On Dec. 30, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards stood up at a “town hall” meeting in Boone, Iowa, and said: “To get real change, we need a president who will stand up against the big corporations and powerful interests who control Washington.”
That’s a bold claim. And his campaign Web site proclaims: “John Edwards is the ONLY candidate who has never taken a dime from PACs or Washington lobbyists ever.” In October, Sen. Edwards, labeling fellow candidate Hillary Clinton “the poster child for what’s wrong in American politics today,” began positioning himself as the candidate who could and would clean up campaign finance. He said he would expand public campaign financing and prohibit lobbyists from being campaign “bundlers.” But voters should measure actions against words.
Sen. Edwards has used 665 bundlers — far more than any other presidential candidate — en route to raising nearly $30 million from all sources by the end of the third quarter. Bundlers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, are “fundraisers whose success at bringing in specific amounts of money is tracked by the candidate they are supporting.” (See detailed explanation of bundling.)
Remember the more than 900 bundlers used by President Bush? They were known as “Pioneers” (those who raised $100,000), “Rangers” ($200,000) and “SuperRangers” ($300,000). Sen. Edwards’ bundlers aren’t lobbyists (save for one under indictment in connection with ’04 campaign transgressions), but they’re still cleaning up for him.
Sen. Edwards may decry the seamier means of raising money, but he’s quite at home in the porcine underbelly of campaign finance. And he’s not alone. Bundling is a popular pastime with most of the candidates.
A Campaign Finance Institute and Public Citizen study, with data assistance from the Center for Responsive Politics and written by CFI’s Stephen Weissman and PC’s Taylor Lincoln, examined the use of bundlers by the current presidential candidates. (Here’s how their study was done; download the report as a PDF file.)
Barack Obama: Bundlers, 356; Lobbyist Bundlers, 9; raised $78,915,507.
Hillary Clinton: Bundlers, 322; Lobbyist Bundlers, 18; raised $78,507,181.
Rudy Giuliani: Bundlers, 218; Lobbyist Bundlers, 29; raised $44,559,299.
MItt Romney: Bundlers, 345; Lobbyist Bundlers, 13; raised $43,999,833.
John McCain: Bundlers, 442; Lobbyist Bundlers, 32; raised $30,306,621.
John Edwards: Bundlers, 665; Lobbyist Bundlers, 1; raised $29,935,179.
Bill Richardson: Bundlers, 14; Lobbyist Bundlers, 3; raised $18,458,722.
Fred Thompson: Bundlers, 113; Lobbyist Bundlers, 14; raised $12,717,993.
Chris Dodd: Bundlers, 12; Lobbyist Bundlers, 1; raised $8,761,581.
Ron Paul: Bundlers, 0; Lobbyist Bundlers, 0; raised $8,200,347.
Joe Biden: Bundlers, 13; Lobbyist Bundlers, 0; raised $6,172,060.
Mike Huckabee: Bundlers, 7; Lobbyist Bundlers, 0; raised $2,340,735.
Dennis Kucinich: Bundlers, 0; Lobbyist Bundlers, 0; raised $2,118,294.
Mike Gravel: Bundlers, 0; Lobbyist Bundlers, 0; raised $306,279.
(The dollars raised represent totals from all donations, not just bundled monies, reported to the Federal Election Commission at the end of the third quarter. Fourth quarter totals should be available within the next few weeks.)
The study also examined the occupations of more than 2,000 people identified as raising money by bundling for the 2008 presidential candidates.
It’s not news that lawyers have had significant financial influence in politics. But, as I noted last May, several industries share top billing in providing money to politicians. The occupations of leading campaign donors is not significantly different from the list of principal occupations of bundlers. (Note, too, that for some people, saying “no” to a bundler’s request for check or cash is risky business.)
According to Capital Eye:
Fifty-six percent of these bundlers work in law, financial industries or in real estate. Democrats and Republicans were equally successful in recruiting support from the considerable number of securities and investment industry fundraisers. Republicans held a significant edge in garnering assistance from those in the real estate and lobbying industries. Democrats received more support from lawyers and law firms, and from the TV, movies and music industry. [emphasis added; see story with pie charts]
Bundling is largely unregulated, and the Campaign Finance Institute/Public Citizen study recommends legislative remedy:
It is impossible to know how much money each industry has provided because, under the current regime of voluntary disclosure, none of the candidates are releasing precise information about how much each of their fundraisers are generating. Furthermore, John Edwards is the only candidate who is disclosing all of his fundraisers, although he is providing no information about how much each has raised. The campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and to a lesser extent, Rudy Giuliani, are disclosing some information about how much their bundlers have raised or promised to raise. The sporadic and incomplete reporting by campaigns of their designated fundraisers points to the need for legislation on this matter. [emphasis added]
When John Edwards — or any other presidential candidate — stands up before voters in a truck-stop diner somewhere in your state, tie askew or absent, and promises, “I’ll deal with the special interests,” he or she may, in fact, be already dealing with them.
Ignore the rhetoric; follow the money.
Categories: Crime/Corruption, Politics/Law/Government
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 
This raises what I think is one of the most important questions our democracy faces – how to kill the influence of money and make pols accountable to the will of the PEOPLE.
Of course, there’s a nasty CATCH-22 here, isn’t there? How do you clean up the mess without getting elected, and how can you hope to get elected without playing by the rules as they exist?
Maybe there’s a Daily Brushback in here somewhere…
As I’ve argued earlier: “If politicians can be bought, the public must do the buying.” Only billions of dollars of public money has a shot at derailing the system. Or we can just remain a corpokleptocracy.
Your roguish point is? That Edwards knows how to bundle? True.
The scholarly point your stats make that you ignore: He raised only about a fifth of what Clinton and Obama combined raised, but had about the same number of bundlers.
Reality: Edwards had to raise money to be viable; he did it with much less compromising of his message.
Moral for you to mull: Better to walk in Edwards’ shoes than the two money Dems.
Barack Obama: Bundlers, 356; Lobbyist Bundlers, 9; raised $78,915,507.
Hillary Clinton: Bundlers, 322; Lobbyist Bundlers, 18; raised $78,507,181.
— cut, cut —
John Edwards: Bundlers, 665; Lobbyist Bundlers, 1; raised $29,935,179.
Bill Richardson: Bundlers, 14; Lobbyist Bundlers, 3; raised $18,458,722.
A Campaign Finance Institute and Public Citizen study, with data assistance from the Center for Responsive Politics and written by CFI’s Stephen Weissman and PC’s Taylor Lincoln, examined the use of bundlers by the current presidential candidates. (Here’s how their study was done; download the report as a PDF file
http://www.citizen.org/documents/IndustryCoding.pdf.)
Ironically, Edwards has been pilloried by Kos and other leading lights of the blogosphere for accepting public financing, as they claim his action deliberately cut off the major Dem advantage of fundraising at this point: http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/9/27/181141/390
That’s why I find this criticism of him a little too harsh, Denny. Not that he doesn’t deserve it (he does), or that it isn’t needed (it is), but you’re going after the one guy who’s actively chosen to play using a much narrower set of options in order to present a different standard to the voters. And yet, despite Richard Hasen’s claim that to take public financing would be career suicide, Edwards is not only still a contender, he’s actually gaining on Obama and Clinton.
I may have to write up a separate post about this tomorrow just to address this more fully. 😉
Sorry, not buying the “big bundlers line” about John Edwards. By the end of the 3rd quarter, 150,000 donors had contributed to John Edwards’s campaign, the VAST majority giving small amounts. People like me, who’d never given a dime to a candidate before, sent in $100 or $200 several times this year. So did my two sisters, both married to Republicans.. We believe he’s the only candidate serious about taking back our goverment from big money and lobbyists.
Third quarter fundraising figures from the John Edwards for President campaign include:
$7 million raised this quarter.
70 percent of the contributions came from grassroots fundraising.
More than 150,000 contributors from across the country this year.
93 percent of contributions were in amounts of $100 or less.
97 percent of contributions were in amounts of $250 or less.
Less than 1 percent of contributions were in amounts of $1000 or more.
Almost half the donors this quarter were first time Edwards contributors
Thank you, all, for your comments. I stilll, however, disagree. While I admire Sen. Edwards, I am tired of any politician who says he or she will fully address campaign finance reform but who continues to raise money with all or some of the current unsavory means that allow the very influence Sen. Edwards decries to remain dominant.
Too many candidates for too many decades have said to voters: “Allow me the venial sin; I’ll fix that and all the mortal sins after I’m elected.”
He continues to pound home that theme without (that I can find) a specific, point-by-point plan for how he would address all the issues relevant to financing presidential and congressional elections. On Jan. 2 (see his Web site), he said:
“There are people and corporations and powerful interests in Washington and all over this country who think their position in power on the top of the heap is inevitable and unchangeable. What I know is that when you rise up to take this country back for the middle class, you will be unstoppable.”
I know this criticism must be frustrating for you, given that other candidates (and I’ve written about them over the past year, too) transgress more egregiously than Sen. Edwards.
But until he or any candidate decides to be fully rather than partially virginal, I’ll keep yelling: “Follow the money.”
I’m too old to buy in to “trust me” any more.
Denny,
You can’t change being old, unfortunately, but you can change your mindset about this issue. That’s what I’m saying.
Or look at this way: Which of the candidates running do you think would actually do the most to change how campaigns are run and eliminate the corrosive influence of the money? The ones who completely ignore public financing and are completely beholden to corporate donors and the military-industrial complex? Or the one who voluntarily took public money and got decried as a loser by the blogosphere for doing so, yet continues to rake in cash from small individual donors and genuine progressive groups?
I’m no fool–I don’t think Edwards is the savior. But I don’t think going out of your way to attack the guy who is probably the cleanest of all the running candidates on the top tier* is helpful or useful.
* = Paul, Kucinich, Dodd, and Gravel are also largely not supported by the moneylenders you are railing against, but they also don’t have much of a chance of winning, sadly.