Creative Campaigning
Transforming American Politics
Lawrence C. Dodd, Series Editor
Dramatic changes in political institutions and behavior over the past two decades have underscored the dynamic nature of American politics, confronting political scientists with a new and pressing intellectual agenda. The pioneering work of early postwar scholars, while laying a firm empirical foundation for contemporary scholarship, failed to consider how American politics might change or to recognize the forces that would make fundamental change inevitable, In reassessing the static interpretations fostered by these classic studies, political scientists are now examining the underlying dynamics that generate transformational change.
Transforming American Politics will bring together texts and monographs that address four closely related aspects of change. A first concern is documenting and explaining recent changes in American politicsin institutions, processes, behavior, and policymaking. A second is reinterpreting classic studies and theories to provide a more accurate perspective on postwar politics. The series will look at historical change to identify recurring patterns of political transformation within and across the distinctive eras of American politics. Last and perhaps most importantly, the series will present new theories and interpretations that explain the dynamic processes at work and thus clarify the direction of contemporary politics. All of the books will focus on the central theme of transformation transformation in both the conduct of American politics and in the way we study and understand its many aspects.
Titles in This Series
Creative Campaigning: PACs and the Presidential Selection Process, Anthony Corrado
The Politics of Interests: Interest Groups Transformed, edited by Mark P. Petracca
The Supreme Court and Partisan Realignment: A Macro- and Microlevel Perspective, John B. Gates
The Transformation of the Supreme Court's Agenda: From the New Deal to the Reagan Administration, Richard L. Pacelle, Jr.
Public Opinion in America: Moods, Cycles, and Swings, James A. Stimson
The Parties Respond: Changes in the American Party System, edited by L. Sandy Maisel
The Electoral Origins of Divided Government: Competition in U.S. House Elections, 1946-1988 , Gary C. Jacobson
Congress, the President, and Public Policy, Michael L. Mezey
Issues and Elections: Presidential Voting in Contemporary AmericaA Revisionist View, Euel W. Elliott
Remaking American Politics, edited by Richard A, Harris and Sidney M. Milkis
Democracies in Crisis: Public Policy Responses to the Great Depression, Kim Quaile Hill
Managing the Presidency: The Eisenhower Legacy From Kennedy to Reagan, Phillip G. Henderson
FORTHCOMING
Congress and the Administrative State, Second Edition, Lawrence C. Dodd and Richard L. Schott
The Congressional Experience: A View from the Hill, David E. Price
Creative Campaigning
PACs and the Presidential Selection Process
Anthony Corrado
First published 1992 by Westview Press, Inc.
Published 2018 by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
Copyright 1992 Taylor & Francis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Corrado, Anthony, 1957-
Creative campaigning: PACs and the presidential selection process
/ Anthony Corrado.
p. cm. (Transforming American politics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-1450-X
1. Campaign fundsUnited States. 2. Political action committees
United States. 3. PresidentsUnited StatesElection. I. Title.
II. Series: Transforming American politics series.
JK1991.C67 1992
324.7'8'0973dc20 91-43588
CIP
ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00465-1 (hbk)
For My Parents
In 1974 Congress adopted the Federal Election Campaign Act. This landmark legislation was designed to resolve, once and for all, the inequities and abuses of the political finance system. The act completely restructured the system for financing presidential campaigns: it required full public disclosure of all campaign funds, placed limits on political contributions, established ceilings on campaign spending, and created a program of public funding for presidential elections. These reforms stand as one of the most significant efforts in American history to legislate political change. This book explains why the reforms failed.
The Federal Election Campaign Act dramatically altered the strategic environment of presidential elections, forcing candidates to conduct their campaigns within strict parameters. Presidential contenders, however, found it difficult to abide by the new rules of the game, because the law produced a conflicting set of strategic demands: some provisions of the law encouraged candidates to begin campaigning early; others encouraged them to restrict the length of their campaigns. Throughout the 1980s, as presidential campaigns became more complex and the financial demands of the modern nominating process grew, an increasing number of candidates decided that they could no longer resolve the conflicting strategic demands of the reforms and remain within the parameters of the law. As a result, the campaign finance reforms inducedand inspiredcandidates to seek out creative methods of financing their campaigns outside the scope of the law. This book describes how they succeeded in their quest by using precandidacy PACs as shadow campaign organizations.
My central purpose is to describe how presidential candidates in the 1980s adapted their organizational and financial strategies in response to the changes in the presidential selection process that resulted from the campaign finance reforms and the party rules reforms of the past two decades. By doing so, I hope to explain the outcomes of the last three presidential nominating contests and illustrate why the campaigns of the 1980s were such long, drawn-out affairs. Such an analysis highlights the unique characteristics of the 1992 race and reveals the factors that are likely to cause the 1996 election to follow the patterns of the elections of the 1980s.
The idea for this book began during the 1984 presidential campaign while I was serving as deputy to the campaign manager and later assistant to the treasurer of the Mondale campaign, an experience that helped me understand the strategic problems generated by the campaign finance laws and gain an awareness of the substantial amount of time spent by political practitioners in attempting to fulfill the requirements of the law. For this experience I thank my friends Tom Donilon, who first encouraged me to become involved in presidential politics, and Tad Devine. Through three presidential campaigns they have supported my efforts and generously shared their extraordinary knowledge of the rules of the nominating process. Bob Beckel also played an important role in helping to frame the idea for this book, as did Michael Berman, who first introduced me to the complexities of the campaign finance regulations and taught me much in the process.
