W. Clement Stone — I know this is a name from the past. In 1972, he personified evil incarnate. He gave the then-massive sum of $3 million to the presidential campaign of Richard Nixon. Stone was a Chicago insurance billionaire who championed PMA, which stood for “positive mental attitude.” If you applied PMA, according to Store, riches beyond compare would be yours and your life would be one continuous success story.
Stone gave this money secretly. At that time, there were no federal campaign laws that said one must disclose publicly contributions. Even more delicious, there were no limits on how much you could give to a presidential campaign. The amending of the Federal Campaign Law in 1974 was intended to put the W. Clement Stones out of business.
{mosads}First, all contributions of $100 or more would have to be disclosed and the maximum contribution allowed would be $1,000. We still have, in 2015, federal laws governing disclosure and limits, but for all practical purposes they have become a joke. Yes, the limit has been raised to $2,700 for an individual contribution and the contribution is publicly disclosed, but since the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, we have seen the emergence of super-PACs.
Super-PACs have no limits on how much one can give to a presidential campaign. These “independent” campaign committees can run their own campaign without any restrictions as long as they do not “coordinate” their efforts with the official campaign committee. What you have now is that any millionaire or billionaire does not have to abide by any federal law limiting contributions. What does this all mean for the upcoming 2016 presidential campaign?
Let’s pick two Republican candidates who have been adopted by two billionaires. In the case of just-announced candidate Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania, he’s got a golden friend named Foster Friess. Friess, as long as he does not “coordinate” with the Santorum campaign committee, can run his very own personal campaign for Santorum. He can buy radio ads, TV ads, social media, pay surrogates, run phone banks — anything he desires to promote and sell Santorum.
The same goes for Sen. Mario Rubio (Fla.). He has the good fortune to have one giant benefactor named Norman Braman. Braman supposedly sells more cars than anyone in the entire country. The Miami billionaire is permitted to market Rubio like the Cadillacs in his showroom. No limits, no restrictions. If the official campaign committee runs out of money, then the “independent” committee is the savior.
Friess and Braman don’t have to pick up the phone and bundle any contributions. All they have to do is pick up their checkbook. I can see the following scenario: Each of the Republican contenders (there are possibly 20 of them) has a billionaire benefactor and each and every one of the billionaires forms his or her own personal “independent” campaign group, gives it a sugar sweet name (Americans for Kasich, Patriots for Walker) and then proceeds to keep his or her candidate in the race long after campaign money or delegates dry up.
You see, for those moguls, it’s now a vanity thing. They don’t want their product to fail. They have an investment in all of them. They want to go to the convention in Cleveland. With a field so big, we very well might have a convention where no one can wrap up the nomination on the first ballot. Wouldn’t that be great? I mean it. I’ve been to 16 national political conventions and they all have been decided on the first ballot. You have to go way back to 1952 — that’s when both parties went to three ballots before they choose their nominee (Gen. Dwight Eisenhower for the Republicans and Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson for the Democrats).
The billionaire benefactor knows that with his unlimited spending power, he can really become a player. Two attractive options are now apparent. First, he can keep his own candidate in the fray a lot longer, making sure the candidate’s name is placed in nomination and his delegates stay committed.
Or an even more juicy alternative: finance an “open convention” for selecting the vice presidential choice. What do I mean by that? Free the delegates a let them pick the vice presidential choice. (In 1956, Stevenson did just that and the delegates, unbridled, choose Sen. Estes Kefauver [Tenn.] over Sen. Al Gore Sr. [Tenn.] and a young senator named John F. Kennedy [Mass.].)
This time, the billionaire benefactor can make history by underwriting an “instant campaign” on the convention floor by picking the running mate rather than the nominee. Oh, the possibilities are endless. Billionaires need not hit the links or sulk from the sidelines. They can stay in the action and have an impact. Maybe even determine the outcome.
Koch brothers, are you listening? PMA in 2016!
Plotkin is a political analyst, a contributor to the BBC on American politics and a columnist for The Georgetowner.