(The following article by Christopher D. Kirkpatrick was posted on the Toledo Blade website on November 1. John Tolman is the BLET’s Chief of Staff and Political/Legislative Director.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — There are no anecdotes of secret meetings in back rooms, where political strategy was mapped out on the back of a cocktail napkin, said Democratic strategist Jim Ruvolo.
The story of John Kerry’s loss in Ohio to President Bush is a mundane political calculus, he said: Mr. Bush simply had more votes.
“We didn’t lose because we didn’t have the money. It was the best-funded campaign. We always knew it was,” he said, citing donations through the Internet. “This was about having an early investment in Ohio.”
Though Bush-Cheney 2004 fund-raising out-sized all others in presidential history, the Kerry-Edwards machine rumbled to a close second — raising $252 million, or 86 percent of the President’s $293 million.
Judging by total dollars, the campaigns were not that different: Together they eclipsed half a billion dollars and the gross national product of Liberia. Even so, it’s clear from the pattern of campaign contributions in what turned out to be the critical state of Ohio that the top-tier fund-raising battle was won by the President.
His list of 30 “Pioneers” and “Rangers,” those who raised at least $100,000 and $200,000, respectively, is five times that of Kerry’s six Ohio “Chairs” and “Vice Chairs,” who had to raise less, $50,000 and $100,000, re-spectively, to gain their monikers.
The Blade reported Sunday that Mr. Bush’s Ohio Pioneers and Rangers received more than $1.2 billion in business from the state and federal governments and raised at least $4.4 million for the Bush-Cheney campaign and $2.4 million for the Republican National Committee.
Despite the smaller numbers among top fund-raisers on the Democratic side, politics is politics, and Ohio’s Democratic donors had their own lists of public policy wants and wishes — some subtle, others obvious.
“There are very few altruists in politics. It doesn’t mean they are corrupt; it simply means they have an interest in who is governing.
Some for political reasons. Some for social reasons; some religious,” said Mr. Ruvolo, who worked as Mr. Kerry’s main Buckeye strategist last year. “They don’t wake up and say, ‘I’m going to write a check.’”
A Kerry ‘Vice Chair’
Among the Kerry “Vice Chairs” is John Tolman, the chief of staff for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers in Ohio.
Mr. Tolman supported Mr. Kerry because he wants public policy changes that “help working men and women,” such as increasing the minimum wage, he said.
But specifically, the union wants to protect the $1.2 billion yearly subsidy to Amtrak and the 5,000 rail jobs that pay on average between $60,000 and $70,000 a year, he estimated.
“It’s just because I’m basically a chief of staff, and I kind of put people together, it was less than $100,000. I don’t know what it was,” he said of the fund-raising. “Senator Kerry in my eyes should have won the election.… What is Bush’s budget for Amtrak, zero. That, to me, is absolutely a disgrace — a lot of people with lower incomes rely on Amtrak.”
President Bush proposed wiping out most of the subsidy last fiscal year, after he won the election, but Congress voted to keep it at about the same level.
Mr. Tolman said the federal government needs to spend more money on railroad security when it comes to training engineers and others how to battle terrorist threats or spot them.
Top Democratic fund-raisers
In GOP-controlled Ohio, the top Democratic fund-raisers for Mr. Kerry, those like Mr. Tolman, were not corporate executives or millionaires connected to state government. The Democratic power structure at the state level has not been a going-concern for more than a decade.
Together, Mr. Bush’s top Buckeye boosters raised at least $4.4 million for the President. Mr. Kerry’s top Buckeye fund-raisers, according to his campaign, brought in at least $750,000.
Only one on Mr. Kerry’s list — the lone Buckeye designated as a fund-raising “Chair” — would qualify for the Bush-Cheney list. Her name is Lana Moresky, the unemployed former president of the Ohio National Organization for Women. She ran for a state Senate seat in 1990 and lost.
Five others, including Mr. Tolman, raised between $50,000 and $100,000, qualifying them as “Vice Chairs.”
In addition to Ms. Moresky and Mr. Tolman, four others, all Vice Chairs, made the Kerry-Edwards list in Ohio. Their wants and wishes run the gamut from personal to professional:
• John Climaco, a lawyer and partner in the Cleveland law firm Climaco Lefkowitz Peca Wilcox & Garofoli.
• Bob Rawson, an anti-trust trial lawyer and partner with the Cleveland law firm, Jones Day Reavis & Pogue.
• Peggy Zone Fisher, the wife of former Democratic Ohio Attorney General Lee Fisher and president of Zone Travel, Inc.
• Ed Reese, a former Mahoning County Commissioner.
Pay-to-Play
Accusations of pay-to-play and illegalities in political fund-raising are not exclusive to any particular party.
Democratic President Bill Clinton’s administration was beset by accusations of improper fund-raising, including charges that Vice President Al Gore illegally solicited campaign cash from his federal office, prompting his remark that there was “no controlling legal authority” over enforcement of that law.
Mr. Clinton also was criticized for appearing to sell nights in the White House’s Lincoln Bedroom to his top donors. He denied the charge.
“They were my friends, and I was proud to have them here. And I do not believe people who lawfully raise money for people running for office are bad people,” Mr. Clinton said in a 1997 PBS interview. “I’m proud that they helped me, and I was proud to have them here. I did not have any strangers here. The Lincoln Bedroom was never sold.”
The Clinton administration and Democratic Party were also hammered for their relationships with fund-raiser Johnny Huang. The Democratic Party had to return $1 million said to be funneled from Mr. Huang from the Asian community. He was convicted in 1999 of illegal campaign fund-raising activities and given one year probation.
During the 2004 election, Republicans claimed that Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards was beholden to his fellow trial lawyers, who financially supported his ticket. Before entering politics, Mr. Edwards made millions as a contingency-fee lawyer.
It’s “not inevitable” that fund-raisers get access, he told The Blade last week. “In today’s political world, every candidate, every party raises money from their supporters. That’s just the way the system works now.”
Trial lawyers, among the largest donors as a group to the Kerry-Edwards campaign, want to kill tort reform movements popular among the GOP on Capitol Hill. President Bush proposed capping jury awards for pain and suffering at $250,000.
Mr. Climaco’s firm has benefitted from awards in civil cases, and litigates product liability suits involving medical issues and equipment, including a high-profile suit involving hip replacements.
The law firm solicits clients with potential injuries from asbestos poisoning, tobacco issues, toxic black mold, and other potential sources. “Now more than ever, workers and their families and consumers seek zealous representation in their claims damages,” the firm Web site says.
The law firm joined with several other firms and created a super law firm that runs a Web site about faulty products, especially drugs, called www.ClassActionAmerica.com.
Mr. Rawson — also a lawyer, a Democrat, and the former chairman of the Princeton University Board of Trustees — said unlike many of his brethren, he believes in tort reform and has supported some Republicans in his life.
He said he had no business interest in trying to get a Democrat elected president.
“I was not looking for any business of any sort; I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I just found myself more in sympathy, that doesn’t mean I haven’t supported Republicans. I’m a defense lawyer, but that has not been what’s motivated me [politically],” he said. “I guess I was just interested in doing all that I could to elect a Democrat as president. I can’t remember who contacted me. I met some people.”
Not all trial lawyers are Democrats, he said, but most are: “I think reasonable limitations on runaway awards is a good idea. I think you will find a diversity of opinion [among lawyers].”
Fund-raising ‘house parties’
From a world view, Ms. Moresky is concerned with equal pay for women and “social justice” issues, she said.
Ms. Moresky, who led Ohio NOW in the 1970s and campaigned vigorously across the country for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, helped raise more than $500,000 from individuals in Ohio for the Kerry-Edwards ticket, she said.
The Cleveland resident helped turn small, informal pro-Kerry “house parties” into more organized fund-raisers that escalated after Mr. Kerry won the nomination, she said. In contrast to the Bush-Cheney method, it was the soul of grass-roots politics, she said.
She and other fund-raisers were enticed to meet goals with trips to Washington to meet with Kerry-Edwards campaign insiders, who would preview strategy and television advertisements with them and push them to raise more. She was recognized as a fund-raising star and often primed with the treats, she said.
“They would have all-day events. They would start the night before: There would be a reception at somebody’s lovely home and the next day they would have different people from the campaign come,” she said. “They would have a political strategists come in and you would get inside political information.”
For decades, Ms. Moresky employed the fund-raising strategy to bring in masses of smaller donations that added up. Her fund-raising acumen has caught the attention of the Hillary Clinton campaign for U.S. Senate and now maybe for president, she said.
They’ve asked her to help out, she said.
For Mr. Reese, the debates between Gov. William Weld, a Massachusetts Republican, and U.S. Sen. John Kerry in the mid-1990s, were larger than life, like the Lincoln-Douglas debates, he said. The governor wanted his Senate seat, and nearly won.
Mr. Reese, who is close friends with Tom O’Neal, the son of late Speaker of the House Tip O’Neal, is a Democrat and in particular a John Kerry fan.
“When I jumped on the bandwagon, hardly anybody was working for Kerry. That’s when [former Vermont Gov. Howard] Dean was out in front. But I just always knew,” he said. “I think he is a guy with his war record who could lead the country. I was just a friend of a friend who had the opportunity to meet him. I wanted to be involved with a presidential campaign.
“I had a head start on everybody from our area. A lot of people here were behind Dean,” he said of the fund-raising.
Soft money
On the soft money side, where the biggest political money flows and Pioneers and Vice Chairs are minor-league players, Cleveland’s Peter Lewis, the billionaire insurance company executive who made legalizing medical marijuana a pet political project, gave $16 million to the Joint Victory Campaign 2004 and nearly $23 million to tax-exempt political committees that share his views.
The reclusive billionaire, who took a smallish Cleveland insurance agency, Progressive, and turned it into the third largest in the country by insuring the uninsurable, is often compared to the late Howard Hughes, who became a recluse later in his life but as a young man made billions in Hollywood and aviation challenging the establishment.
The tax-exempt political committee, known as a 527 after the numerical designation in the federal tax code, split the Lewis donations between America Coming Together and the Media Fund, two other 527s pushing Democratic and liberal issues in general.
But Mr. Lewis’ millions were not specifically trained on pushing John Kerry into the White House.
Lost farm system
Mr. Rawson said Democrats in this state have lost the equivalent of a baseball farm system, where young talent is molded and brought up slowly.
“I think this is not a hugely original idea, but I think there hasn’t been the grass-roots organization required to build a party and in turn hope to elect candidates,” he said. “The Bush folks proved themselves to be better organized.”
Mr. Ruvolo said the problem in the state for Democrats last year was not the campaign fund-raising of 2003 and 2004, but the gubernatorial campaign of 1994.
Early on, that year, state Sen. Robert L. Burch, Jr., won some union endorsements. In a state that was evening out politically, other Democrats didn’t want to battle the union money and so conceded the nomination to him.
That was the year Republicans swept into office across the country at every level. Then-Minority Whip Newt Gingrich sold his Contract with America, and the GOP was popular. The messages resonated. But, even so, Mr. Burch did not buy television ads, he did not run a real campaign, Mr. Ruvolo said.
He lost to incumbent Gov. George Voinovich, 72 percent to 25 percent, a massive landslide, helping to bury the Democratic Party for a decade.
“He’s now driving a truck. That’s a long story. He was state senator from Tuscarawas County.… Nobody thought he would run the kind of campaign he did. He caused Lee Fisher to lose his re-election bid for attorney general,” he said.
The only Democrat to win was Ottawa Hills’ Alice Robie Resnick, who became an Ohio Supreme Court Justice and is still serving. But the pendulum is swinging back, Mr. Ruvolo predicted.
“John Kerry got more votes in history than any other guy for president in Ohio, except for one. Unfortunately that guy was his opponent,” he said.
“Could we have done a better job on the security issues? That’s where we lost undecided voters, but I think we got a lot of votes on the economic issues.”
“The [Bush campaign] was able to convince enough people in Ohio, and their message was simple: I’ll keep you safe and the other guy, you don’t know if he will keep you safe. You saw me on 9/11 and you may not agree with what I did, but I will keep you safe.”