Campaign Fund-Raiser’s Role Is More Important Than Ever

WASHINGTON —  After Tennessee Sen. Albert Gore Jr. appeared to take himself out of the Democratic presidential race a few weeks ago, a group of party fund-raisers met with him and helped change his mind.

“We think he has presidential qualities,” said Nathan Landow, leader of the group, which he estimates can raise about $4 million to help finance Gore’s long-shot bid for the White House.

Even in the post-Watergate era of political reform, money talks and candidates listen. And in the fast-starting 1988 presidential campaign, with its accelerated schedule of primaries and wide-open fields in both parties, the role of the fund-raiser has become more important than ever.

New Political Breed

As a result of federal ceilings on campaign contributions, candidates can no longer rely on “fat-cat” individual givers but must depend instead on wholesale collectors such as Landow. Members of this new political breed are typically endowed with cast-iron hides, boundless persistence and, probably most important of all, a network of affluent friends to whom they in effect subcontract out parts of their fund-raising task.

“I don’t call somebody for a $1,000 check,” said Terry McAuliffe, finance chairman of Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt’s Democratic campaign. “I try to find people who can raise maybe $10,000, $25,000 or $100,000.”

Some of the fund-raisers hope to influence public policy. Others may privately nurture hopes of nailing down an ambassadorship. But all seem to relish high-level involvement in presidential campaigning as a way to gratify their egos.

“There are are some people doing it because it gives them a warm and wonderful feeling to do something worthwhile for government,” said Rod Smith, finance director of New York Rep. Jack Kemp’s campaign for the Republican nomination. “And some people are doing it simply to be associated with power.”

Candidates themselves are often reluctant to ask for money.

Never Mentioned Money

Gephardt, for example, spent 45 minutes fielding questions from a conference room full of potential contributors in an Atlanta brokerage house recently but never mentioned money. Afterward the 30-year-old McAuliffe, who combines brash charm with tenacity and who claims once to have briefly wrestled an alligator to squeeze a contribution from a Seminole Indian chief, remonstrated with his candidate about his failure to drop even a hint about contributions.

“He promised it wouldn’t happen again,” McAuliffe said. Sure enough, after McAuliffe returned to Washington, Gephardt reported to him from Atlanta that at his subsequent two appearances, he had asked for money both times.

McAuliffe and his counterparts in other campaigns cannot afford to pass up any opportunities because the price of the presidency, which by law is adjusted for inflation every four years, has gone up to roughly $27 million in 1988, from $24.2 million in 1984. This is the spending limit for each candidate during the primary election season.

Most contenders will probably drop out of the race before they raise anywhere near that amount, but any candidate who hopes to go the distance probably needs to raise something close to it.

Matching Federal Grants

Federal grants help by matching the first $250 of each individual contribution, and that means they usually account for about one-third of all revenue. But while the spending ceiling has been climbing, the federal limit on individual contributions remains at $1,000, the level established in 1976.

“That $1,000 is worth only little more than a third of what it was in 1976,” due to inflation, said Charles T. Manatt, co-chairman of Gary Hart’s presidential campaign and a top Democratic fund-raiser. “That means it’s three times as difficult as it was in 1976 to raise the dollars you need to raise.”

Fund-raising is all the more difficult this year because, with no incumbent seeking reelection for the first time since 1968, more than a dozen contenders in both parties are prospecting for cash, the biggest field since the campaign reforms were enacted.

And then there is the establishment of a “super primary” for Southern states early in next year’s campaign calendar, when about one-third of the delegates to both parties’ conventions will be chosen. In the view of some presidential strategists, this has increased the need to raise funds this year for early use in the Southern battleground states.

Demand for Fund-Raisers

Given the increased demand for fund-raisers, it is no wonder that a number of them have become more assertive about their roles in campaigns. One of the pacesetters was Landow, a Maryland developer who organized a political action committee, called Impac ‘88, that was made up of 40 or 50 Democrats who had raised money for Walter F. Mondale’s 1984 Democratic presidential campaign.

Impac’s goal was to look over the field of Democratic presidential contenders and unite as many of its members as possible behind one of them. In return, Impac’s members would receive a voice in what Landow called “the big decisions of the campaign.”

A hard driver, Landow can be overbearing and blunt. When civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson complained that he had been “excluded” from Impac’s early candidate interviews, Landow retorted: “He wasn’t excluded, he never was included.”

Landow’s considerable vitality and determination helped him keep Impac ’88 alive even after a number of its members peeled off to support individual candidates. At least 17 of Impac’s members will raise funds for Gore, by Landow’s reckoning, and they are hoping for input outside the realm of financing.

“It certainly could relate to policy,” Landow said. “It could relate to campaign organization.”

Advancing Causes

Some fund-raisers hope to use their work in presidential campaigns to advance their interests in particular causes. Duane Garrett, a San Francisco art dealer and lawyer and Democratic fund-raiser, says he signed on to help the candidacy of former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt because of his concern about the environment.

“I consider Babbitt to be the greatest environmentalist in political life since Theodore Roosevelt,” said Garrett, who is chairman of the offshore oil committee of the California Coastal Commission.

Garrett was also attracted by the chance to be national chairman and top spokesman for the campaign.

“Fund-raisers want status,” Babbitt acknowledged.

For Babbitt’s struggling campaign, Garrett brought not only his phone lists of affluent Democrats but also a measure of prestige earned during his service in other Democratic campaigns, including service as co-chairman of the 1984 Mondale campaign.

“If a candidate is a household word,” Babbitt said, “he can hire a fund-raiser from the local United Way. I’m not.”

A Common Motive

Concern with issues is a common motive for fund-raisers among Republicans as well. Among the most redoubtable Republican fund-raisers is William D. Mounger, a wealthy oilman from Jackson, Miss., who broke in as a fund-raiser in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign and has helped finance every Republican presidential candidate since.

“It’s philosophically driven,” Mounger said of his fund-raising work. “I chose being active in the Republican Party because I thought the Democratic Party was a failure, particularly as it related to the South and to Mississippi. And I thought that backing conservative candidates, mostly Republicans, was the way to have an effect, in my limited way, (in) the direction the country has taken.”

Mounger admitted he finds it hard to measure the results of his efforts. “It’s like everything in life,” he said. “You never do as much as you want to. And the people you support are unfortunately fellow human beings. And they constantly disappoint--even Ronald Reagan.”

Mounger noted that his White House connections fostered by his fund-raising and other political work have helped him get a hearing on legislation affecting independent oil and gas producers.

The subject of tangible rewards for political fund raising is a touchy one. It is a federal crime punishable by up to a year in prison to promise “any employment, position, compensation, contract or other benefit” as a payoff for political activity.

Some Get Appointments

Some fund-raisers get appointments anyway, most often in a diplomatic post. President Jimmy Carter appointed Landow as alternate representative to the United Nations.

President Reagan created a whole new post, ambassador at large for cultural affairs, to confer on Daniel J. Terra, the wealthy Chicagoan who served as his 1980 national finance chairman. Another Chicago businessman, Paul H. Robinson Jr., a broker in insurance and mutual funds who raised $750,000 for Reagan in 1980 as Illinois financial chairman, was named ambassador to Canada.

Some fund-raisers claim to seek no reward beyond the satisfaction of participating in the political process and furthering a cause close to their hearts.

“I think ultimately that if the right person becomes President of this country, we all benefit,” said William Smithburg, chairman of Quaker Oats Co. and Midwest finance chairman for Jack Kemp. “I realize that sounds like I’m trying to do some good for society. But that’s what we’re all here for.”

Little-Known Candidates

When working for little-known candidates, fund-raisers depend heavily on longstanding personal relationships and, of particular importance, on the principle of reciprocal giving.

“An awful lot of people I could raise money from might not know that much about the candidate,” said Michael Berman, treasurer of the Mondale campaign and a veteran of many other financial efforts. “But because I’m asking them and we’re friends and they might hit me next time, they give.”

Staff writer John Balzar contributed to this story.