I've been called worse, but "political voyeur" feels right because I feel like I'm peeking into places I'm not supposed to be!
Here's the story: Campaign finance rules have been tightened up so much that candidates can only get money from individuals and each individual is only allowed to contribute $2,300 to each of the primary and general elections. Despite my poor math skills, it didn't take me long to figure out that I could buy all six of the leading candidates for a mere $13,800.
So I went hunting and I've bagged four of the top six so far. I've had one on one conversations with Mitt Romney and John McCain at events where were fewer than 40 people. I've listened to them talk in small groups and answer my and other's questions interactively. Dinner with Hillary was a little bigger, the entire Village Pub in Woodside with maybe 80-100 people. I got a photo opp with Robin
and had a little repartee with herself, but no real talk time. I'm scheduled to go to dinner at a home in Woodside on June 2 with Barack Obama. (I count Barack anyway, because I got to spend time with him twice before he declared his candidacy. And those two events only cost $1,000 between them. I figure we're old buddies by now.)
And after I post this to my blog, I may be PNG at any future fundraisers. But one must pay the price for reporting to my dedicated readership! (That will be too bad, because I was looking forward to getting some face time with Rudy Guiliani. I've got to tell you that so far it's a lot more interesting meeting with Republicans than Democrats, although that Obama fellow is very smooth.)
These new rules for fund-raising have changed the landscape. In the "old" days, you had to pay $20,000 or more to have dinner with a candidate, but there's no way to write checks that big anymore. At first (three months ago), the campaign-finance people figured they couldn't get people to justify the maximum $2,300 unless they got real personal time with the candidate. So $2,300 used to buy you a meal with the candidate with fewer than 40 people.
But do the math: To raise $25M, each candidate would need to eat a meal with nearly 11,000 people. THAT gets old, particularly if you have to talk to people like me, who are viewing this as something of a sport. (Those who know me know which of these candidates I actually might vote for!)
These are smart fellas running campaign finance, though. So now it's getting harder to get good, personal time with the candidates for a measly 2,300 bucks. For instance, I was told that dinner with Barack Obama would be a small group, but I read in the New York Times today about Barack doing $2300 dinners with 300+ people in Greenwich, Connecticut so I'm not sanguine about the smallness of the crowd for my dinner. (Actually, it may be kind of a bust to spend $2,300 mostly talking to really liberal people who have no idea what they are talking about.)
Here's the real irony: I've started to spot a bunch of other people like me showing up at
these events. In fact, the guy hosting the Obama dinner sat at the table next to me at the Hillary Clinton. He's a died-in-the-wool Democrat, and isn't decided on a particular Democrat as a candidate. But I've spotted other voyeurs who are just having fun getting to spend quality time with leading candidates. And that's having a terrible effect on the campaign's ability to tell who their real supporters are. Of course, the real nut jobs who buy into a candidate completely (this early? you've got to be kidding) will bundle donations from everyone else. But $2,300 is still meaningful money, so I still want admission to a real event for my money, even if I am being bundled.
I would guess that somewhere between 10 and 20% of the money being generated in the current primary campaign is pure political voyeurism. Combine that with the fact that some 30%+ of the voting public declines to identify with a political party, it makes running for office a real crap shoot.
