For the first time since the nation launched its grand experiment with publicly financed presidential campaigns three decades ago, major-party nominees in 2008 are expected to turn down all public funds.
The reason: The grant, expected to be $83.8 million, might not be enough to run a winning campaign.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) is the first top-tier candidate to tip her hand that she intends to leave the public money on the table. Senior Clinton advisor Howard Wolfson said by e-mail Sunday that she would not take matching funds in the primary campaign or, if she wins the Democratic nomination, in the general election.
Election financing: An article in Section A on Monday about presidential campaign fundraising said that Ross Perot did not use public money when he ran for president. Though he used personal funds in his 1992 campaign, Perot accepted $29 million in public funds when he ran again in 1996, according to the Federal Election Commission.
On her campaign website, Clinton suggests that donors give her $2,100 for the primary and another $2,100 for the general -- a sign that she won't seek matching funds in the general election. Candidates who take public money in the general election must forgo fundraising.
Using her contacts and those of President Clinton, Sen. Clinton raised nearly $40 million for her 2006 Senate race, showing she could tap moneyed interests in New York and California, two deep wells of Democratic funds.
"She'll do fabulously" in the money race, said Sacramento lobbyist Darius Anderson, who helps Democrats raise money and is a business associate of one of Clinton's backers, Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle. "The Clinton network and the Clinton list is by far the most extensive of any Democrat."
Abandonment of the public financing system would threaten the survival of a Watergate-era measure that was supposed to limit the influence of big donors in presidential politics and enable more candidates to compete.
If major candidates walk away from public financing, "it really calls into question why it exists at all," said Federal Election Commission Chairman Robert D. Lenhard, a supporter of the system.
The system is being rendered obsolete by escalating campaign costs, sophisticated fundraising techniques, tepid public support and major candidates such as Clinton who could raise $100 million on their own before the first 2008 primary -- and $500 million by election day.
There are efforts to revive the system. "It is a reversal, but not necessarily a fatal reversal," said Steven Weissman of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute in Washington, among the groups pushing to rescue public financing.
- Money for nothing Mar 05, 2007
- Public Financing of Campaigns Down for 1992 Dec 15, 1992
- Gore to Pitch Huge Campaign Reform Effort Mar 27, 2000
