The Best that Money Can Buy

Not only does front-loading disenfranchise millions of voters by presenting them with a nomination that is already a fait accompli by the time they get the opportunity to vote, it also cheapens the value of the votes that are cast by the fortunate few at the front of the process, because many of the starting candidates are forced out of the race before the first vote is even cast. In 1996, two Republican candidates bowed out of the race before the first delegate was selected.

In practical terms, the field of serious contenders has actually contracted… largely as a result of the dramatically increased costs of campaigning for the nomination, and the consequent need for extraordinary sums of money to wage effective campaigns…. The vast majority of nomination contenders have been able to raise only enough money to seriously compete in the first few delegate selection contests, counting on strong showings in the early contests to generate momentum and much-needed financial support to replenish depleted campaign coffers.

In a sense, the ability to raise the sums necessary to compete effectively has become the first primary for both parties - what some analysts call “the money primary.” Because it is widely believed that political donations flow to candidates already perceived as having a good chance of winning, those who enter the race with strong national name identification - or the ability to self-finance a national campaign - have a clear advantage over other, lesser-known candidates.

One GOP strategist observed the front-loading phenomenon greatly exacerbates this problem: lesser-known candidates without the financial resources effectively to plan and wage a national campaign, reduced as they are to betting on strong showings in the early contests, are handicapped when contest after contest comes rushing at them, leaving no time in between contests to raise the necessary funds to continue an effective campaign. (Brock 2000, 15)

A few weeks after Senators McCain and Bradley ended their candidacies in 2000, Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) gave the following testimony before a Senate committee:

Instead of a system that tests a candidate’s character and his ability to offer reasoned opinions over the long haul, we have an increasingly compressed schedule, one in which States whose primaries once were spread out over months now compete to see who can hold their contests the earliest. Instead of allowing the broadest electorate to winnow the field of potential nominees, we have a situation in which those willing to give money to candidates have enormous say over who ends up with the nomination or even competing with it. Indeed, this year’s so-called money primary eliminated a significant portion of the Republican primary field even before the first primary voters ever stepped foot into an election booth. (Lieberman 2000)

In fact, six Republican candidates--half of the total field of twelve--dropped out of the race during the money primary, “more than three months before the first voter cast a ballot that counted for purposes of delegate selection.” (Brock 2000, 13)

The Brock Commission report summed up the overriding importance of the money primary in the starkest terms:

It is an indisputable fact that in every nomination campaign since 1980, in both parties, the eventual party nominee was the candidate who had raised the most money by December 31 of the year before the general election. (Brock 2000, 14)

In other words, since 1980, the American people have had the best presidents that money can buy. The choice has been taken out of their hands and placed in the hands of those who deliver suitcases full of cash.