At an event this morning hosted by Common Cause at the National Press Club, political analyst Charlie Cook took aim at some campaign finance myths.
Cook, the author of the eponymous Cook Political Report, was asked a question about independent political spending in the 2010 midterm cycle and whether it represented the harbinger of things to come in 2012.
His response (rough transcript):
Cook: I don’t think it’s the beginning. We’ve seen in the last decade… I don’t know if there’s fundamentally a difference between George Soros and Peter Lewis on the left or the Koch brothers on the right.
There’s a sense in this country that money spent on behalf of the people I like is an investment in democracy, and money spent against people that I like is special interest and corruption.
Well, that’s just sort of a framing that I don’t particularly care for. Democrats exploited the law and the left exploited the law to its fullest extent in ’04 and ’06 and ’08, and Republicans did it this time. It’s like an arms race, each side elevating it, each side pushing the limit. This was a cycle when it was Republicans that raised the bar of how far to go over Democrats. Before that Republicans were apoplectic when Democrats were doing it; now Democrats are apoplectic…
Ken Doyle of BNA: Isn’t that a bit of an oversimplification of what happened, though, because in ‘08 Obama, the phenomenon of Obama’s fundraising in ’08, really was driven more by smaller individuals.
Cook: Oh, I think that’s garbage.
Doyle: Why do you think that?
Cook: There was a hell of a lot of big money. I tell you what, go up to Wall Street, look around at how many people wrote big checks to the Democratic Party. I think the idea that this was fueled primarily with small donors, no. I think that’s delusional. I really do.
Doyle: inaudible
Cook: I don’t buy that at all. The Democratic machine—like both parties’ apparatus—has been funded by large donations and allied groups. I don’t buy that for a second.
In fairness to Doyle, who’s a pretty solid reporter, perhaps he was also referring to Obama’s demands that private groups stay on the sidelines (as well as a healthy percentage of smaller, hard dollar donors directly to his campaign). Nonetheless, Obama still relied on large checks to get his operation running. It was only later in the campaign when he was able to capitalize and increase his small donor base.
Also, a caveat: “I don’t consider myself a hardcore reformer,” but the system is “horrifically flawed,” Cook said, according to National Journal‘s Eliza Newlin Carney.
