In this festive-yet-reflective holiday period, I thought it would be nice to offer thanks — and perhaps a nice basket of fruit and chocolate — to the lawmakers who save direct marketers from their baser instincts. But what can one say about legislators who regulate DMers while practicing their own brand of bait-and-switch fundraising?
That would be most of them, for what it’s worth. A case in point: New York State is currently hosting a U.S. Senate election featuring two candidates whose fundraising activities take advantage of a campaign finance loophole. Specifically, the ability to use money raised for one race to finance another.
The Democratic incumbent, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is primed win the Senate race in a walk, and is strengthening the foundation for her 2008 presidential run. The foremost Republican challenger, Westchester County’s district attorney Jeanine Pirro, is one or two press conferences away from dropping out of the race and focusing on a much more winnable contest for New York State attorney general, according to both the New York Times and the New York Post.
In short, both are raising money ostensibly for a 2006 Senate campaign, but in reality both have their eyes set on other offices. Kinda makes one wonder if the Empire State will have its requisite two senators come December 2006.
One can almost understand the dollar chase on Clinton’s part. The Senator is a magnet for nationwide Republican ire, so much so that her 2000 challenger started a fundraising letter sent around the nation with “All you need to know about this election are six words: I’m running against Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
But Clinton currently enjoys approval ratings of more than 60%, and is part of an institution that routinely returns more than 90% of its members to office. Any candidate who ultimately sits against Clinton will need to be well funded — and lucky.
Clinton herself doesn’t necessarily have to be either — if she’s just running for re-election to Congress. Even if she isn’t, one could make the argument — albeit disingenuously — that Clinton is simply raising money through one federal office in pursuit of another. Donors across the United States who give to her campaign are supporting her in one of two offices that will directly affect them.
She’s not alone in this: Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), who has popularity numbers similar to Clinton’s, is also aggressively raising money for a yet-undeclared run at the White House.
If Clinton and Bayh’s fundraising actions are disingenuous, Pirro’s are — if, as anticipated, she is going to drop out in favor of a local contest — dishonest. Pirro, the G.O.P.’s current standard-bearer against Clinton, is seen as pulling out of the Senate race early in 2006, and pursuing the New York state attorney general’s office. The timing of her anticipated dropping out is significant. Last week, Pirro launched a large direct mail fundraising campaign, which went to a nationwide list of potential donors, according to the Post and the Times.
Now, many of these donors would support a stack of pancakes if it were running against Hillary Clinton. But would they support a relatively little-known district attorney in a statewide attorney general race, one that will not have a national reach? Not bloody likely.
No wonder Congress continually opts itself out of direct marketing regulations marketers have to follow. Out of 535 members, could ten of them meet the Direct Marketing Association’s ethical marketing standards?
Somewhere, Diogenes has laid down his lantern and is registering as an independent.
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