Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

Wallets Open Wide Despite Changes in Primary Calendar
By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 31, 2007; A06

PLYMOUTH, N.H. — Just down the block from Anderson’s Bakery and across from the local movie house with a flickering neon sign, a group of young men with laptops moved into a tan Cape Cod and announced their presence with a billboard out front: “Hillary.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s storefront office in this New England hamlet (population 5,892) is one of 16 the New York Democrat has set up with paid staff around the state that is expected to hold the nation’s first presidential primary. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), perhaps her strongest challenger for the Democratic nomination, has plans to open his own office in Plymouth, which will give him a base of operations in 15 locations. Between them, the two campaigns have more than 140 paid field staffers across the state.

The extensive spending here, as described by local officials and laid out in campaign finance reports, provides a look at how money is changing the way presidential hopefuls are approaching the pivotal early contests.

The decision by most of the leading presidential candidates to opt out of the public financing system that would have restricted their primary spending in New Hampshire to less than $800,000 has resulted in armies of paid workers trying to squeeze votes out of every corner of the state.

“The amount of money being spent in the early states are of an order of magnitude that we’ve never seen before,” said Alan Solomont, who oversees northeastern fundraising for the Obama campaign.

The huge spending here has helped debunk the notion that an increasingly front-loaded primary calendar would diminish the influence of New Hampshire and Iowa. Democratic candidates have spent $2.4 million in New Hampshire so far this year on rent and staff alone. That is more than double the $1.1 million they had spent in the state at this point in 2003. The numbers are even more pronounced in Iowa, where Democrats have spent $4.6 million so far this year — almost four times the $1.2 million they expended four years ago. Republicans have spent more than $4 million on rent and staff in New Hampshire and Iowa so far this year.

The glut in spending has come before most of the candidates have started to invest substantial amounts in the most costly aspect of a campaign — television advertising.

To date, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (R) has dominated the airwaves, spending $6 million to run more than 10,000 television ads in New Hampshire and Iowa. That comes in addition to the more than $500,000 Romney paid to organizers laying the groundwork for an August straw poll in Ames, Iowa, which gave his campaign a boost. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani (R) has crafted a strategy that has him devoting considerable amounts of cash to larger states that vote in the days after the first two contests, but he has nonetheless blanketed Iowa with targeted mailers and aired six different radio ads in New Hampshire through last week at a combined cost of more than $450,000.

Tom Rath, a Romney consultant who has worked on every New Hampshire primary since 1964, said the intensity of the spending at this stage is higher than he has ever seen.

“Nobody’s going to run away with it, so there’s been a big, big investment in identifying your voters and being ready to turn those voters out on Election Day,” he said.

For Democrats, the spending has been focused largely on building huge field operations that the candidates hope will allow them to identify persuadable voters, win their support and ensure that they reach the voting booth on Election Day.

Kathy Sullivan, a former state Democratic Party chairman, said that, when she was growing up, campaign jobs were largely put in the hands of volunteers, many of whom were like her mother — stay-at-home moms who had time to get politically engaged. Now, with more moms in the workforce, campaigns have been forced to turn to paid staffers to take on those jobs.

So far this year, Clinton and Obama aides estimate that they each have New Hampshire teams with about 70 paid workers; a spokeswoman for former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) described his campaign’s New Hampshire operation as having between 60 and 70 salaried employees — about four times as many as he had on the ground four years ago. And they are spread out across the state.

At Clinton’s Plymouth office last week, a field organizer watched over four college-age men seated at desks, tapping away on their laptop computers and calling up potential supporters. Clinton’s investment in such a large operation in the town is a surprise to Carole J. Estes, a first-term state representative. “We’re just so small,” Estes said. “I figured, maybe they were using this as a base to cover the north country.”

But Clinton has the state’s rural northern reaches covered from two other nearby field offices, in Conway (population 8,164) and Berlin (10,331).

A Clinton strategist who has worked on previous New Hampshire presidential campaigns acknowledged that establishing outposts in so many towns represents a shift in tactics here. In past years, campaigns concentrated their operations in such population centers as Manchester, Concord, Nashua and Keene, but in a contest in which fewer than 250,000 voters turned out for the Democratic contest in 2004, turning out new voters may well prove to be decisive. “This year we looked beyond the traditional framework and tried to find emerging Democratic areas,” the strategist said.

Ned Helms, an Obama adviser who is working on his 10th New Hampshire primary, said the field offices have helped transform campaigning in the state. “These aren’t just places to put signs in the windows,” he said. “They are a part of an outreach strategy.”

When Obama volunteers call voters in Berlin, Helms said, they can say, “Hey, I’m over on Elm Street. We’re having a gathering to talk about health care here this weekend. Why don’t you come on by?”

The field workers also spend hours on the phone, with designated call times every night and long lists of possible supporters. Dawn Lemieux, 49, owns the Plymouth print shop next door to Clinton’s field office. She says she gets calls “constantly” from all the candidates. She is a registered independent and remains undecided.

“I’m impressed at how much is going into getting our votes, but I’m not sure how well it’s all working,” Lemieux said. “Most folks in New Hampshire don’t like to be buttonholed.”

Database editor Sarah Cohen, research editor Alice Crites and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

October 30, 2007

Consumer advocate and 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader sued the Democratic Party on Tuesday, contending officials conspired to keep him from taking votes away from nominee John Kerry.

Nader’s lawsuit, filed in District of Columbia Superior Court, also named as co-defendants Kerry’s campaign, the Service Employees International Union and several so-called 527 organizations such as America Coming Together, which were created to promote voter turnout on behalf of the Democratic ticket.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Democratic National Committee conspired to force Nader off the ballot in several states.

“The Democratic Party is going after anyone who presents a credible challenge to their monopoly over their perceived voters,” Nader said in a statement. “This lawsuit was filed to help advance a free and open electoral process for all candidates and voters. Candidate rights and voter rights nourish each other for more voices, choices, and a more open and competitive democracy.”

Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that the DNC tried to bankrupt Nader’s campaign by suing to keep him off the ballot in 18 states. It also suggests the DNC sent Kerry supporters to crash a Nader petition drive in Portland, Ore., in June 2004, preventing him from collecting enough signatures to get on the ballot.

The lawsuit seeks “compensatory damages, punitive damages and injunctive relief to enjoin the defendants from ongoing and future violations of the law.”

Nader’s attorney, Bruce Afran, argued that the DNC would be terrified of having the case come to trial. He said he hoped the committee would choose to settle the case and apologize.

“This is a case designed to make sure other independent and third party candidates will not be subject to the same kind of conspiracy in the future,” Afran said.

Nader received 463,653 votes in the election, or 0.38% of total votes cast.

DNC spokesman Luis Miranda declined comment on the suit, citing a policy on pending litigation.

They say vote on Iran helps Bush’s case

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., pass each other during a break in Tuesday’s debate. Associated Press (Associated Press) Related stories Elections – Presidential

Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz
Washington Post
October 31, 2007

PHILADELPHIA – With just over two months until the first primary contest, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Democratic rivals aggressively challenged their party’s front-runner here Tuesday night, accusing her of being dishonest and of emboldening President Bush to declare war against Iran.

Former Sen. John Edwards, of North Carolina, lingering in third place in most polls, took the lead in attacking Clinton as Democrats gathered for the fourth of their six official debates. He mocked Clinton for voting to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group and all but accused her of being corrupt.

Voters, Edwards said, “deserve a president of the United States that they know will tell them the truth, and won’t say one thing one time and something different at a different time.”

Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois – under pressure to take sharp aim at Clinton – criticized her directly for not releasing her correspondence as first lady. But he kept his cool demeanor, describing her tendency toward secrecy as simply “a problem.”

Under fire, Clinton defended her positions on Social Security and Iran, and denied assertions – made most forcefully during the debate by Edwards – that she was mirroring the Republican Party in her actions and rhetoric.

“Well, I don’t think the Republicans got the message that I’m voting and sounding like them,” Clinton said. “If you watched their debate last week, I seemed to be the topic of great conversation and consternation. And that’s for a reason: because I have stood against George Bush and his failed policies.”

The most pointed back-and-forth came over Iran. Clinton supported a Senate resolution last month that urged the administration to label the Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. The measure was approved by a vote of 76-22, but all of Clinton’s rivals opposed it Tuesday night as the Bush administration enabling a rush to war with Iran.

Clinton defended the vote, saying that early this year she had argued that Bush has no authority to use military force to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Her opponents, however, sharply challenged her interpretation of the measure. Edwards said the resolution read as if it were “written literally by the neocons.”

Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, recalling the 2002 congressional resolution on Iraq, said that the vote on the Iran resolution could come back to haunt those who supported it.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson called the resolution “saber rattling” by the Senate that would embolden the administration.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, of Ohio, accused his fellow Democrats of being “enablers” for not ruling out war against Iran. He said the Democratic support for labeling the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group amounted to “licensing President Bush.”

Richardson defended Clinton briefly, a move that seemed destined to fuel speculation that he is interested in being chosen as a vice presidential running mate. He said the debate had gotten “pretty close to personal attacks that we don’t need.”