Guilt By Association
One of the great things about politics is that it’s OK to impose guilt by association.
Because it isn’t really guilt, just responsibility.
In the criminal court system, prosecutors do not (or at least should not) win convictions because the defendant’s father, girlfriend, uncle, business partner, or fellow-member of the Lions Club had done something wrong.
But candidates may fairly be judged by their associates, those who give them money and those to whom they give money for services rendered. Voters should know who are the guys their candidates are hanging around with (using, here, the everyday, rather than strictly grammatical, construction), and also who the guys they’re hanging around with are hanging around with.
The Amateur?
Usually there’s nothing improper, much less scandalous, in these relationships. As will be seen below, the Democratic candidates for governor have hired political consultants who work for Democrats, while Republican Brian Dubie is using a firm whose clients are Republicans.
Voters also ought to know who contributes to candidates– not just individual names and addresses, but the specific interests of those individuals, especially the companies for which they work.
Many and varied are the motives of political contributors. Some are simply public spirited and convinced that the candidate to whom they contribute would do the best job. But for others – especially those who work in areas that depend on government spending or are subject to government regulations (most companies) — a campaign donation is also something of an investment.
At the very least, the donor is buying access. Rare is the governor or legislator who is not more likely to return the call of someone who has given the campaign $1,000, assuming that someone on the elected official’s staff passes along information about the donation with the telephone message.
Someone does.
Alas, Vermont law does not require campaign contributors to disclose their occupations or employers. Perhaps one of the next questions put to all candidates is whether they will urge changing that law so that voters can know which interests are financing their office-holders.
Still, from the campaign finance statements filed by the candidates for governor of Vermont July 15, a few conclusions are possible.
Start with the fact that it is no longer possible to deny that the professionalization of politics has come to Vermont.
Actually, it’s been foolish to deny it for several years, as candidates increasingly raise big bucks, hire expensive consultants, rely on television commercials. But some hope lingered that Vermont could be an exception. Stop hoping. These candidates have hired the top-of-the-line political consulting firms, employees of which are no doubt enriching Burlington and Montpelier hotels and restaurants even as we speak.
With the partial exception of Doug Racine. The Democratic state senator has retained one-time enfant terrible (of Howard Dean’s ill-fated 2004 presidential campaign) Joe Trippi to “do the media,” in the words of campaign manager Amy Schollenberger. But as of July 15, the campaign had paid Trippi’s firm only $5,000. Contrast that to the $10,000 Matt Dunne paid Peter Hart Research Associates or the $18,352 Deb Markowitz has spent for polling by Lake Research Partners.
That’s because, Schollenberger said, Racine is running an “absolutely grass-roots campaign.” This could be an attempt to disguise a disadvantage by calling it an advantage – Racine has had trouble raising money – but he does have more organized grass-roots support than his opponents, having won the endorsement of the teachers union and the state’s largest environmental organization.
(For a brief accounting of which candidate has hired which firm, with some of the firms other clients, scroll down to the end of this post.).
Not that they don’t have grass roots support, too, but the campaigns of Markowitz, who has more money than the other Democrats, and Dubie, who has more money than anybody, are on the other end of the professionalization spectrum.
In addition to her polling firm, Markowitz has spent more than $10,000 with Kennedy Communications, Inc., and her campaign staff, judging from her reported payroll expenses, are larger than those of her Democratic opponents.
But not as large as Dubie’s. In addition to spending $29,150 with Harris Media, the Dubie campaign reported spending $27,905 on polling, $36,322 with OnMessage, Inc. of Crofton, Maryland, for “branding” and $3,050 with Stormo & Associates of Caledonia, Michigan for “opposition research.”
That’s unusual at this stage of a campaign. Usually, “oppo” research is directed against an identified opponent. But of course Dubie does not yet know who his opponent will be. The firm could be preparing attacks on any of the Democrats, on whoever Dubie assumes the likely winner will be, or on the Vermont Democratic Party in general.
Perhaps simply because he has raised more than anyone else, Dubie’s filing also provides more information indicating the interests that support him. As mentioned in a previous post, Dubie seems to be the favorite of the agribusiness giants of the dairy world. On the same day, February 19, giant dairy producer DFA of Kansas City and Dairylea Cooperative of Syracuse each donated $1,000.
Dubie got $5,000 from the General Electric Corp.’s political action committee, and a $2,000 contribution (actually $7,000 but followed by a $5,000 refund) from Michel Guite, the owner of the Vermont Telephone Company of Springfield.
Dubie also seems to be the preferred candidate of Vermont’s building contractors. Counting only contributions of $1,000 or more, and only from firms or individuals known to be involved in the construction business, Dubie received at least $20,450 from the industry.
Here is a brief rundown of the major consultants used by the candidates and the other clients those consulting firms have served.
Senator Peter Shumlin: The Feldman Group, based in Washington and headed by Diane Feldman, who once worked with well-known Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. The firm is no stranger to Vermont politics, having been the consultant for Rep. Peter Welch. Among its other recent clients have been Senators Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Al Franken of Minnesota.
(For all the candidates, this post will list only the firm’s recent successful clients; believe it or not, the losers are not mentioned on the firms web sites).
Susan Bartlett: Main Street Communications of Washington. It bills itself as the “political media firm with the best record in the Democratic Party,” but boasts only a few Congressional winners, including Maine’s Democratic House members, John Baldacci and John Olver. Bartlett has also used the Washington polling firm Cooper & Seacrest.
Matt Dunne: Peter D. Hart Research Associates, perhaps the most prestigious of all Democratic polling and political consulting firms. Both of Vermont’s senators, Democrat Patrick Leahy and independent Bernie Sanders, are on the Hart firm’s client list, as are Senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Dianne Feinstein of California and Chuck Schumer of New York.
Deb Markowitz: Kennedy Communications, Inc. of Washington, apparently a rather new company. It has been active in state legislative races around the country. Its most high-profile client this year is Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, who defeated Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter in the primary earlier this year.
For polling, Markowitz uses Lake Research Partners, which has polled for Senators Mark Begich of Alaska, Ton Tester of Montana, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Brian Dubie: Harris Media of Austin, Texas, the conservative Republican firm that worked on Mike Huckabee’s 2008 presidential campaign and helped elect Bob McDonnell as governor of Virginia. Dubie also uses the apparently non-political OnMessage “branding” firm, the Public Opinion Strategies polling firm, perhaps the top-rated Republican pollster, who also did the polling for Gov. Jim Douglas, as well as 15 incumbent Republican senators and independent Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Dubie’s “opposition research” firm, Stormo & Associates, appears to maintain a low profile, or at least has a hard-to-find web site, so information about its other clients could not be obtained. Yet.
Tags: Candidates, Consultants
July 28th, 2010 at 8:10 am
Having been along for the ride with two U.S. presidential campaigns, several U.S. Senate campaigns and a few other sundry political efforts, I have often marveled how some candidates and their staffs fawn over their media consultants as gods descended from Mt. Olympus when, in actuality, they are little more than soap salesmen/women.
A Vermont case in point:
The late Dick Snelling used to tell the story of the media consultant he hired for his first run for Governor. The guy was Bob Goodman, who helped get Spiro Agnew elected Governor of Maryland with the sprightly jingle “My kind of guy/Ted Agnew is/my kind of guy….” (I think Goodman literally had been a soap salesman.) Well, Snelling recounted how he fired Goodman after about a month and claimed, “He gave me only one good idea and that was to blow-dry my hair.”
So, you might say Snelling was less than enamored, and Goodman went packing back to Baltimore and Mt. Olympus, which actually is a great Greek deli located in the wonderful Lexington Market.