According to the most recent reports, the three New Hampshire Republican candidates for governor have collectively spent more than 12 million dollars. That?s about seven million dollars more than Republicans and Democrats spent combined in the gubernatorial race two years ago. As NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports, it?s also more than any other current Congressional race in the nation.
The 12 million dollar price tag in the Republican primary so far, has alarmed some newspaper columnists, but not Campaign and Elections Magazine editor Ron Faucheiux. Like the baseball fan accustomed to watching records shatter, Faucheiux isn?t fazed by political spending reaching new heights.
1:09 in every election cycle we see elections and candidates outspending previous elections and candidates and breaking records. It very much follows a pattern. Where campaigns are becoming increasingly expensive, not only in NH, but all over the country.
The Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit organization that tracks money in politics, lists the top ten most expensive races for the US House and Senate. And with one exception, none of those races have cracked the ten million dollar mark. That exception is the North Carolina race to replace retiring Republican Senator Jesse Helms. But the Center?s Steve Weiss says increased spending is a by-product of a new way to campaign.
7:12 Elections are much more specialized now. You need to hire consultants for your ads, others for your mailers. Other organizations that do telephone banking, and that specialization has increased the cost of campaigns at every level?And if you are a candidate without name recognition, you?ve just got that much farther to go, and have to rely that much more on mass media to get your name out, and spend that much more money.
Getting name recognition is the first reason Craig Benson?s campaign manager Mike Dennehy says the Cabletron co-founder has spent seven point four million dollars, most of it his. The other reason, declares Dennehy, defense.
3:20 ? H. started vicious negative attacks, and it forced us to spend more money. I would aruge with anyone who would say it is B. leading the spending drive, it?s been H.
But ask Gordon Humphrey?s spokesman Jim Ruebens why Humphrey has more than tripled his own spending record of 1.1 million dollars from 2000, and he says Benson.
5:03 he spent millions of dollars telling a story about a guy who started a business in a garage, a guy who has got great ideas, the rest of the story was not told? ?and that task falls upon the Humprhey campaign.
And while the Humphrey and Benson campaigns bicker over who is responsible for escalating spending, candidate Bruce Keough has, himself, also quietly broken Humphrey?s 2000 gubernatorial spending record. Spokesperson Charlie Arlinghauss says at the beginning of the race, Keough proposed candidates not spend their personal fortunes, but only the money they could raise. Keough also proposed each report on income and expenditures monthly. Obviously, says Arlinghauss, the candidates didn?t agree.
3:18 ? The real sad thing about the spending is that B. launched his campaign in the spring of ?01, and it was a year and a half till a couple weeks ago, that anyone knew how much anyone had spent, and that is wrong.
Gubernatorial candidates filed financial records with the Secretary of State on August 21st.
And with the figures out, one way to analyze the money is a cost per vote ratio. One Republican strategist predicts 90 thousand voters will turn out for the primary. If so, let?s say the winner in this three way race takes 40 thousand votes- a little less than half. If Keough wins, he would have paid $40 per vote. If Humphrey wins $92.50. And if Benson wins he would have paid $185 dollars for every Benson ballot.
Of course, candidates have continued to spend since the August 21st filing deadline, which only inflates the numbers. Magazine editor Ron Faucheiux is quick to remind New Hampshire voters where they live.
5:56 in a state with a relatively small population, like NH, but with pressure to advertise on Boston markets, it throws the comparison off somewhat, b/c relatively speaking, it is more expensive to run a race in NH, per capita, than it would be to run a race in some other states that have media markets within the state. But 200 dollars a vote, assuming that is what it is, is high, it?s much higher than the national average, but it isn?t as high as some that we have seen.
Four years ago in the Massachusetts Congressional primary, Democrat Chris Gabrieli spent more than five million dollars, and received only 55 hundred votes. That?s about 1000 dollars each. Gabrieli is currently running for Massachusetts Lt. Governor.
Record breaking campaign spending may be distasteful to some, but St. Anselm?s political science professor Dante Scala doubts voters put much stock into the figures in the first place.
3:41 I don?t think R. primary voters are going to be that concerned about the elvel of spending by the candidates. The R. voter is going to look for the person who is electable and carry forth their agenda. If a voter is comfortable with those two things, I don?t think they will be that concerned with how much money they have spent.
If anything, says Scala, all the money may provide more information to educate the voter.
Steve Weiss with the Center for Responsive Politics acknowledges voters may find the additional exposure useful. But Weiss detects a troubling trend.
8:40 ? what ist he concern of a lot of people, is the growing influence of money in politics. And the prerequisite that you have your hands on a huge sum of money, whether it be your own or money that you raise elsewhere to be successful in politics.
Whether it?s one of the most expensive races in the nation or not, with the primary one week away, the three well-heeled Republican candidates aren?t going to stop spending. For NHPR News, I?m DG.
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