The campaign spending fraud

By RICHARD HORN

Join me a moment and raise a glass to Jim Bob Carson, a Colorado history teacher who wants to solve the campaign finance debacle.

Up in the Rockies they enjoy initiative and referendum, which means any old Jimmy Bob can propose a law he believes voters should approve.

His plan is simple. Any candidate who spends more than $100,000 on a race would be required to wear a huge, bulbous red nose and orange fright wig every day on the campaign trail. The law would offer an escape hatch: offending candidates could opt for beanie propellers.

His point: Candidates who believe big money must be spent on political campaigns are fools and should dress the part.

Carson says his idea is dumb and doomed, but amusing. That at least places it above all the other campaign finance reform plans, which are merely dumb and doomed. Some of our more numbskulled senators have even proposed changing the First Amendment to force a spending restriction.

No doubt our finance system should be reformed somehow, but don't believe for a moment it will change anything. Politicians will continue to find ways to rake in special interest money as long as voters let them get away with it.

Any campaign requires a reasonable amount of cash for small staff, office space, fliers, bumper stickers and advertising in newspapers, on TV and now on the Internet.

But what makes campaigns so outrageously costly today is the mistaken belief TV ads are the most important tool for winning elections. They're certainly the most expensive, and that is why candidates, scared to death of losing, fall for a monstrous scam created by political consultants.

Here's how it works: Consultants tell candidates they must run TV ads or they'll be demolished. Candidates buy the ads, for which the consultants get paid huge sums.

If the candidate wins, the consultants say it was because of the ads. If he loses, the consultants blame the candidate, usually complaining he didn't run enough ads. They find polls to back up their claim that ads were the determining factor, and move on to find new suckers in the next election cycle.

It's all nonsense. I will believe until I die that people don't pay attention to political TV ads, other than to laugh at them or scoff at them. Name one person who told you: "Ya know, I was gonna vote for Bill Clinton, but I saw an ad last night that said he raised our taxes and can't be trusted. I'm a Dole man now."

It doesn't happen. Consultants will tell you it does happen because their "focus groups" prove it, but that's all part of their scam. What happens in a carefully controlled focus group is worlds away from what happens in peoples' homes at night, as they channel-surf, fix dinner and check kids' homework.

In fact, the evidence suggests heavy TV advertising hurts candidates more than they help. Ann Richards' 1994 ads were so bad and so needlessly nasty they helped George W. Bush take the governor's mansion. Richards lost her job but her consultants lived on to ruin other careers.

Consider the other evidence:

As he launched his presidential campaign, Phil Gramm stuck out his chest and declared, "Ah have the best friend a politician can have, and that's ready money." But all his millions only embarrassed him in one of the biggest flop campaigns in political history.

Clinton prostituted himself and squandered his presidency by chasing after enormous bucks he believed he needed to run ads. But all he accomplished was making millions for consultant Dick Morris. Clinton rode to victory on the good economy, a sense of humor and a weak challenger. His ads accomplished squat for him, and now he's paying a huge price.

Steve Forbes wasted part of his family fortune blitzing poor Iowans with slimy ads about Bob Dole. All he did was hurt his own reputation and force Dole to waste more money on Iowa ads as he continued his inevitable march to the nomination.

TV ads in our own Charles Stenholm-Rudy Izzard race were less than inconsequential. Izzard, who wasted good money on a ridiculous flag-burning ad, did as well as he did because he worked incredibly hard and because Stenholm is a 20-year-Democrat in an increasingly GOP district. Stenholm's tractor ads, meanwhile, mostly prompted snickers.

Granted, we can't force politicians to dress funny because they make fools of themselves raising huge amounts of cash and then wasting it. But there's plenty we can do. We can denounce them, make fun of them and we can vote against them.