, 213 Salazar, Ken, 212, 213, 222, 226, 228, 234, 238 Santorum, Rick, 79 Sasso, John, 97 Schaffer, Bob, 65, 78, 212, 221–225, 227, 228, 231–233, 242, 290 Schiff, Steven, 251 Schiffer, Paul, 188 Schmidt, Eric, 96 Schmidt, Steve, 93, 242 Schneider, Bill, 91 Schumer, Chuck, 16, 34, 43, 228 Schuring, Kirk, 65, 69, 188, 189, 191 Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 173 Seacoast progressives, 166 SEIU. See Service Employees International Union Senate Banking Committee, 125 Service Employees International Union, 38, 45–47, 72, 74–78, 148, 156, 158, 160, 164, 170, 175, 177, 179, 183, 199, 200, 203, 204, 217, 225, 229, 240, 267, 271, 276 72 Hour Task Force, 61, 89, 104, 184 Shaheen, Jeanne, 19, 65, 140–142, 151–157, 159–161, 167, 289 Shays, Christopher, 11

Index  /  317

Shea-Porter, Carol, 20, 65, 140, 142, 161– 163, 165–167; support for, 166 Shull, Darrell, 73 Shumaker, Paul, 109 Sierra Club, 38, 46, 47, 122, 126, 148, 156, 158, 163, 164, 175, 177, 217, 229, 240, 270 Silver, Nate, 100 Simmons, Harold, 79 Slatecard.com, 47 small donors, 4, 22, 29, 30, 39, 40, 43, 44, 289, 294 Smith, Bob, 141, 151 Smith, Charlie, 97, 303 Smith, Gordon, 7, 285 social networking, 31, 58, 61, 96, 97, 100, 104, 181, 182 Social Security, 7, 159, 165, 179 soft money: BCRA ban on, 11, 15, 22, 35, 37, 38, 48, 55, 66, 282; overview, 9, 10, 22, 35, 37, 40, 42, 44, 68 Sorauf, Frank, 45 Soros, George, 45 Space, Zack, 65, 202–206 Springsteen, Bruce, 173 State Children’s Health Insurance Program, 166 stem cell research, 141, 233, 250 Stephen, John, 161 Stevens, Ted, 7, 285 Stivers, Steve, 7, 20, 65, 69, 192–194, 196, 197 STORM, 97 Strasma, Ken, 94, 95, 303 Strategic Telemetry, 94 Strickland, Ted, 176, 181, 202 Stryker, Pat, 225, 233, 234, 236 Student Tools for Online Mobilization, 97 Sununu, John: advertising, 153–155; expenditures, 65, 153, 154; fundraising efforts, 153, 289; opposition to, 70, 152, 153, 157, 159, 160, 162, 168; reelection bid, 7, 19, 140, 143, 151, 152, 160, 161, 168, 285; support for, 77, 142, 155–157, 167 Super Tuesday, 15, 32, 215 Supreme Court rulings: on advertising, 5, 80; on BCRA, 11, 282; on express advocacy, 79; on FECA, 76; on independent expendi­t ures, 69; on issue advocacy, 9, 11 Survey USA poll, 250 Susan B. Anthony List, 117, 125, 127, 148, 159, 178, 186, 218, 228, 230, 240, 241, 257, 262 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, 10, 12, 45, 73, 79, 285, 294 Syscom Services, 234, 241

Teague, Harry, 250 Teamsters, 46, 47, 72, 122, 177 technology: campaign use of, 97; fundraising use of, 39; Obama campaign use of, 13, 31, 206; Republicans’ use of, 185 Teixeira, Ruy, 87 telephone banking, 117, 118, 184 television advertising: in battleground states, 20, 174, 193, 249; by Democrats, 131, 166, 183, 189, 199, 203, 224, 231, 239, 272; by interest groups, 73, 129, 155, 184, 185, 199, 222, 231, 234, 236, 259, 262; by McCain campaign, 80, 101, 110, 119, 179, 221; Obama advantage, 14, 56, 80, 146; by Obama campaign, 57, 110, 119, 145, 174, 219, 221; in Ohio, 174; by party committees, 70, 121, 194, 199; by Republicans, 185, 189, 196, 199, 232, 250, 253; Spanish language ads, 255, 262; spending on, 55, 56, 66, 128, 131, 154, 188, 272 text messaging, 13, 31, 90, 94, 96, 97, 182, 259 They Work for Us, 78 Thompson, Fred, 31 Todd, Chuck, 3, 4 Toner, Michael E., 79–80 Tracey, Evan, 30, 53, 57–59, 79, 80, 93, 301 Trailblazers, 31 TRIAD, 10 Trippi, Joe, 59, 303 Trust and Small Business PAC, 156, 159 TV One, 56 Twitter, 283 Udall, Mark, 65, 78, 212, 222–225, 227, 228, 231, 232, 234, 242, 243, 289 Udall, Morris “Mo,” 222 Udall, Tom, 21, 47, 65, 248–255, 257, 258, 274, 277, 290, 302 United Auto Workers, 76, 77, 122, 126, 130, 175, 177, 179 United Brotherhood of Carpenters, 74, 75, 217, 229 United Food and Commercial Workers, 74, 75, 147, 177, 263, 267 unitemized contributions, 39 University of New Hampshire Survey Center, 144, 151 University of South Carolina, 95 Univision, 56 USAction, 47, 177, 190, 195, 200, 205, 217 U.S. Census Bureau, 87, 91, 93, 97 U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 74, 76, 78, 80, 114, 117, 119, 125, 127, 129, 130, 155, 156, 159, 163, 164, 166, 175, 186, 188, 190, 191, 225, 227, 228, 232, 257, 276

318  /  Index

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 111 Valand, Caroline, 115, 118, 124 VAN, 227 Vanderbeek, Debra, 149, 162, 163, 165 Van Hollen, Chris, 16, 43 Van Ostern, Colin, 160, 167 Veterans of Foreign Wars, 117, 203, 204 Vets for Freedom, 175, 178, 186, 218, 220, 222, 230 Victory Campaign, 160, 184, 228 Victory Plan, 184 video games, 31 Virginia: battleground state, 100 VoIP, 185 Vote for Change, 182 Voter Activist Network, 227 voter files, 12, 38, 181 voter identification, 9, 184, 241, 276 voter mobilization: Democratic advantage, 60, 89; by Democrats, 8, 12, 38, 55, 90, 108, 118, 132, 134, 226, 268, 277; by interest groups, 78, 183, 228, 262, 267, 276; through the Internet, 293; among Latinos, 242; by McCain campaign, 88, 93, 99; by Obama campaign, 8, 13, 14, 31, 54, 60, 81, 88, 91, 98, 109, 117, 146, 259, 265, 276; overview, 3, 9, 87, 88, 97; by presidential candidates, 101, 103, 181; by Republicans, 7, 35, 54, 103, 104, 132, 242; strategies, 87–89, 100, 243, 249; through voter files, 12, 81, 93–95, 257 voter registration: by ACORN, 183; Democratic advantage, 242; by Democrats, 8, 12, 21, 46, 134, 196, 206, 219, 226, 265; by interest groups, 12, 73, 183, 186; in New Hampshire, 143; by Obama campaign, 182, 265; overview, 9, 213, 214; by Republicans, 117, 119, 152, 184, 233, 242;

strategies for, 55; through voter files, 81, 94, 95, 98 Voter Vault, 12, 184, 185 VoteVets.org, 114, 126, 127, 177, 190, 217, 220, 226, 229, 237, 240 Voting Rights Act, 18 Waak, Pat, 226, 227 Wadhams, Dick, 223, 228, 302 Wallach, Brian, 149 Walsh, Brian, 19, 20, 161, 187, 192, 197, 202, 269, 270, 301 Walter, Amy, 17, 300 Warner, John, 7 Wasserman, David, 17, 300 Watergate, 8, 14, 34, 45 Weather Underground, 10, 79, 145, 180, 285 Weblogs, 93 West, Darrell, 57, 58 White, Darren, 8, 65, 248, 269–272, 274–276 White, Karen, 303 Whitehouse, Sheldon, 149 Wilson, Heather, 8, 21, 249–252, 257, 258, 269, 270 Winfrey, Oprah, 95 Winning Message Action Fund, 175, 178 Wisconsin Advertising Project, 58, 70 Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC, 11, 80 Wolff, Brian, 118, 161, 162, 191, 192, 199, 205, 238, 250, 265, 276, 299 Wolff, Sharon, 301 Working America, 47, 183, 194, 228 Wright, Jeremiah, 10, 100, 180, 285 Wurzelbacher, Joe, 173 Yankee Republicans, 140, 143 Yoon, Ed, 238, 258 Youngdahl, Jon, 78, 160, 303 YouTube, 31, 59